Over 1000 people attended the Tammy Baldwin rally today in Eau Claire. The guest of honor at the Rally was Vermont Senator and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. There were three guest speakers at the event. Senator Baldwin gave a hearty campaign speech touching on multiple issues, particularly touching on healthcare issues and the threat to civil liberties of the new Supreme Court nominee.
After some brief ribbing between Baldwin and Sanders on the relative merits of Wisconsin and Vermont cheddar cheese, Senator Sanders gave a crowd-pleasing speech about the fragility of our current polical lives and what can be done to preserve healthcare, civil liberties, and the rights of immigrants, among other topics. Sanders remarked that although progressives may feel powerless in the current political environment, the antidote for depression is activism.
Music was provided by Eau Claire band Pit Wagon. The music included a small ode to Governor Walker, some of which is included in the video.
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My Weekend at Bernie's
Or -- Feel the BRRRRRRRRN!
Nope, this isn't going to be a story about trying to pretend a dead guy is alive -- it's a story about going to see Bernie Sanders.
This morning I set off to Eau Claire from Uppitywis Central to go to the Bernie Sanders Town Meeting. I thought that those of you who have not had the experience might like to see what it's like. It was a day of frustration and exhileration. The drive over was terrifying. I've made the trip from Downsville to Eau Claire a disturbing number of times, but this was the worst trip I've ever taken. The very light snowfall overnight mixed with cold temperatures and one hell of a gusty wind storm to make for terrible driving conditions. The little country road to Eau Claire was slippery and it was often impossible to see anything due to the blowing snow across the prairies. My little car kept getting blown around, and a few times I thought I was going to head off into the ditch. People at the rally told me there were a lot of cars in the ditch on their trips. The trip took almost twice as long as normal, so I arrived somewhat later than I had planned.
I took the footbridge across the river and was greeted by - a gigantic line. I expected a pretty good line, but this was a little more than I expected:
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The line went quite a way up the hill on the right - the arena is quite a way to the left.
I've been to Zorn arena many times, and I thought there was no way I was going to get in. I spent about 45 minutes standing in line to get in - quite a few people had arrived hours before me. This was a dedicated group. It was also quite cold, with 30 mile per hour gusts blowing across the river. The line of people was remarkably cheerful and patient. People were handing out flyers for local elections, and selling buttons and T-shirts. Many in the line felt that if the vendors had any sense they would have been selling us $12 cups of coffee and hot chocolate. There was a large contingent of volunteers going up and down the line, telling people what to expect when they hit the security checkpoint.
We finally reached Zorn Arena and I shuffled my pocket contents for entering the security area in the lobby.
Our pocket contents were hand examined and we went through a metal detector - phones and cameras had to be on so they could be checked to be functional. Sadly at this point my old digital camera was only slightly functional as the display screen had cracked and shattered in the cold - apparently it must have already been on the way out.
I was surprised to actually get in and not be bumped off to the overflow room - I understand several hundred had to go to the overflow, but Sanders went there later to meet with those people as well.
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The crowd quickly filled in - my understanding is that there were about 3500 people inside the venue, and several hundred in an overflow room with video and audio.
And Andrew Werthman welcomed the crowd. There was a short thank you as Eleanor Wolfe was brought up to the stage to thank her for all of the canvassing and organizing she has done. Then Justin Vernon (of local Bon Iver) introduced Bernie Sanders - amazingly this all actually happened ON TIME and was one of the most organized rallies of this type I have ever seen. All in all it was a great day but culminated in my having very sore knees (really not up to 5 hours of standing any more) and being really hungry -
The best part of the day of course was the speech - I'll leave you with that.
At Wisconsin's top newspaper, just a slight sense of political disproportion
A business-as-usual juxtaposition in today's political coverage at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Bernie Sanders fills up the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, capacity 10,000, and while the paper covers that Wednesday event, the story runs on page 3. Aside from a crowd photo there's only a sidelong mention of the turnout: "thousands." That's in keeping with the paper's previously announced policy of avoiding hard-number crowd estimates, coincidentally imposed just when mass progressive moments were becoming more frequent in Wisconsin.
The article on the huge Sanders rally also is buried deep in the paper's online edition. Meanwhile, the online Journal Sentinel uses its top position and biggest headline this morning to breathlessly inform readers of the startling, momentous news that, according to his campaign aides:
Scott Walker set to file papers to run for president today
Hey, editors: Sanders has already long since announced his candidacy, and, unlike Walker, who shows up at smaller events, he's drawing huge crowds.
If you didn't get a chance to see the Sanders event covered in news media, Uppity's got you covered. See video here.https://www.youtube.com/embed/OewBDIwy-O4
Steve is a member of LION Publishers , the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, the Menomonie Area Chamber of Commerce, the Online News Association, and the Local Media Consortium, and is active in Health Dunn Right.
He has been a computer guy most of his life but has published a political blog, a discussion website, and now Eye On Dunn County.
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