Bush Legacy Tour

BOISE, ID-Touring the country in a bus like this can give you a good take on the red vs. blue state, culture-war, theories. So far, I have been unable to discern exactly where these designated red and blue territories begin and end. Based on what all the pundits say, I thought as soon as we crossed the Mississippi we would be spending our time scraping garbage off the windshield that would be thrown at the bus. This has not been the case at all. Far from it. In fact, we easily had one of our warmest receptions today in Boise, Idaho. 

We set up in this red-state’s largest city, Boise, in front of the post office on 8th Street. The crowd was much larger than expected and we easily had a hundred people come on the bus in the hour that we were there. The response was excellent. One 83 year-old woman who was visiting her daughter in Boise was thrilled with the idea of the bus and is looking forward to our stop in her town of Tampa in September. She plans on bringing a group to the event. Another woman who is a transit bus driver for the city of Boise was so excited by the bus that she called all the members of her union and encouraged them to come see it. While some of the reactions centered on excitement over the bus, one woman was profoundly distressed by the museum. She came out of the bus in tears and could not continue looking at the exhibits. Seeing all the problems and disasters of the last eight years in one place was incredibly distressful for her. She was appreciative that we are getting the message out, however.

The bus also served as a backdrop for a discussion about the state of homeland security under the Bush administration. A man who was coming out of the post office right where the bus was parked happened upon the crowd outside of the bus. He is a long time Boise resident who has always had a post office box. He had just been turned down from renewing his post office box because he did not have two forms of identification which the Department of Homeland Security now requires for post office boxes.  After renewing his post office box for thirty years he now has to have two forms of photo id to continue receiving his Publisher’s Clearinghouse mailings.  The people outside the bus all concurred that this instance was one of many that demonstrate that this administration is not making them feel safer and that their liberties are being encroached on every day.