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...and the Skies Are Gray
Monday, March 6, 2000
Mullings is in California - the big Kahuna - from now until Super Tuesday.
This is a cooperative effort of Mullings and Voter.com.
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From San Diego, California
It is raining in California. Northern AND Southern. George W Bush has caught a cold. This tended to give the standard opening applause line of his stump speech "There's something in the air, here" a slightly different meaning than intended. The potential forward speed of airborne viruses was a serious subject of discussion.
At a rally in Oakland, California, a group of anti-death penalty protesters interrupted Bush shouting: "Stop the ex-e-cutions. Mor-a-torium now!" Which is Shakespearian in its meter, if not its spirit.
Mullings gave them a perfect 10 points for coming up with a chant which did not start with the words: "Hey, Hey. Ho, Ho" as in "Hey, Hey. Ho, Ho. Executions got to go."
Mullings was then forced to take away those points when a leader of the group admitted to reporters that he was a member of the Socialist Workers' Party.
Jules Whitcover, of the Baltimore Sun, and Adam Clymer, of the New York Times, were sitting in two of a row of seats in front of the television cameras about 20 minutes prior to that rally. A man enquired as to whether the seats were reserved solely for the press. "Yes." The man said his wife was pregnant. Mullings gave points to Clymer and Whitcover who unhooked the rope from the stanchion and let the woman sit.
Mullings took away points because neither had to actually give up his seat to the pregnant lady - they, in effect, gave up someone else's seat.
The demonstrators had accepted Bush stickers as part of their undercover operation to get into the rally. One young man could not get his to peal off his jacket. His punishment is to walk the earth - forever - with a "Bush for President" sticker on his jacket.
One of the television producers following the Bush campaign is a young woman named Alexandra Pelosi. Her folks, she explained, live in the Bay area and were going to stop by so they could slip off and have lunch while the Oakland events were taking place.
What she didn't say was her mother's name is Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Member of Congress from the Eighth District of California.
After some high-level negotiations, Governor Bush and Congresswoman Pelosi met. They talked a little politics. Talked a little policy. Talked a little Alexandra.
Mrs. Pelosi is running for House Democratic Whip - if the Democrats were to take over the House, and Bush were to win the Presidency, that meeting might go down in history as the first in a series of many.
You don't think winning makes a difference? Coming off the New Hampshire loss, the Bush charter was Miami Air. After winning all three 10 days ago, they are now on an airplane operated by Delta.
The campaign did an airport rally in Fresno, which sounds like it ought to be an abbreviation for something else - like 'Frisco is for San Francisco, but is not. It was raining hard so a number of reporters took blankets and wrapped them around themselves for the ride to the hanger where the rally was being held, looking like survivors more than reporters. Walking down the rear stairs of the airplane into the rain, one reporter called out: "In the unlikely event of an unscheduled water landing �"
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