Protesting the Kerrywankers

Sorry for the delay folks. Blogger ate my homework.

After cleaning house all day Thursday and Friday in my underwear because it was so friggin' humid and our 20 year old A/C can only chug so hard, and after I cried like a little bitch because Jethro said it wasn't good enough, he finally agreed to go with me to the protest if the Kerrywankers.

The Kerrywankers have sponsered a "Run Against Bush" at Memorial Park in Houston every Saturday. I felt like they needed to a little competition, so I organized a group of people to go there with either Bush/Cheney signs, or anti-left-wing signs.

Jethro and I awoke painfully at 7:00am, dragged ourselves out of bed, drove into Houston. We were meeting everyone at a Starbucks. None of the protesters had ever met each other, so we weren't sure who we were. I saw a man standing outside who I would have sworn was a yuppie Kerry guy. He seemed to be waiting for someone. I thought, "Oh crap - what if "they're" meeting here too?!" Finally, I screwed up my courage and asked him if he was waiting for someone. He looked at me closely, and held out his wrist. He asked, "does this mean anything to you?" It was a blue rubber band with the words "Bush/Cheney" subtly incribed on it. It reminded me of some kind of clandestine drug deal. I laughed and said, "Sure does," and went inside to meet his wife and two of the most adorable little girls in the world (besides mine). One was all decked out in red, white and blue, and the other was holding a sign that said, "I love Condi." Adorable.

More and more people started showing up and finally, one young guy who had been sitting there the whole time, said, "Are you the Bush people?" Receiving an affirmative, he got all excited and told us that he'd been there since 7am just waiting in anticipation. It was precious.

We made out way to the park and set up shop right in front of the Kerrywankers - highly visible because of their pasty white skin, and confusingly short runnig shorts. We definitely had the "diversity advantage" - not that it means anything to us, but the left always seems to make such a big deal out of it. It wasn't anything elaborate; we just hoisted our signs and started waving at the non-Kerry runners going past.

The park, on a Saturday morning, is jam-packed with a constant stream of runners. I just have to say that we got a whole lot more love than the Kerry folks. We are in the South and in a very Republican state, so it wasn't surprising. What was surprising was how demoralizing it was to the other side. Most Southern conservatives are very polite. They were raised on it. If they disagree with you politically, they will not acknowledge you as opposed to actively confronting you. What I think shocked the anti-Bush runners was the number of high-fives we all were getting from the ordinary runners in the park. I don't think they realized the extent to which people did not support them.

There were a few incidents of interest.

1. One of the "runners" ran by us and said, "I was only going to run 3 miles today, but you all have inspired me to run 6!" That was baffling because it wasn't like they were raising money. One of our guys yelled, "Way to take initiative for your own healthcare! Good for you!" The rest of us cheered him on.

2. A man wearing a Vets for Kerry button ran up to us confrontationally and asked sarcastically who he needed to thank for serving in the military. Let me just state for the record that from a logical standpoint, this is not a wise question to ask a bunch of Bush supporters. There were cries of, "Two tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq." "My brother is in Iraq right now." "My father fought Vietnam, and my cousin and uncle are in Iraq." "My husband is in Iraq." He said a belligerant thank you and stalked off.

3. A grizzled old woman with long, greasy grey hair walked up and started reading our signs. She peered at us rudely, looked at our signs again and said, "Well you all look normal" and walked off. "Too bad you don't," I muttered under my breath. Then everyone laughed.

4. When we first got there, about 10 of the Kerrywankers whipped out their......cellphones. 2 minutes later, the cops showed up. They patrolled for awhile just to make sure that no one was going to go nuts. I gave them a smile and a small wave just to assure them that we weren't there to cause any trouble. The driver gave me a professional smile back, but the passenger cop gave me a wave and a surreptitious thumbs up.

5. But by far the best thing was the amount of military personnel who gave us thumbs up or high fives. They were awesome. I guess there are a lot of military and ex-military who run in the park. Boy, were they happy to see us. And boy, oh boy, did that make the lone "Vet for Kerry" mad. He got all red in the face when a (and I don't mind saying it) TOTALLY HOT marine waved at us, punched his fist in the air and pointed to his military license plate. We all cheered.

All in all, it was a wonderful day. The group we were with didn't agree on every issue, but the one driving force was that everyone believed that promoting democracy in every country around the world is paramount in fighting terrorism.

I'll end on a direct quote from an Iranian woman who was there with us. She said, "The people of Iran are watching very closely the situation in Iraq. Elections there will give them hope like never before."