niwrad428
Veteran
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Registered: Feb 2003
Local time: 06:16 AM
Location: Omaha, NE
Posts: 317
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This was posted in my local newspaper.
How does Bush plan to appeal to independent/undecided voters if only staunch supporters are allowed at his events?
Ticket denial a lesson in politics
BY RICK RUGGLES
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
COUNCIL BLUFFS - Two high school students say they've learned a lot about politics from an experience in which they were denied tickets to President Bush's appearance here Monday.
Allison Plummer and Allison Brown, seniors at Council Bluffs' Abraham Lincoln High School, said that after an hours-long wait in line Thursday, they were refused tickets because they weren't staunch Bush fans.
Dan Ronayne, Bush's Iowa spokesman, said demand for tickets exceeded supply.
"We have a limited amount of space and tickets for these events and want to make sure every effort is made to allow supporters and the president's volunteers to see their commander in chief," Ronayne said from Des Moines.
Neither girl is old enough to vote. Brown said she told a woman at the ticket table Thursday evening she considered herself an independent and was undecided on whom she supported.
Brown said she then was told she couldn't have tickets because it was a Republican rally.
That struck her as unfair.
"I mean, he's not just a Republican president," she said of Bush. "He's everyone's president."
Plummer said she told a different staffer she was supportive of Bush (she says she's supportive of any American president) and was given two tickets, one for herself and the other for a friend. However, she said, a worker followed her to her car and spotted a Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker on it.
Plummer also had a "Bring Back Monica Lewinsky" sticker on the car, which, she said, reflected her support of former President Clinton. The car is her parents', she said, but she drives it much of the time and applied the bumper stickers.
The woman angrily demanded the tickets be returned, Plummer said, and she consented.
The two girls said they waited in line together for several hours at the distribution spot near the Mall of the Bluffs.
The girls, who are in the same high school government class, said they considered the chance to see Bush a learning experience and were eager to hear him speak.
"I would have loved to hear what he has to say, because he is the president," Plummer said.
She said that her parents are Democrats but that she isn't staunchly liberal or a devoted Democrat. Brown said her mother is a Democrat and her father is a Republican.
Both said they learned from the experience that such rallies can be orchestrated to display an enthusiastic, adoring crowd for television. They said they now understand that the appearance is less about delivering a message or informing the public.
"This changed the way I view the political system and showed me what it's all about," Brown said.
They said they attended a rally for Sen. John Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, 10 days ago in Council Bluffs, and no similar loyalty demands were made.
Mark Rater, GOP chairman in Pottawattamie County, said the Republicans have a right to insist that the people who attend the rally are supportive.
"We don't want hecklers there, and things like that," Rater said. "You definitely want people who are supportive there, because this is supposed to be a positive, energetic rally."
Rater said he was denied admission to a Council Bluffs event four years ago for Al Gore, the Democratic presidential candidate at the time.
"I feel a little sorry for (the girls), but at the same time, this is a rally for people who are supportive of the president," he said.
Brown said the experience changed her perspective.
"Now I consider myself a lot more for Kerry than for Bush," she said.
"My parents are Democrats," Plummer said, "but that doesn't mean I should be labeled one - yet."
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10-25-2004 03:04 AM
