Bush Legacy Tour

COLUMBUS AND CINCINNATI, OH-Thank goodness I am not with a Pro-Bush bus tour or my job would be a lot more difficult in ways well beyond my personal opposition to the idea. The success of so many of our stops has been made by the people we come across that help us in a variety of different ways, simply because they like what we are doing. 

It is not always easy to get media attention on the weekend. Most news stations have a greatly reduced staff that has limitations on what they can cover. When we have media outlets cover us on the weekend it is nice to have some coffee and donuts to offer them.  Yet this Saturday morning in Columbus, finding donuts and coffee was not an easy task. When the hotel shuttle driver Adrian, found out I was with the tour, he offered to drive me anywhere I needed to go on my donut mission.

The first two bakeries were closed until I eventually settled for bagels. Adrian was great. He talked about how out of touch he feels this administration is. He said he would rather have his neighbor become president because at least his neighbor understands what it is like to have a low paying job, and worry about bills, healthcare, and housing. He feels that so many of the men and women that are making decisions at the top have never had to struggle or have not had to in so long that they have lost touch with the realities of working people. 

Speaking of working people, the bagels were appreciated by the hard-working reporters and photographers who visited the bus this morning. 

After our Columbus stop this morning, we headed down to Cincinnati for an unscheduled stop outside of the 99th Annual NAACP Conference being held at the Convention Center. Over 8,000 people were attending the conference. We pulled up in front of the convention center with the understanding that we would likely be kicked off since we did not have a parking permit. Sure enough, five minutes after we parked a police officer came around and poked his head in the bus. As I was getting ready to explain to the officer that we would be moving along, he asked what the bus was about. I told him and he asked if he could check it out. He came in, loved the bus, and said absolutely nothing about us needing to move the bus. In fact, a few minutes later, a large group of conference attendees came on board and explained that it was the officer that had told them to check out the bus and that it was great 

Having been born and raised in Ohio, I would like to say that is just the kindness of people from my home state that have contributed to the good will we saw on Saturday. Yet, this has been our experience everywhere. Along the way we have had many people help us for no other reason than that they support what we are doing. I believe it is the extreme dislike that people have for the Bush Administration and its allies that brings out a kindness and generosity in helping us on our mission. Bush was right about one thing: he is a uniter and not a divider.