Bush Legacy Tour

ALLENTOWN, PA- Billy Joel sang about changes in this Pennsylvania town twenty six years ago.

Well, we’re living here in Allentown.

And they’re closing all the factories down.

Out in Bethleham, they’re killing time.

Filling out forms.

Standing in line.

The lyrics still ring true today, especially after the last eight years of losing  manufacturing  jobs, the struggle of the middle class, the knowledge that your children’s generation will be worse off than you, and the decline of organized labor.

Although the union presence in Allentown is not what is was decades ago, the labor movement there is still alive and well.  This was evidenced by the crowd we had for our event on Tuesday. Members of numerous local unions filed into the IBEW hall to hear the speaking program and see our bus and the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Billy Bus. The Billy Bus is a coach that travels with the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George and several other PA labor leaders. The Billy Bus gets out information about the issues that are facing union and non-union workers in Pennsylvania.

The Billy Bus

After a press conference in the hall, we opened up the bus to the public. The stop was not only to introduce the Bill George bus to the George Bush bus, but to highlight the voting record of local conservative Representative Charlie Dent, who supported Bush’s policies close to 80% of the time.  He voted against the Employee Free Choice Act which would give workers the right to join a union without interference. Dent did not support equal work for equal pay legislation for women. He has also voted repeatedly to keep our troops stuck in Iraq.

Dick Cheney and Charlie Dent

Julie and Kathryn: unprepared for the snow.

Although we missed snow in Buffalo, it caught up with us on the way out of Allentown. We were in the middle of a mini-blizzard that dropped a few inches just outside of Wilkes-Barre.

BUFFALO, NY-Our day in upstate New York started with an unsuccessful attempt at getting a photo in front of Niagara Falls.  To our disappointment, 12,000 years ago when glaciers receded north and the path of the Great Lakes created the falls, photo-ops for 45- foot long buses were not taken into consideration. At least not from the NY side of the falls. Mother nature should’ve known that 11,992 years later a really bad President would take over the area south of the falls, making a campaign bus photo-op necessary.

Without our perfect photo, we headed to our stop at Bidwell Park in Buffalo. It was pouring freezing cold rain and about to snow any moment. We still managed to have a decent crowd on the bus. Fortunately, we got out of New York in time to miss an October snowstorm.

Bidwell Park, Buffalo

AKRON,OH-Our stop in Akron outside of the Laborers Hall brought out a lot of supporters. We also had the company of another bus. The California Nurses Association (CNA) have a healthcare bus traveling the country to look at the healthcare policies of Senator McCain and Senator Obama.  The bus has each Senator’s healthcare policies on the outside and inside a dozen or so local nurses ready to give out information to the public on healthcare policy.  The nurses gave McCain’s healthcare policy an F, while Obama’s policies received a B+.

They have been traveling the country for the last few week talking to Americans about healthcare and have heard some heartbreaking stories from people who cannot afford quality healthcare. The nurses from CNA came onto the Bush Legacy Bus and  shared stories of their own experiences with the healthcare crisis.

The nurses loved the bus!

Healthcare was not the only issue on people's minds in Akron Saturday morning. Quite a few of the labor union members who came by were gearing up for a six-mile walk the next day to look at the impact of outsourcing on the town. The walk is organized by the AFL-CIO and the plan is to walk through the many abandoned factories in the city. Akron used to be a significant industrial center and was once the Rubber Capital of the World. The outsourcing of jobs has put millions of Ohioans out of work. Akron is no exception.  Sunday morning, dozens of working people will walk the streets of Akron and remember when the factories ran full-steam, before the time when our political leaders, like John McCain gave them tax incentives for shipping our jobs overseas.

YOUNGSTOWN, OH-

Our final stop in the Buckeye state was in Youngstown for the Sounds for Change music festival. The goal of the festival was to promote voting and civic participation. There were a couple stages, numerous speakers, and the Bush Legacy Bus. There was a speaking program with several State Representatives, The Mayor of nearby McDonald and several city officials. The bus was well-received by everyone and we were happy to be part of the event.

COLUMBUS, ANN ARBOR, TOLEDO-There is no bigger college rivalry than the Ohio State University/ University of Michigan rivalry. We visited rival campuses this week with the Bush Legacy Bus. Wednesday we visited the Buckeyes at OSU in Columbus and Friday the Michigan Wolverines. In both stops we had great locations, right in the middle of campus. 

Our OSU location next to Wexner Plaza brought out many students to the bus. It had been a busy week for Columbus with numerous campaign events happening every day. The students at OSU are no strangers to buses parked on campus holding events. There have been several in the last couple weeks alone, including the CNN bus, as I was told by one student.  The response to the bus was mostly positive. One student summed up the under-25 crowd’s response to the bus perfectly, “This administration is wack!”

We received a similar response from the students at University of Michigan. They were geared up for the big game against Michigan State that evening, but we still managed to lure a good number of students on board at our stop on State Street. Pumped-up Blue fans were not the only thing that brought us to Ann Arbor, though. Representative Joe Knollenberg serves the 9^th Congressional district of Michigan and was part of the reason we came to town. He has been a steadfast supporter of Bush’s policies. He voted with the President’s policies 93% of the time! Now that deserves a “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”

After completing the OSU/ U of M rivalry leg of our tour we moved on to another college campus. Friday afternoon we pulled into The University of Toledo. We were met with pouring rain that continued throughout the entire event. To our surprise, we still had a steady stream of students that came out to check out the bus.

CINCINNATI, OH- The Bush Legacy Bus is no stranger to getting denied permitting. When we had difficulty finding a location to park the bus in Cincinnati, we were not surprised. What made this case interesting is that we had already had an event a month ago on Fountain Square. Chances are the police were not interested in an encore now that they know what we mean by “legacy.” We had a local friend of the tour, Andy, go down to the police office to fill out a formal request for parking for the bus. Our first location choice was denied. Our second choice was denied as well.  Andy was told he could not submit any more requests. When he inquired as to why the first two applications were denied, the police officer took a fat red marker and wrote DENIED on the application and slid it back under the glass.  A man of few words, apparently.

Despite the uncongenial welcome from Cincinnati’s finest, we ended up with a great event with lots of foot traffic. We set up on a busy street near the University of Cincinnati by holding meters right before the event. At least 100-150 people wandered through the bus. Cincinnati has been inundated with campaign activity over the last few weeks and we had a few people express that they are sick of it, yet the bus intrigued them because it focuses on the issues and gives a straightforward view of the last eight years and the issues that matter most.

Permit Denied!

Like our last stop in Cincinnati, we focused on Bush’s favorite southwestern Ohio Representatives, Jean Schmidt and Steve Chabot. Representative Schmidt voted with the President’s polices a whopping 96% of the time. Representative Chabot is not far behind with 94% of the time.  Their records are the same as when we last visited the Queen City, yet the economic downturn has escalated and made certain policies of theirs even more alarming. Both voted for tax-cuts for the wealthiest Americans and against helping struggling home-owners facing foreclosure. Chabot voted against raising the minimum wage. Schmidt voted against making college more affordable and against reigning in CEO pay. It was impossible to predict when we came to Fountain Square in September, that Schmidt and Chabot’s conservative economic policies would seem even scarier a month down the road.

EVANSVILLE, IN- Theoretically, the perfect stop on the tour would be if we pulled in and had 300 people waiting for us that were psyched to see the bus, a full bbq, and beer. We had all of those things at our stop in Evansville yet murphy’s law still managed to rear its ugly head.  The Steelworkers pulled out the red carpet for the bus, including placing an ad on their own accord in the paper advertising our stop.  This made it all the more disappointing when the generator died ten minutes into the stop. The bus was still open but none of the electronics worked. Hundreds of kind and patient people still came through the slightly dark bus and looked through the text-based exhibits. Everyone was terrific about our technical difficulties.  The generator worked in fits and starts and was finally fixed the following morning, too late for our great crowd in Evansville.

COLUMBIA, MO- After close to five months of traveling the country in an anti-Bush around the country, you get used to getting kicked out of places. It was no surprise that when we opened up the bus in a Columbia movie theater parking lot on the opening night of “W” that our time would be limited. We opened up the bus and invited patrons of the theater to look at a different way of presenting Bush’s failures on their way to the movie. Given that the theater has a privately owned lot, we were nicely asked to leave by the managment after around 20 minutes. We packed up and left, content that at least one theater in Columbia was actually showing the film. It should also be noted that the Bush Legacy Bus has received much better reviews than “W” and it’s factual and free!  Bring your own pop-corn and milk duds.

The next morning we took the bus to the local Saturday morning farmer’s market and opened it up to the public. Weekend farmer’s market have become a staple of the tour. The response in Columbia was great and we had dozens of people come through the bus, squash and pumpkins in tow.

OMAHA, NE-Omaha native, Representative Lee Terry has supported Bush’s policies 94% of the time. One man who came through the bus in Omaha summed up Terry perfectly, “I grew up with Lee and have known him most of my life. He is a good guy, but I have campaigned against him for years because his policies are so bad.”

At our event at the Nebraska AFL-CIO, a couple state senators, current and present showed up to see the bus.

Former Nebraska State Senator Gordon McDonald and his wife Sharon with the bus.

WICHITA, KS- Our first stop in Wichita was at the Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 441. There was a certain irony in bringing the bus to a plumber’s hall the night after the last Presidential debate where a certain plumber became the recurring theme. Although, Joe the Plumber has become the poster-child for  McCain’s conservatism, the group of over 1,000 plumbers and pipefitters that are part of the Wichita Local do not appear to be supporting the Arizona Senator.  While Joe the Plumber is “rich” in John McCain’s book, the plumbers that came through the bus have been hard hit by the Bush/McCain conservative economic policies.  Unlike Joe the Plumber, they are licensed at their trade and find that even though they make decent money, keeping up with the rising costs of groceries, gas and healthcare can be a struggle.

Our second stop in Wichita brought the bus to the (IAM) Machinists hall where they were holding a rally to support striking Boeing workers.  Thousands of Boeing workers across the country have been on strike for over two months. Contract negotiations had just broken down again and the Machinists were holding rallies all across the country to improve the morale of the workers . A crowd of around 250 people went through the bus. The striking workers loved the bus and despite their current lack of work, came forth with lots of donations to keep the bus going.

A consistent line to enter the bus.