Hillary, Barack, and the Bonspiel.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger      1 comments      link this post     


This weekend, Grand Forks is hosting the 2008 World Men's Curling Championship. A grand bonspiel. Rocks and brooms.

In about 30 minutes, Barak Obama will be the keynote speaker at the North Dakota Democratic Convention. Later, depending upon when Camp Clinton arrives in this great state, Hillary will speak. The sandwich between these two speakers is ND Sen. Joel Heitkamp*, whose radio show I was listening to while driving down to this crowded black hole known as Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Talk about your traffic.

I've never seen anything like it, even on the Saturdays when half of Manitoba comes down to shop at Target.

The Alerus center, by all accounts I've heard so far, is filled to capacity. This puts the number of people there, from what the radio talking heads figured, at 16,000. All Joel Heitkamp and Heidi Heitkamp and newly nominated Jasper Schneider (for insurance commissioner) could talk about was Obama. A group of women standing by the KFGO table, when the show went to commercial, must have reminded Heitkamp that Hillary had supporters, too. Which Heitkamp pointed out before getting back to Obama.

All in all, I could it was an exciting event for all present at the Alerus Center.

Too bad for Bob, the Disgruntled Democratic Ticket Holder, who phoned the show live from the Columbia Mall Parking lot (one of several places around town designated as parking areas once the Alerus lot quickly filled). He was pretty irate, standing in the parking lot, holding a ticket, having just been informed the free shuttle buses were no longer running because the Alerus was full and they were only going to let the few thousand lined up around it inside before "closing the doors."

"There are hundreds of us here, pretty upset," he said, "because they aren't letting any more people in." He told of how he had driven up from Fargo just to hear Barack.

Ooops. Even planning went awry.

Heitkamp pointed out that this would be rather ugly public relations mark for the N.D. Democratic Party, having made available more tickets than there was room. I remember when President Bush came to Fargo. They told you where you had to go to get the free ticket.

And the next day, they printed the tickets in the newspaper.

Speaking of newspapers, today's Grand Forks Herald had a full page, full color ad supporting Obama and comparing him to Gandhi, King, and Mandela. It also lacked a specific notice on who paid for the ad. I thought you couldn't do that.

Politics.

Regardless, it's a bad, bad day to be in the southwest part of Grand Forks. It's a parking lot.

And also, rocks and brooms.

UPDATE: Rob Port gives his opinion on the ND Democratic event.


UPDATE 1: And now, after Dorgan speaks, we get Pomeroy who says that if Clinton had been president during Katrina, like he was when Grand Forks flooded in 1997 and recovered so well, New Orleans wouldn't be in the mess it is today... this, for the introduction not of Clinton, but Obama. Why do they let him out of the back room? And now, Conrad joins in the love-fest. He, at least, threw in a "we're glad to have Sen. Clinton join us this evening...we extend a warm North Dakota greeting for Senator Clinton as well."

There is, incidently, a winter storm warning for the region starting tomorrow.

So, warm North Dakota greetings, candidates.

UPDATE 2: Conrad has invoked Kennedy, who visited North Dakota once upon a time. You can't have a Democratic convention without invoking Kennedy. That's a rule.

UPDATE 3: Sen. Conrad just endorsed Obama. The applause was noticeably less than earlier responses to Conrad's comments. Applause throughout this next bit was noticeably spotty. Conrad gives his reasons:

1. Obama asked him to support him.
2. Obama never supported the war in Iraq.
3. He got it right in 2002 by not supporting the war, and he will find the right way to bring the troops home.
4. Not enough experience not valid. He had the experience to get that judgment right.
5. It doesn't matter if he hasn't served "long enough" in Washington. (Lame joke about Dick Cheney, the favored whipping boy, follows, with the point being... Oh. Now he invoked Abe Lincoln's inexperience in Congress before being president. This is rich, coming from Conrad, who has been in Washington for an eon.)
6. We need someone to get results and move us forward.
7. Obama relates to everyone in the U.S.
8. Obama has Midwestern values. He has good values.

Obama takes the stage to the sounds of U2. Sigh. People are still trying to get inside the building.
And now, I'm off to the medical lab, doing my bit to keep healthcare affordable.



* I wrote about Heitkamp in action in this post.

Labels: north dakota, politics

Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger      4/04/2008 04:57:00 PM      (1) comments      Links to this post    
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