Posted on 11/07/2004 3:05:55 AM PST by tame
I have been in a state of euphoria—absolute joy--since our unprecedented, historic, conservative victory on Tuesday, November 2, 2004.
I’ll start my activism “report” by mentioning what I’ve been doing leading up to the election. In the last year or so, I registered a few hundred Republican voters in the state of California.
I’ve also been active gathering signatures for several ballot intiatives including tort reform, protection for small business owners re health care, Worker’s comp reform (this was apparently sidelined after Arnold reached an agreement with the legislature), etc.
Now, I’ll take you up to a day, or two, or three (I don’t remember) before the election.
One night just before the election, Around 6:30pm, I was driving to Kinkos in Bakersfield, California, to make some signs for my own street corner Bush/Cheney rally. As I was turning east onto Stockdale Highway from New Stine Road, I saw a group of Bush/Cheney supporters on the north east corner.
I consider this providential. I decided to join this group.
It turns out this group was organized by local conservative radio talk show host Inga Barks (KERN radio 1410 am). I introduced myself to her and learned that she and I go to the same church.
I stayed out there with the group for a little while, and even had a couple of friends come join us.
Before I continue with my election day activism, let me first note how I totally avoided the emotional mood swings many of you went through on election day.
First of all, I woke up and avoided following any coverage of the election until late in the evening. Well, for the most part, anyway.
I think I may have heard a few minutes of Rush Limbaugh’s program on my way to vote. I think it was this same morning that I heard Rush say something to the effect that we should ignore some things we would be hearing from the press, internet, etc. I believe he was referring to the exit polls that he’d heard about.
Well, that’s all I listened to for the rest of the day, But not because Rush said so. It is simply my policy not to listen to anything on the day of the election. I made this my policy after that terrible experience on the presidential election night in 2000, and during the horrific recount experience that followed.
In 2002, I may have told my loved ones not to call me to tell me anything about the election results. I may have watched the returns late at night, but I don’t remember.
Well, last Tuesday I made absolutely sure to avoid any television, radio, internet, coverage, etc. What’s the point of going through all that mess?
I began Tuesday, November 2, 2004, by going to the Elections office in Bakersfield, California to cast my vote. Then I held up some pro-Bush signs on the corner of Truxton avenue and N street for about 10 or 15 minutes.
There was not enough traffic at that intersection for my taste so I went to the north west corner of Stockdale highway and California avenue, and began my own one-man street corner rally for President Bush just after noon.
But by the end of the day, there were about 14 more Bush supporters out there with me!
I had some Bush/Cheney 2004 signs. I also had some home made signs on which I enlarged pictures that I found here on Freerepublic.com. The signs were 24” by 36”. A couple of them included a 24” by 36” inch parody picture/photo on cardboard connected to another 24 by 36 inch board with a printed message. i am not yet able to post the pictures of the actual signs in full. But here are the pictures that were used and the words that were used on the homemade signs:
[instead of the yellow caption, I wrote the following above the parody of Arnold and kerry...]
Then I had this sign:
I stood at the corner from about 12:00/12:30pm pacific time to about 7:00pm. It was a bit difficult handling all the signs so I planted a couple of the Bush/Cheney yard signs in the grass behind me, placed one on the front window of my car, and leaned some of the homemade signs against the stop light posts, etc.
I also held up different signs from time to time. In addition, I gave out about 10 or 20 Bush/Cheney Bumper stickers to the people in their cars waiting for the light to turn green.
There was an employee of a pizza parlor standing on the same corner holding a board advertising the pizza special. It was kind of funny because some people may have thought he was with me :o)
Sometime around 2:00pm, I saw a 17 year old guy I’ll refer to as Matt get out of his mom’s vehicle and run over to my side of the street with his own sign that said something like ”Osama For Kerry!”
It turns out that Matt and his family made the sign with the intent to plant it at the same intersection (I think) to help the cause.
Matt’s mom, Julie, flipped a u-turn and pulled into the parking lot where my car was. Julie and some of Matt’s younger siblings got out of the car.
After speaking for a few minutes, Julie decided to let Matt and his 9 year old sister, Wendy, stay at the corner and rally with me while Julie went to take care of errands.
We had a great time rallying support for President Bush and reminding people to go vote. I learned a lot about the family. They are very conservative evangelicals, and the kids are home schooled. They seem to be wonderful citizens.
While we were out there, a RATWOMAN (no doubt) walked over to me from somewhere in the parking lot. She did not like that sign with the picture of Osama holding the Kerry campaign sign. Here’s the gist of the exchange as best as I can recall:
RATWOMAN: That is classless!
TAME: What’s that?
RATWOMAN: That sign with Osama. You should be ashamed of yourself. That is absolutely classless!
TAME: In other words, you’re a liberal.
RATWOMAN: You’re an a**hole.
[I walked away from Matt and Wendy and toward RATLADY so they could not hear what I said to her in response, and then I said something I should not have said]
TAME: You’re a B…[never mind, freepers. I feel bad, so you’ll have to guess what I said]
She muttered some other stuff during our exchange, but I could not hear it. She walked away as I responded to her “a**hole” remark.
Matt and Wendy were a great help holding my signs, etc. Around 5pm it got better. Julie, her husband Rob, and their other children (I think there were six children all together) joined us on the corner.
Then Julie and Rob’s friend drove by, and saw us. Then that friend’s wife and kids came out to join us. By this time there were about 14 of us, just between the two families, and me. The kids range in age from between 3 and 17 years old.
On top of that, a woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty (no joke!) came to join is. All in all there were about 15 of us.
I must admit that I forgot my policy for a moment, and I did ask Rob if he’d heard anything regarding the election results. He seemed a little distressed, but also seemed not to know much of anything.
He did mention he heard that exit polling showed Kerry ahead by about 2 points in Florida. When he told me that, it felt like someone punched me in the gut (but that feeling only lasted for a moment). It took me back to the 2000 recount torment. Just for a moment I felt like going home.
In fact, that’s what I did on election night in 2000. I was poll watching in Riverside, California. As I went back to the car to go over my precinct list and make some calls, I made the mistake of turning on the radio to hear how things were going.
I heard Warren Duffy say that Florida was being called for Al Gore. This was around 5 or 6pm, pacific time. I was devastated because I knew what that would mean, so I just drove home. Ever since that election cycle, I decided never to follow the results until late at night.
Anyway, back to Rob’s comments about the exit polls last Tuesday: I reminded myself that an exit poll meant absolutely nothing, especially if the numbers were that close. I wasn’t really that worried about it, and I frankly forgot what Rob told me.
I did ask Rob for a prediction. He seemed to be reluctant to make one, but he said “I really want President Bush to win, but I just don’t know what’s going to happen”.
He still seemed distressed, but I was not that worried because I knew he did not really know, nor did anyone else. The only numbers that matter are the actual votes counted.
We all continued to have a great time. Those children were REALLY excited and energetic. They were great cheerleaders! I noticed that there were far more cars honking after 5pm than there were in the previous hours. I know that had to do, in part, with rush hour traffic, but I also seemed to sense a change in attitude of the people driving by.
When I later learned of the exit polls, I thought that maybe people were more subdued earlier in the day because they thought Kerry might win the Presidency. Their attitude may have changed after the actual results started coming in.
I made sure to tell Julie and Rob, and their kids about Freerepublic.com. Matt seemed especially interested in freerepublic. We prayed for President Bush to be victorious before we all departed around 7pm.
As I drove home, I listened to music (as I did earlier in the day) rather than listen to any news. When I got home I continued to avoid the TV, radio and the internet, and I went to sleep.
I woke up somewhere around 8pm and turned on Fox News for a couple of minutes, and I got my first news about the election from Brit Hume. It was looking good in Florida. I went back to sleep, then woke up around 12am, and that’s when I started watching the returns.
I was ecstatic over what I was seeing. I felt very confident that Bush would win Ohio. I felt euphoric over the Presidential popular vote, and the way the congressional races were shaping up!
You may not believe it, but the two nights before the election I was going to post a prediction here on Freerepublic.com that Bush would win the popular vote by a margin of 51.2 % to 48.6 %. I KID YOU NOT!!! I did not have an opportunity to do that because I was busy doing other things. But I was not far off, huh?
Actually, that prediction was more of a hope, but a hope I thought might very well be realized. Let me put it this was: If I had to bet the farm, I would have bet that Bush would win over Kerry 51 % to 48 %. It was the best I thought he would realistically do. But I felt confident he would do it.
Around 1am I wanted to PARTY! I drove my car to the GOP headquarters, but everyone had gone home. I drove to another GOP place. It seemed no one was there. Oh well. I didn’t get to party with anyone, but I was PUMPED!
I went back home, logged onto freerepublic,
We not only won, freepers. We won BIG!
Here's my volunteer work update. hope you read it and enjoy :o)
my volunteer stuff ping.
hope y'all don't mind me using your terrific art :o)
I got a bit misty eyed reading your post..God bless you for your actions ..
God blessed America and gave us President Bush for FOUR MORE YEARS!
If you see those children and their parents again..I send them a hug!
What an absolutely BEAUTIFUL week!
ping :o)
Hi, there :o)
Hey, can you guys give me a raise, or at least let me in to the regular military now?
Way to work the campaign, tame. WWWell done! V's wife.
forgot to ping you :o) please read my report.
thank you :o)
You are either up very early, or up very late! :)
Mission Accomplished!!!
My sister calls me a vampire because i like to stay up all night :o)
Thank you for your efforts. As far as watching the returns, I had to have info. I listened to Rush, Sean and especially Hugh Hewitt. When Sean wasn't saying it, but you could tell he thought we were losing, I turned off the radio. Then Hugh came on at 5:00 central and ran for ten hours. Hugh already understood that the exit polls come from the MSM and they're not to be trusted. From 5:00 on there wasn't much doubt except when they took too long to count ballots in Dem areas of Ohio. Dan Rather hasn't conceded yet to this day.
I remember joining up on this forum and reading about your work. You going out into the streets in the middle of Liberal territory all on your own. You inspired me to my first protest in favor of Bush at the Broward County Courthouse in 2k.
Thanks for all you do in the name of God and country.
lol!
WOW. That is the best possible compliment i could receive, my friend. it warms my heart to know i may have made a difference, even if that difference is to inspire others to go out and work. Thank you sooo much for your kind words :o)
Jim, thanks for this forum. What a blessing for us to be able to share what we're doing for the cause so that others will be inspired to do the same!
BIG time :o)
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