Free Republic

So it isn't true that the republicans filibustered the nomination of Abe Fortas and threatened a filibuster of Richard Paez? I had heard (from some reasonably reliable sources) that it was true. Do you have a source for your information that I could check?

As far as I can see it's true; 1/3 of the faculty at Calvin signed the letter, as well as some administrators and 300 students (past and present). They were also able to raise enough money between them to take out a full-page ad in Friday's Grand Rapids Press, as well as a half-page ad in the Saturday edition to run their message.

Calvin's president was just on the Sunday evening newscast talking about how it's a good thing for the college, because it dispels the idea that it's a monolithic institution, and that there's a diversity of opinion on campus. From what he was saying, apparently being a haven for conservatism hurts the college's marketability.

What major cities don't have a consistant conservative radio voice in them? I'm not aware of any.

From all that I've read, conservatives have a vastly larger presence on radio than "liberals."

Yep - there were definitely more people in the Kerry rally than in the 2000 Gore rally; that's especially significant considering that security was looser for the Gore rally and more people had access to the plaza.

While there are a ton of current Kerry supporters who are only supporting him becuase they're opposed to Bush, I think that as things progress, they'll eventually be able to find something about Kerry that they like. After all, his grooming team has been working overtime on changing his blah persona - and it appears to be working (unlike Gore, who couldn't change from being a plank of wood no matter how much coaching he had).

You're definitely right there. Bush may even have a tough time getting the outlying areas of West Michgian (which usually vote straight-ticket Republican) given how heavily they are impacted by the manufacturing industry declines. The perception will be made worse by the fact that West Michigan is sort of insulated from the economic changes in the rest of the nation, and that the economic growth we're experiencing right now won't be felt for a while.

Grand Rapids proper leans Democrat and actually went to Gore in 2000 - but the rest of "Grand Rapids" and West Michigan lean far right. (For the purposes of inflating the various counts and tallies and totals for Grand Rapids, the city officials include much of the surrounding areas and not just the downtown area when having it listed in national rankings).

The number of attendees at any given political event always seems to be in contention (for obvious reasons). I believe that there were at least 10,000 people at the Kerry rally; Grand Rapids leans very democrat - and the unions were really rattling cages to turn out their members (even those from out-of-town). Though it's only anecdotal, I stood in line with many union folks.

The spokesperson for the city estimated the crowd at 9,000-10,000:
http://www.thehollandsentinel.net/stories/080304/loc_080304001.shtml

The Grand Rapids Free Press estimated the crowd for the Kerry Rally to be 10,000:

The State News has 20,000:
http://www.statenews.com/article.phtml?pk=24822

Wood TV has pictures of the event showing how packed Calder Plaza was:
http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2110785&nav=0RcePQ78

If Chief Dolan counted only 5,000 - it must have been during Teresa Heinz Kerry's rambling, long-winded speech when everybody went to go get a hot dog and lemonade.

I work at the college and worked on the appearance; the Ford Fieldhouse capacity according to the fire codes is 4,000. From what I saw, 4,000 is a generous estimate of how many people attended.

The stage for the Bush was at the north end of the fieldhouse. There were bleachers behind the stage and lecturn, as well as bleachers flanking the stage on either side and extending out into the floor. There were also chairs in the front of the stage, and the press section was directly behind the chairs on the floor (the press had a few rows of chairs for print media, and the TV media had a three-level platform to set tripods up on).

That's not to say that more people weren't interested in going; certainly there were - but it was a more small, intimate appearance and only a very limited number of tickets were made available to the general public.