It was a brilliant and dazzlingly bright winter day in St. Paul, MN today. Follow me below the fold for my trip to the Rally in the Capital rotunda to show Minnesota labor's solidarity with the workers of Wisconsin, my home state.
My son accompanied me to downtown St. Paul today and we began our two mile walk to the Capital. I'm not a city girl and don't know the bus schedules, transfer points, etc., so we decided that each of us depending upon our own two feet was probably best. Once we saw the signs on this pole, we felt pretty good about that choice!
We made it! The Capital was impressive, although every entrance seemed to have scaffolding of some kind over the entrance. I guess construction season runs 12 months out of the year after all!
I'm the type of person that really hates to be late to an event. In my perpetual quest to be on time, I invariably end up being early... really early. We got there at 2:30 for a 4:00 start time. Oh well, it gave us a chance to relax a bit before things got underway. The first thing I noticed was the security at this event. They didn't want us to bring a sign in that was attached to a stick. That was it. That was the security. There were no scanners, no pat-downs, no metal wands, just the ability to walk into our own state house unhindered. We un-Velcro'd the stick from the sign and stuck it in a snow bank until our return. How refreshingly Minnesotan.
We were greeted by members of various unions passing out signs. Someone was even nice enough to take our picture before heading out to greet others.
Here was the basic setup that we found when we entered.
The Capital rotunda filled up very quickly with people smiling as they greeted old friends and co-workers. Signs were passed out. The room had a quiet buzz about it waiting for the rally to start. It struck me just how quiet this crowd was. This was not a happy-fun rally like you see during election years. There was no sense of the giddy excitement of super-star's imminent arrival like we saw at an Obama rally during the summer of the health care fight. This event had a somber note that could not be missed by anyone that was listening.
The union leader that lead the rally was enthusiastic and really knew how to rouse the crowd. I have a tip for whomever organized the rally, however. If you want to have a sing-a-long, you might not want to have 6 verses of This Land Is Your Land with the chorus in between each. I haven't sung that many verses since I was in grade school and a substitute was trying to use up class time.
Governor Dayton took the podium and lit up the room. He first expressed his solidarity with the workers of Wisconsin. The best line of the day was his, "Today we are all badgers!" and it was greeted with an absolute roar of the crowd. He really charged up the people when he put the Minnesota legislature on notice not to try and pass any similar legislation here in Minnesota. So far, I am very proud of our Governor!
The other speakers kept the crowd going with the emcee leading chants as the next person stepped up to speak. Over and over again, solidarity with the people of Wisconsin was the leading theme. Outside, after the rally let out, you could see just how many people were there. We were about mid-way in the exodus, with as many people behind as were before us.
As we walked the very cold two miles back to our car, I thought about what made this rally unique. It was the people that were there. Most of us were a little worn about the edges, middle-aged with a few retirees and a college-age person here and there. I could see a guy that ran his hand through his hair like he had just come off of a long shift of work. I'm sure that there were nurses there getting ready to start their shifts. I'm also sure that more than a few people had made alternate arrangements to get their kids dinner so they could attend the rally. Did they do this because it was a fun event? I would venture to guess that few people attended today's rally because it sounded like something fun to do. These were working people juggling their normal schedules to grimly slog through the day-after-a-snowstorm-mess to attend an event that they found vitally important for their future. This wasn't about politics; it was about survival. No justice... no peace!