I’ve been invited to attend a Tim Walz rally tonight, and I have no idea what to expect. Share your stories and get me pumped up to see our next VP!
Update: Everybody was right, lots of standing and clapping, but what I really didn’t expect was the sense of family I felt with all these strangers around me. We’d bump into each other, and laugh it off, one guy was telling me about how his son was thinking about going to the college that I work at (I was still wearing my shirt from work), and we all just knew that we were working together to make great things happen. I’ll probably skip the next one, but it was a great experience. I’m glad I went, and would recommend going to one if you have a chance, and a candidate you believe in.
I went to one for a candidate for the House district I lived in a few election cycles ago, It was mostly stump speeches and other “rah rah we’re gonna win!” style pontificating. But one thing I did not expect and I actually found interesting was the house candidate spent a lot of time introducing other local politicians that were in down ballot races in the district. City council seats, education board seats etc. That turned out to be really useful, because it meant I got to meet/ hear from candidates who I either had no idea existed or who were just a name of a flyer before then. I suppose that experience may not transfer to a national candidate rally though.
No, but I’m interested to hear the experiences from those who have.
I, personally, just don’t get the appeal and am curious to find out if I’m missing out on anything. All I really want from candidates is a website that lists their policy positions and legislative voting records / accomplishments. Attending a rally just seems too “cult of personality” for my taste. Though I would and have attended smaller, town hall style meetings.
Yeah, it’s not something I’ve ever really considered doing before, but the opportunity fell in my lap, so I might as well see what the fuss is about!
Tim Walz seems like a really great guy all around, and truth be told, if I was given an opportunity to attend a local rally for him, I’d probably seriously consider it. Doubt that I would actually go, but it wouldn’t be an immediate hard “no” like I’d usually respond lol.
All the small time local politicians from the town hall are also there, and they are fucking STOKED, and they RECOGNIZE YOU. It’s an incredible energy.
I think its quite possibly the best way to determine if a candidate truly represents you (if you are good at sizing a character) by hearing that candidates points and comparing them to yours, gauging the crowd and seeing if they are like you, and lastly seeing if the energy you feel is positive or negative. At the end of the day, the media will spin it however they want to give them more coverage or clicks, and hearing them on video just doesn’t translate that crowd energy either.
Went to a Trump Rally during the 2016 primaries for the meme. That’s when I realized it was really serious. The crowd literally assaulted local college protestors.
“I’ve made a huge mistake”
Exactly
I went to a Clinton rally in 1992.
It was interesting. They didn’t allow signs on sticks, and Clinton was over an hour late. Really all I remember.
I work AV and have worked many of these events on both sides of the aisle. Presidents, VP’s, presidential hopefuls, the whole gamut. The democrats tend to be less organized but way more friendly and accommodating, the republicans are very their way or the highway, but tend to have all their ducks in a row. As far as attending you hear someone parrot ideas that you’ve already heard before, and either already agree with or don’t. They won’t take any hard stances and are unlikely to answer any questions, if they do they will answer the softball questions and sidestep the hard questions. All in all, largely a waste of time and resources.
The only two that I’ve worked that didn’t fall into that category was beto o’rourke and chris christy. Both of them were very engaging with the audience, were willing to answer hard questions, they actually seemed like they cared, and were doing this for country, not career.
The democrats tend to be less organized but way more friendly and accommodating, the republicans are very their way or the highway, but tend to have all their ducks in a row.
This is the most believable thing I’ve ever heard.
I went to a Bernie rally in Feb 2020. It was kind of electric. He was saying common-sense things about stuff that people really want changed about society and people were fired up by the huge crowd of agreement reinforcing how badly they were needed. I really thought he had a great chance before the dems kneecapped his campaign.
Bernie was the first politician that ever made me think “I want to hear more about what THIS guy is saying!” I rarely voted before I had heard of him, but learning more about Bernie slowly got me involved!
I can see Tim Walz being that guy for some people. After Kamala’s done her 8 years, Trump will have long slithered back into the shadows, and the GOP is deciding whether or not they should stick with the loud and crazy strategy, if Walz were to run, I think his common sense regular guy style could win over a lot of the rural Republicans. They aren’t all MAGA fiends, they just don’t pay much attention, and their friends like Trump. But if he can reasonably explain to them in their own language that nobody’s taking their guns, we just didn’t want people geared up like they’re in Call of Duty, we might be able to get them to stop considering us as villains.
I went to a John Kerry Rally in 2004. I got there about 30 minutes late and for whatever reason was ushered up to the front corral of people. Inexplicably, Bon Jovi takes the stage and shouts, “You what George Bush’s financial policy is? Bad Medicine!” and launches into the song ‘Bad Medicine’. I started laughing my ass off because it was corny as shit and Bon Jovi and I made eye contact for a brief second.
YMMV
Iowa here: We are where the campaigns try to hone their messages in front of small groups, before they take them nationally. So, I’ve been to many small to medium group gatherings. In small groups you can ask questions, but the replies are almost always some portion of a stump speech that may or may not contain an answer. I have had aides contact me later with better answers to my questions.
The biggest event I’ve attended was the Ames Straw Poll, back in 2012. It was interesting, meeting the candidates up close, then the big meeting at the end. None of the candidates I was interested in made it very far, and I don’t belong to that political party any more, but under the right circumstances I would go back.
I went to a Bernie rally in 2015. It was by far (by a wide, wide margin) the best attended political rally we’d ever had in Idaho. It was at the college stadium and I chose to stand in the crowd nearest the podium. That was cool. But, I was standing in line for two hours and then the rally was about three hours. The standing floor at the rally was really crushed in so you don’t have personal space and you can’t really shift your weight and relax muscles. So, I recommend getting a chair if they’re available. I was getting so fatigued I was having a hard time enjoying it. I would totally do it again. But I’d head for seating.
There is a “special guest” on the itinerary. My wife asked “What if it’s Bernie?”
I doubt it will be, but I low key geeked out a little at the possibility. 😁
I went to a Sanders rally in 2016. It was fun. Get there early! There was a line a mile long (literally) by the time we found our seats. Oh, as to what to expect, expect speeches and a tiny view of a person standing on a stage. There wasn’t really a show or anything. We just went to show support for our chosen candidate.
In 2008 I saw Michelle Obama speak in the 18th and Vine jazz district in Kansas City.
It was electric. She wore red and looked like a million bucks, and the speech was amazing. At the time we all honestly believed the Obamas would be elected with a historic mandate to make real, lasting change.
I remember it fondly, because the Obamas are the same people who caused me to lose faith in our Federal Government. All we got from the first black president was more war, more expensive health care, and one dead terrorist, and he had the power to do so much more.
Yeah. I feel that. I wouldn’t trade Obama in for anyone else during that time, but I would have liked to have seen more progress instead of just “not letting it get any worse”. I wonder if he or his cabinet were nervous of rocking the boat too much as the first black president, and enraging the conservatives even more. That’s just me pondering and not really based on anything concrete.
My feeling was that President Obama kept compromising. It seemed that he was trying to get people moving together and he went too far into the appeasement side of things with the alt right racist arm. It was also the real power growth cycle for Fox News and early online podcast/streamers. They are fast on the backs of the racist counter swell… And we got the fallout over the last decade now.
But did they really have the power to do more? President alone can’t do a whole lot if Congress is fighting them the whole way.
Yes.
He had a supermajority for almost a year. He could have codified Roe. He could have passed ENDA. Those two actions would have made such a huge difference for women and transgender people now, and I think it’s important to remember that it was a choice by President Obama not to pursue these things.
They had the supermajority for a grand total of 72 days and spent most of that time getting Obamacare passed, though they also passed stimulus spending and a few other things. Pretty decent job, all in all.
stimulus spending
That’s an interesting way to frame rewarding the people who crashed the economy.
Obamacare passed
Another example of something that’s framed positively, but in reality, did not deliver. Obamacare is a for-profit health care system, so the access it promises only exists if you can withstand being price-gouged.
But the fact that he had a supermajority at all makes it inexcusable that he didn’t codify Roe or pass ENDA. It was an opportunity to make generational change and he simply didn’t care to do the work.
For various reasons, I’ve gone to political rallies for a good portion of my life. They can be really fun or incredibly boring. There’s a sense of community you get at a concert or church service, and at the good ones, it can be quite a charge to be sharing the moment with others. At the bad ones, it can seem shrill or too amped or on the opposite side being dull as dishwater.
tl;dr - basically like a school pep rally for adults, but without the drawback of being required
I saw Obama in 2016 in Elkhart, IN, where he made the infamous “if if if if we…” gaffe. It was a fun speech and the crowd was very energetic.
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I attended a Ralph Nader rally in Boston ahead of the 2000 US presidential election. It was a high energy event, with an atmosphere almost like a pop music show. Nader and his VP candidate both spoke about their campaign positions, with frequent pauses for enthusiastic applause from the crowd. Nader was a third-party candidate, which meant that he was an outsider to the regular election process, and in particular was not invited to the nationally televised debates. There were frequent chants of “Let Ralph Debate”, and we were certain that the establishment was uncomfortable with that idea because they knew his policies would be very popular. Cash donations were collected, and many people wrote pro-Nader messages on the bills they gave.
I suspect your rally will be similar, really. Not quite as much of an outsider vibe, but maybe it’ll be replaced with an underdog vibe. Expect an optimistic event that tries to inspire enthusiasm. It’s not just about encouraging your direct support, but also about inspiring you encourage others to support the campaign.
