I attended my first political rally along with my wife, two daughters, and about 16,000 of my neighbors at the San Diego Convention Center downtown!
At the very early age of 53 I can now say I have attended a political rally. I’ve just never been motivated until now — until this candidate with this message.
The line was ridiculously long stretching from the Convention Center, past the boat docks, all around the “island” used for the San Diego Pops concerts, nearly down to the shipyard, and wrapped around back again.
At one point I wondered if instead of a Bernie rally I had accidentally signed up for a Bernie 5K.
The weather was beautiful (I know — a surprise for San Diego!) and the scenery is always nice.
The atmosphere was very upbeat and fun. One guy was going around offering “free hugs” which lots of people took advantage of. One young lady was walking around topless except for two Bernie stickers on her nipples. (I of course didn’t really notice… but they were the light blue stickers that just said “Bernie”.) Apparently she also made it inside past the Secret Service — they probably appreciated that she wasn’t hiding anything. Several people ordered pizza delivered to them in line.
We were in line for over four hours but had a nice time and had good people to talk to. A special thanks goes out to our friend Chef Jessie at Roy’s Restaurant for preparing us a nice to-go meal.
After all that time, we made it into the overflow auditorium. The main room
accommodated about 10,000 we were told and the overflow would accommodate another 10,000. The overflow ended up being more than half full of people standing pretty close together so my guess of 16,000 may be on the conservative side (note to self: maybe don’t use the word “conservative”...)
Rosario Dawson opened for Bernie
talking about how she has been volunteering to register new voters for twelve years or so and this is the first time she’s been motivated to endorse a candidate. She was very enthusiastic about how the youth were coming out for Bernie. She said, “we need to listen to the youth — they have always been on the right side of history.”
Bernie did a great job. He began by mentioning the sad events in Belgium.
His messages were VERY inclusive of blacks, Hispanics, native Americans, gay people, and women. As a straight white man — what we’ve been told is his base — I felt a little excluded. Then he included me, “One hundred years ago women were not allowed to vote and were not allowed to hold the jobs they wanted. but then women worked with their male supporters and they changed those things.”
He made similar comments about the struggles for gay rights and how their straight supporters are helping to change that today.
Then, of course, he talked about all those moral issues that affect all of us regardless of race or gender or sexual orientation. He said, “I’ve been criticized for this in the past… so let me say it again: healthcare for all is a right and not a privilege.” He talked about how the world has changed and a high school education is no longer sufficient; a college education should be made available for everyone who works hard and gets good grades and our students should not be graduating 20,000 and 50,000 dollars in debt.
He talked about the immorality of mass incarceration.
Overall it was a very moving speech. Once he finished in the main room he came to the overflow and gave us some more in person with Rosario and Jane.
It was a very inspiring night.
On a side note: The good news — some of the young people around me in line were saying they had never been involved in the political process before and they were inspired to become involved because of Bernie and his message. The bad news — some specifically said that if Bernie is not the eventual candidate they would probably go back to being un-involved.