August 07, 2004
How sad that I had to go 'out of town' to find some decent coverage of the John Kerry campaign event in Beloit last Tuesday.
Highlight quotes from the article:
- "Thelma Siker of Janesville ... asked to talk to Heinz Kerry, in her native tongue, Portuguese. The two chatted for a couple of minutes."
- "After word spread that Heinz Kerry would chat with locals at Bagels & More, media and others anxiously gathered outside the small cafe.
"The crowd was a surprise for the store's employees, who knew nothing about the plan."
[More confusion and misunderstanding from organizers? As we now know, Theresa Heinz Kerry planned and did stop at the downtown Monroe institution of Baumgartners to sample their world-famous cheese and beer. I am pretty sure someone knew of this well in advance, but the exact information failed to accurately filter down the food chain to Beloit street level. (And they didn't find any WMDs, either.) ]
- "Also in the crowd were the superintendents of the county's two largest school districts, Tom Evert from Janesville and Beloit Superintendent Bette Lang.
"Afterward, Evert took pains to say he would have been honored to attend a political speech by President Bush as well."
[Somehow space didn't permit the article to mention these two are married.]
- Vendors sat throughout the grounds to sell Kerry/Edwards paraphernalia like pins and flags while the eager crowd waited for security checks.
[The BDN covered much of this stuff in a photo feature with little, if any, captioning. Proof that a photo isn't always worth more than few words.]
- "Who was that guy running the microphone around to people who wanted to ask Kerry questions? Yup, that was Dan Schooff... "
Here are two photos of John Kerry taken at the meet-and-greet outside after the rally (provided by anonymous friend):
