Bush Legacy Tour

TWIN CITIES, MN-Day one at the RNC was every bit as crazy as we had imagined.  The day began at the big peace rally on the Minnesota state capital.  We were parked about a block and half away and went down to the rally to pass out fliers about the bus. We obviously got an overwhelmingly positive response. There were thousands of people including Iraq Veterans Against the War, SEIU, and many other groups in the crowd.  We pulled folk on the bus and did some rides along the perimeter.  The police were out in droves and just driving anywhere around the perimeter was a daunting task. After the march started we eventually pulled out of the area and made our way to our next event. The next event was at a local activist Dan’s house in St. Paul. He lives on a major street and arranged for the bus  to come by and he invited 60-100 of his closest friends and neighbors. There was good food, drinks and company and the bus was a huge hit.  There were a lot of people that stopped their cars or their bikes to check out the bus. The bus became an interesting part of the counter RNC landscape. A number of the partygoers expressed that they were happy that we were organized and had a professional layout to the bus. They expressed concerns that all of the counter-RNC movements will be linked to the minority of the extreme protesters that were assaulting police and throwing things at delegates.

We stayed for a couple hours and rolled out to the next event which was a spur of the moment appearance at a party a few blocks away. The party was attended by a lot of local progressive and some candidates that are running for various levels of office. We parked the bus and folks came out to see it.  It also caught the neighbor’s attention, all of whom were incredibly supportive about having a 45 ft. long bus parked on their street.  One of the neighbors pointed out an interesting fact to us. Turns out we were parked directly in front of Senator Norm Coleman’s house!  The conservative Senator was not home, no doubt attending the RNC festivities.  It was ironic to be on his street with the bus and given the fact that every other house had a sign for his opponent Al Franken. That has to make for some awkward driveway conversations for the Coleman’s.