Obama table in Madison: July 19 Edition (tenth one in 2008)

zulchzulu

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Tue Jul-22-08 11:35 AM
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Obama table in Madison: July 19 Edition (tenth one in 2008)

It was the tenth Farmers Market Obama table for this year and was a day starting with rain but then getting hot and humid with lots of people from all over the globe walking along and choosing from all kinds of locally grown, baked, crafted and political flavors. The Obama table is one feature to many at what the New York Times mentioned "The Dane County Farmers' Market in Wisconsin is now recognized as the largest in the nation, and is still growing."

The night before the tabling, I made sure the weekly war scorecard was updated and visible.

Here's this week's ever growing sad news:

Weekly War Scorecard

Cost of Iraq Occupation:
(running total):
$577,861,149,055
- $4,681 per household.
- $1,721 per person.
- $341.4 million per day

American Deaths:
4,122

American Wounded:
30,409

Iraqi Body Count:
1,333,792

As of July 19, 2008 at 12:00AM

Sources:
www.iraqbodycount.net
www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths....
www.defenselink.mil
www.antiwar.com/casualties
www.costofwar.com

The whole table and gazebo tent set-up ready to be deployed.

The day started off with rain coming down. If you watched the Weather Channel, you were expecting nothing short of rains in the 1 to 2 inch range downpouring the area where both Lake Mendota and Monona were swelling at least a foot over the usual water levels. These two lakes surround the isthmus that Madison's downtown region is, which is where the Farmers Market and Capitol Square are. Having a 8 x 8 foot portable gazebo was in the grassroots kit this day.

Of course, after setting the whole thing up, the rain stopped after that. It did make the Obama table surely look more "official" than otherwise. We even had one guy (who thought we had an official link to the campaign) yell at someone when they said we were out of bumper stickers*. He yelled "Obama can afford to give you guys a tent but he won't give you bumper stickers!" Well, two things. I buy the bumper stickers from the web site and give them out without getting a dime. Secondly, the gazebo tent is mine. It wasn't worth the effort to try to explain it to that person. It was good to see him walk away sulking.

The gazebo tent acts as a more central location than just a table.

The really interesting news overall was the discussion with many people about the Obama tour into the Middle East and Europe. So many people mentioned how they were disgusted by McCain talking about Obama's location.

One Vietnam war vet, a big guy with a USA flag t-shirt and pony-tail with a cigarette hanging from his mouth and and I had a discussion about Obama being his favorite, although he was not a Democrat. He was a Republican since Reagan and felt betrayed by the Bush family. He hated the war. And he let me know just how much he hated McCain. "Seeing him as a Vietnam war hero in his ads makes me want to smash my TV", he let me know. I just let him go all out and tell me about how McCain was a joke among many Vietnam vets for denouncing his country when he was a POW. He told me all of his buddies who served with him hate McCain. He was concerned about Obama's "flipflop" on the war. I let him know that Obama's position of leaving carefully from Iraq was consistent since 2006. He didn't know that and was mostly getting his news from the cable pundits. I told him to sign up on Democratic Underground. Who knows...

There were some regulars who show up whenever they can and are like family at this point. One family, just back from a trip to Scotland and the UK, was talking about how the dollar was so weak that the father felt like �his wallet was bleeding money�. He knew someone who was a fairly important Scottish leader who was for Obama. They had also seen several Obama signs on windows throughout their journey.

As has happened throughout the Obama tabling, there has always been at least a few Europeans who have come up to talk about the possibility of a President Obama. There was a family from Germany that stopped by and the kids were begging for Obama labels. The parents were very enthused about Obama visiting Europe and proceeded to talk about how Bush is so disliked there. It�s nothing new, but to hear it from people where their voice practically gets into a rage over the Bush administration is both tragic and somehow promising knowing that Obama will change all that perception.

As the day ended, it was a great feeling knowing that Obama would probably have a great week abroad and that the World will be introduced to such a great candidate.

Gobama!