When I was in Iowa the weekend before the caucuses, the College Republicans stormed a Dean rally at Drake University. It was a pretty ugly scene. So when I heard that BC'04 was sending the dogs out to a Kerry rally, I got a little worried. Here's the story:
Apparently the once and future GOP candidate for Democratic US Rep Dennis Moore's 3rd District House seat, Adam Taff, sent out an email yesterday asking people to crash Kerry's rally this morning in Kansas City. I don't have any reports about whether they actually showed up or what happened, if they did. Yet. But here's the info posted on Taff's site:
http://www.taff2004.org/
ALERT: Rally for President Bush tomorrow morning!
Attention TAFFers, we have some late-breaking news from the Bush-Cheney campaign. Join us tomorrow for a Flip-Flop Rally at the Kansas City Downtown Airport. Let's demonstrate our support for President George W. Bush and give John Kerry a memorable welcome!
WHAT: Flip-Flop rally welcoming John Kerry to Kansas City!
WHEN: Saturday, March 27th, 2004, 9:45am
WHERE: KC Downtown Airport, 300 NW Richards Rd, Kansas City, Missouri 64116
I don't begrudge them the right to demonstrate. Hell, the folks from our side are out there at every Bush event. But I don't recall people demonstrating against a CANDIDATE for elected office, just the incumbent, and that's (usually) because of their performance in office, for which they are accountable. And while I wouldn't have any problem showing up to protest Bush's domestic policy when he gave a speech to promote his economic plan (and I have done so), I would not even dream of showing up at a rally for his supporters.
Questions, questions. Are they protesting the fact that anyone is even challenging Bush, or just hoping to intimidate people so they won't come out to publicly support their candidate? And am I just naive, or is this sort of thing unusual? Am I just too polite to play hardball in the current political climate? I don't remember anything like this happening before this election, except perhaps the Miami-Dade County Young Republican mini-riot to stop the recount in 2000. It's very strange.