cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.
it was a balmy summer’s nite here in los angeles (incredibly…usually in august it’s a stifling hot infernal by now) and skippy went to an upscale (read: minimalist to the point of austere) west hollywood restaurant called republic to hear john edwards speak.
billed as “small change for big change,” this gathering boasted that you didn’t have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to meet a presidential candidate.
that turned out to be right and wrong. skippy didn’t pay tens of thousands of dollars (it was only $15…a pretty good pricetag); but, alas, he didn’t actually meet john edwards. it was far too crowded.
the good news for the edwards campaign was that far more people than they expect to showed up. skippy waited for about 45 minutes after the supposed start of the event in a line that stretched literally around 3 sides of the building and all the way down the alley.
the bad news was for skippy; he brought a skippy t-shirt as a gift for sen. edwards, and planned on introducing himself thusly: “hello, sen. edwards, i write a political blog called skippy the bush kangaroo. it’s basically an anti-catholic blog where i make fun of people’s religion. can i have your support?” ok, the amanda marcotte reference probably wouldn’t have endeared the senator to skippy, but he was sure the free t-shirt would have.
but it was all for naught, as only a handful of people actually got near enough to shake the senator’s hand.
while in line, skippy overheard many people passionately discussing politics and what was wrong with this country today. you would have thought it was a bloggers convention, except everyone dressed nice!
someone in line was talking about global warming; they said the glaciers will have melted by 2030. skippy turned and said the glaciers will have melted by the time they get into the venue to hear the speech. but, eventually, everyone got in.
it was incredibly crowded. it was difficult to makes one’s way to the cash bar to buy refreshment. but that was, at least, a goal, and it wiled away the time otherwise spent standing around (no chairs) in the patio courtyard waiting for sen. edwards.
but finally, when he did make his entrance, everybody was enthusiastic about it. tho he had a few microphone problems, sen. edwards was charismatic and charming and full of energy. he never faltered in his speech, which sounded less like a rehearsed diatribe and more like an impassioned dialogue.
firstly, he said elizabeth is doing well. the crowd erupted into cheers. and then he went into what he planned to do once he became president. this included universal health care (he pointed out that he was the only of the democrats to actually come up with a plan for such); a suggestion for “college for all” where a kid who graduates high school and is accepted to college and works 10 hours a week while going to school will get his tuition paid (big applause by the young crowd); stopping global warming with carbon caps and no new nuclear energy plants; and getting out of iraq (and he chastised the democrats for not refusing to fund the war).
and then, he said he would rescind all the laws allowing illegal wire-tapping of american citizens, which got the crowd going even wilder. then he paused for a second, and said, incredulously, “i can’t believe that a presidential candidate nowadays has to say something like that,” which got even more applause.
he ended his speech (rather short, in skippy’s opinion, considering the long speech he saw al gore give in 2004 up in westwood) with a plea for help from the average american. all great movements, he said, comes from regular people like us. he paraphrased gandhi: be the change you want. the audience, admittedly his supporters, broke into wild cheering as he left the stage and signed autographs.
all in all, skippy was impressed with sen. edwards enthusiasm and sincerity, which, we are afraid, the multi-millionaire media will not allow to get onto television. in person the man is magnetic; we doubt that america will ever see that en masse.
skippy recommends that if sen. edwards comes to your town, you go and listen for yourself.
