Joggers run to defeat, elect Bush

Madison - Joe Wiesner is literally taking it to the streets to try to defeat President Bush this fall.

The 35-year-old freelance computer consultant is a longtime competitive runner, but this summer he'll be running with a campaign message on his back.

A group called Run Against Bush meets for a lunch-hour workout at Lake Park in Milwaukee. From left are Shannon Allen of Whitefish Bay, Joe Wiesner of Whitefish Bay, Matt O'Neill of Milwaukee, Chris Meuler of Wauwatosa, Sara Dill of Milwaukee, Rob Thielke of Wauwatosa and Brian Spahn of Madison. The group wears T-shirts bearing the organization's name when running in hopes of ousting President Bush in the November election.

Wiesner is one of about a dozen Milwaukee-area runners participating in weekly group jogs and entering road races around the city, all while wearing T-shirts with the name of their group: Run Against Bush.

"I don't consider myself an activist," Wiesner said. "This year, it's just too important to stay silent."

The Milwaukee-area joggers are part of a national grass-roots group with about 5,000 participants in 50 states, said national spokesman Will Coleman. Each member has paid about $25 to join and buy the group T-shirt.

Bush supporters aren't watching from the sidelines. Patrick Brown founded Run For Bush after he saw Run Against Bush runners on a trail near his Denver home. Brown said he was struck by the negativity of their message and launched his Web site earlier this month.

"I think you should run for something, not against something," said Brown, a 33-year-old small-business owner. "I've always been a Bush supporter, but especially in this campaign, it seems everything is going negative."

Brown said about 100 people have purchased the $13.95 T-shirts so far, but none have been from Wisconsin.

Such non-traditional groups that combine politics with social networks are common this year, when there's an already heightened interest in the election, said University of Wisconsin-Madison mass communications associate professor Dhavan Shah. Younger people and non-traditional voters also are more likely to respond to something when they have a more personal connection than a television ad can provide, he said.

"People who aren't normally politically active are becoming interested" this year, Shah said. "We're seeing a lot more of this, having a person-to-person connection to say, 'This is why you should get involved.' "

Intense battle
Thanks to Wisconsin's status as a swing state, residents here are getting early exposure to the presidential race. Because of the intense interest in the contest, voters are looking for ways to become active, said Wisconsin Republican Party spokesman Chris Lato.

For more quiet Bush supporters, a group such as Run For Bush provides a quiet way to get involved, Lato said.

"Sometimes people want to make their feelings known and make their opinions heard, but they're not necessarily boisterous about it," he said.

Technology plays a significant role in the development of such groups. With the rise of the Internet, younger voters are more likely to use technology to find and meet up with others who hold similar beliefs, Shah said.

Just as Howard Dean's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination was fueled by e-mail messaging, Milwaukee attorney Matt O'Neill, 37, learned of Run Against Bush through an e-mail from a friend in Madison.

He then recruited law firm colleague Shannon Allen, 34, a frequent lunchtime running buddy, to help him organize a group in Milwaukee. For about a month now, they've been gathering with other runners about once a week to jog in their T-shirts, and bigger groups will enter races this summer.

For a younger generation accustomed to multi-tasking, mixing politics with fitness is a good way to kill two birds with one stone. O'Neill, who doesn't consider himself an activist, said he can combine his get-in-shape regimen with concerns about the Bush administration's policies.

"I've got all the motivation I need to log 10 miles a week or more," O'Neill said.

Much of this political activity is also taking place outside the normal realm of political campaigns and attracts a different crowd.

Heather Hill, a triathlete and friend of Brown who helped launch Run For Bush, hasn't been politically active before. She said she likes helping to get the pro-administration message out as part of her daily routine.

"It gives me the opportunity to do it within something I do every day anyway," said Hill, a 35-year-old marketing director for a Denver sports company. "I'm not a very forward person to push things down people's throats or knock on doors - that's not my personality - but this is something that fits within my lifestyle."

Run Against Bush is tapping into more traditional political routes. The group is registered as a political action committee and later will make donations to state parties and run campaign ads, Coleman said.

Some surprised by politics
Brown noted runners are often taken aback at seeing a political message in such an apolitical setting.

"It really catches people's attention," Brown said. "So (I'm interested in) the people who say, 'Why are you supporting Bush?'

The below is from the Official Blog from Run Against Bush.

More Press Coverage
In case you missed it, this article ran in Tuesday's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. We've got a great group in Milwaukee, and it's nice to see how RAB is growing at the local grassroots level. Thanks to members like Joe, Shannon, and Matt, the emails to and from their friends and the passers-by who see them running in their shirts - and the replication of these efforts in cities across the country - we've been able to achieve such astounding success to date. $135,000 in donations raised from almost 6,000 members in all 50 states (plus the District of Columbia and US Virgin Islands). Does anybody know someone in American Samoa?

This is a great article, but I couldn't help but notice the absurd lengths that the media feels compelled to go to in order to be "fair and balanced." Our story shares equal space with Run for Bush, a group I've mentioned in some earlier posts. So, to quote the story: "[Run for Bush founder Patrick] Brown said about 100 people have purchased the $13.95 T-shirts so far, but none have been from Wisconsin." (Okay, so it's more than a dude with a website, as I had conjectured earlier, but not much more...) But really, does it even bear mentioning in a local interest story if there isn't a single member in the entire state of Wisconsin??

So now that I've made my first nit-pick, I just can't stop. Here's another classic quote:

When jogging in his Run For Bush T-shirt, Brown encounters some people who give him the "thumbs-up" or "thumbs-down," yet it's the people who approach him to discuss the issues that excite him the most. "It really catches people's attention," Brown said. "So (I'm interested in) the people who say, 'Why are you supporting Bush?'
People with opposing viewpoints asking you questions? Does that really happen? I mean, people have tried to trip us and have called us names, and some have even suggested stalking us," (this goes to a FR post, one of mine, and by the way, we did not suggest "stalking" them), all in a very positive way, I'm sure. But so far no questions, that is unless I mistook what I interpreted as name-calling for what were really passionate inquiries into our political affiliation, e.g., "COMMUNISTS?!?!"

We're Running For Change
www.RunAgainstBush.org
- posted by rich @ 12:04 PM

Back to me, just 40 miles from the Wisconsin border: Again, when you run against something instead of for something, you gotta be able to stand the heat.

By the way, I'm one of those 100 people who but I Run for Bush shirt, and the first day I wore it, I was heckled in a very mean-spirited way by a Unabomber lookalike on a bike. The leftist bitched about the Iraq war, and I pointed out to the Una-cylclist that the French gigolo voted for that war. Don't worry about me, friends, I'm made of tougher stuff than they are.

And besides, they're the negative ones! Run for Bush!!!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.