President Bush
October 14
Thomas & Mack Center
President Bush's speech over, the crowd began to exit. Coeds and senior citizens walked side-by-side, smiling, and they appeared harmonious in their coexistence. Everyone seemed to be elated, and as brief as it was, they shared a moment of joy. Their candidate was the one; the one who could make their life better, or at least not worse, the one who could lead our country in the direction that they thought would be best; the one who made them feel safe and proud to be Americans.
But then the tide changed: One young lady was able to change the crowd's mood when she stood on a trash can and held up a one-word sign: "Kerry".
As the thousands poured out of the arena, she was smack-dab in the middle of them. As the chants began, for a moment it was like watching a lone Yankees fan at a Red Sox game. "Kerry Sucks." "Flip Flop." "Four More Years." And the ever-popular, much satirized "We Want Bush."
She stood there, alone in the middle of overwhelming opposition, not wavering. What surprised me the most was that she was alone. I watched as she went toe-to-toe with men and women, young and old, sometimes talking and sometimes yelling. At any one time, she was debating four or five people at once, on issues ranging from Iraq to the environment, health care to corporate tax relief.
It's one thing to be in a group of protestors, where one feels safe and validated. Its quite another to stand alone. One by one, they walked away, and although it appeared neither would ever change the others' mind, many briefly turned back, acknowledging her resolve.
Michael Moore
October 15
Thomas & Mack Center
Someone poked his fat belly and asked, "Who are you?" and he said, "Michael Moore, and I'm here to take your money." Only it wasn't Michael Moore, it was Keith Stickley, the 25-year-old state chairman of Nevada College Republicans, and the tub-o'-lard look wasn't real, it was an inflatable fat suit. Stickley was waddling around agitating a thick crowd outside the Thomas & Mack, where the real Michael Moore, larger than the inflatable, was set to take the stage shortly. Not three feet from Stickley, Susan Potts wore a two-foot high foam Bush head and knickers adorned with cotton flames sticking out all over. She said, "I'm a liar, liar, pants on fire!" People cheered and asked to have their snapshots taken with the burning effigy of the 43rd president. Further ahead, aiming a video camera at the ingoing line of young and old, but mostly young, a gangly twentysomething wearing dirty jeans and a sweatshirt also claimed to be filmmaker Michael Moore, for a moment: "OK, well, OK, right now I'm just Michael West with a video camera. But I'm trying to make some money so I can be the next Michael Moore." There was a brief exchange of shouting between a pack of Bush-Cheney T-shirt-wearing protestors and the fans of Moore, wherein the young Republicans chanted, "Four more years!" and the young Democrats yelled, "Three more weeks!" A disheveled man with a clipboard, who more than once mistakenly called Nevada "Kentucky," solicited petition signatures to legalize marijuana; an army of America Coming Together and MoveOn.org volunteers combed the crowd recruiting fresh flesh. Several people hawked T-Shirts: "Bush Sr. and Bush Jr.= Dumb and Dumber".
As the crowd filed in through the main gates, the press slipped in the back and was treated to free DVD copies of Moore's Farenheit 9/11 and book Will They Ever Trust Us Again? Letters From the War Zone. When the man of the hour arrived in the press room, shuffling in, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, unshaven, sporting a blue Reno ballcap, he took the podium in front of a Holyfield-Lewis fight poster, and gave a spiel with probably very little variation from the one he's given more than 20 times on this 60-stop "Slacker Uprising Tour," except that this one included the sentence, "I want people in Nevada to know that you're this year's Florida."
Egad.
Democracy as a carnival, democracy as a threat. Inside, young men drank big cups of beer and stood and said, "F--k yeah!" when Moore called for equal pay for women. A middle-aged woman with a plentiful bust wore a tight T-shirt that said, "No Bush." And a fragile old man with a hearing aid got security's assistance to get to the floor level of the stadium because "I can't hear or see nothin', but this is important. This is all very, very important."
You do get that feeling these days.
Barack Obama
October 15
West Las Vegas Library Amphitheater
"Why is Bush acting like he trying to get Osama? Why don't we impeach him and elect Obama?"
"I came here to see the future president."
There were flag-colored Kerry-Edwards bumper stickers, white Kerry-Edwards campaign buttons, green Kerry-Edwards union T-shirts—and still it felt like Barack Obama was running for president. Such is the case when you're poised to become the third black senator in U.S. history; elicit bipartisan praise and cross-cultural voter support; deliver a universally lauded speech at the Democratic Convention; raise $14 million, then give chunks of it away to help fellow Democratic nominees; and when, as happened Friday, a campaign staffer jokingly announces, "Here comes President Obama," as your cavalcade pulls up.
Fifteen minutes late, the Democratic Party's new rock star—in a dark suit, tall, face like an upside-down triangle, skin the color of caramel; with glasses and close-cropped hair, a modern-day Malcolm X—arrived at the West Las Vegas Library, surrounded by presidential-looking unit of suited men. As Obama approached the door, a small mob, starry-eyed and hopeful, readied itself. Once inside, the fawning began. Politicians can be the worst type of fans:
There was Sen. Harry Reid, blushing (slightly off guard and nervous) when Obama reverentially bowed in front of him.
There were the handful of local black politicians brandishing Colgate smiles and, while relentlessly shaking Obama's hand, issuing him a million "thank yous" for coming.
There was former gaming executive, now congressional hopeful Tom Gallagher, for whom smiling seems like a foreign muscle movement, actually showing some teeth and signs of life.
After answering reporters' questions, Obama stepped outside into a cauldron of donkey love and, for the next 15 minutes, mixed some of the verbal pep exhibited in his superb Boston speech with a keen sense of understanding his surroundings.
Witness: "Go get Cousin Pookie, Lil' Bit, Ray Ray and Joe Joe and make sure they come out to vote." Who else but Obama could get away with moniker mockery in predominantly black West Las Vegas? Bill Cosby? Not.
And this: "Let's face it—18 months ago, nobody knew who I was. People were calling me Alabama or Yo Mama."
Amid the levity, Obama was also serious, encouraging people to vote ("There is no reason people in Nevada shouldn't take advantage of early voting"); pragmatic ("If everybody votes, the Democrats will win. If there is low voter turnout, the Republicans will win"); and honest ("The Republicans have a wonderful political apparatus, which is why they have been able to make this a close race despite a horrible record").
At times, Obama displayed the deft human touch President Clinton was known for—the ability to speak to people's issues, to perform best in uncertain circumstances. To heckle Clinton was to risk seeing him at his best, emotion supplementing his intellectual assault. Similarly, when audience members added to his list of Bush's missteps, Obama expounded on them and added to them, from lost jobs (the result of concerted outsourcing by the Bush administration, he says) to the White House's assault on affirmative action.
If he wanted to, Obama could've spoken for hours, and there'd likely have been little crowd dissipation. As much as they wanted to hear him, audience members wanted to get him to sign things—bumper sticker, campaign pins—to talk to him, say something to him. His speech over, Obama obliged as long as the suits let him. About five minutes.
Maybe this was a dry run.