Concord Healthcare Protest

This was the first protest I have been to in awhile. Other than getting lost on my way down there (oops!), it went fairly well. I had to take my son Christopher with me, so he got another shot at being card carrying member of "the mob." :-) Doug and Skip from Granite Grok took pictures and video, so once they post it I'll put up the links.

The highlights:

-- Of course, there was one sign on my son's stroller that read "I didn't read the bill, either!" The one I was carrying was two sided: one side read, "Keep Your Hands Off My Health Care!" The other side read "Hodes -- Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are!" (reference to the fact that he has yet to schedule a real town hall debate).

-- We were standing outside of the restaurant where BlueHampshire.com was having their fundraiser featuring Rep. Carol Shea-Porter and Rep. Paul Hodes as well as the founder of liberal blog DailyKOS. The street was pretty busy. We had people honking for us, and those against us were giving us the middle finger. (So much for intelligent debate.) One woman driving by went so far as to stick both her hands out the window WHILE SHE WAS DRIVING to swear at us. Yeah, that was safe.

-- There were Obamacare supporters that stood along side us. It was civil -- no one tried to beat us up or anything. They also didn't stay long. I had made the conscious decision not to argue or debate them while I was there because I had Christopher with me. Although I did have to throw in a comment when one guy, joining the supporters, started debating one woman, and when one of the other protestors said that "They don't have any ideas," he shouted back, "They have ideas!" I had to yell to him as he was crossing the street, "Not the right ones!"

-- Skip and Doug showed up later in the day. Doug had a huge sign with Obama as the Joker, while Skip started holding the sign featuring the confusing beauraucracy of the Obama Health Care Plan. Doug was very proud of that sign.

-- At some point some kids decided to join us -- some tween/teen girls and some preteen African-American boys. I wouldn't have noted their race except that they were willing to pose with Doug's Joker sign. They stood with our group for a good portion of the time, and were trying to get cars to honk their horns.

-- Rep. Paul Hodes actually came to talk to us while we were protesting. I got to shake his hand, but didn't get a chance to say much more than introducing myself because he moved down the line. He saw my sign and said, "Well, I'm here."

-- Rep. Carol Shea-Porter showed herself to be a chicken weenie. I didn't see her as she was going in because I was feeding Christopher, but I could hear the other protestors calling her chicken for not wanting to debate us. Apparently as she was going in the only thing she did was smile and wave.

I left around 6:30 p.m. so I could get Christopher home to bed. But I'm sure if anything happened after I left Doug and Skip will have it up tomorrow.