march for life

Actually ended up going to the March for Life thing today. Pretty cool, though much longer and drawn out than I expected it to be. I was, of course, handing out Ron Paul material, so I was only loosely involved in the march and preceding rally to the extent that I needed to be to help enlighten the masses. It ended up being a good time, albeit a long and exhausting one. I had intended to take a few pics but wound up being too busy and preoccupied to get any.

I showed up on the Capitol Mall crazy early (before 8 am) and helped set up once the people with the goods started showing up -- quite a chore given that the "insiders" brought dozens of big signs and banners and boxes of leaflets and stickers and other such Paul-themed effects. After standing watch next to a huge sign we had set up to face rush hour traffic passing under a bridge, I grabbed a bunch of "slimjims" (those tall, thin leaflets) and headed out with a crew to bombard anyone and everyone we saw with Ron Paul info. That was a bit awkward at first, with me not exactly being the pushy type or good conversation initiator, but I got used to it after a while and ended up handing out a couple hundred or so leaflets in the two hours leading up to the rally itself.

At about noon the rally started, though plenty of people were showing up as early as 10 am and filling mall space. Although I kept trying to move further and further toward the fringes so I wouldn't get mobbed and thus be unable to distribute my goods effectively -- it's hard to talk to folks or hand stuff out when they're coming in droves instead of one or a few at a time -- the crowd eventually became too large and fast-growing to be workable. So a few of us met up on the south side of the mall, toward the front, just in time to catch a glimpse of Paul* as he gave a few quick remarks. (None of the "preliminary" speakers said much; I suspect they were all told to keep it brief). At this point I'd guess at least half the mall was packed with folks yelling their own chants and holding up signs and stuff; it was possible to slither through the crowd, but the only way to really move around effectively was to make one's way out to the north or south street and then walk along the sidewalk and try to re-enter the crowd at a different point. So I can now say I've participated in a real D.C. protest rally.

Soon after Paul spoke, we all wandered on our own back to the Metro stop on the mall, which was well behind the rally itself. I helped pack up and reorganize our stuff while others continued handing leaflets out to folks piling off the Metro. Eventually we loaded up a van, rode** several blocks to near the Supreme Court building, and set up our stuff again before the crowds came. (The Supreme Court building was the "climax" of the march; there were more speakers in front of it, and the march route went from the mall, past the front on the SC, and circled back to the mall.) Another guy and I then grabbed a huge banner strung between two metal poles and walked the opposite direction down Constitution Avenue -- thus guaranteeing thousands of marchers saw our "Pro-Lifers for Ron Paul" banner as we approached them -- until we met up with the march, at which point we got off to the side and then merged in and marched with them back to the front of the Supreme Court building. After holding our banner high for at least an hour for all of the marchers to see, we took down our setup, loaded up, and eventually went our separate ways, probably at about 5 pm. I finally got back on the Metro for home an hour and a half later, having taken a slight detour to Union Station for a much-needed early dinner after a breakfast of granola bars on the drive up and a lone Clif Bar throughout the day.

Observations...for one, it was cold. At least it didn't rain, as was predicted, but I bet it never got above 40 degrees either, and the slight-but-bone-chilling wind didn't help matters any. Just before leaving home this morning I got worried that my eskimo coat would be too warm and traded my thick sweater for a long-sleeve shirt. Bad move. Not even the eskimo coat could keep me warm out there. I had my hood up pretty much the whole time, which limited my peripheral vision and thus made it harder to see folks coming from either side, and I eventually decided to start moving around to stay warm and so I wandered through the back of the crowd for a while. I never really warmed up though. I think my feet stayed frozen for most of the day.

I also discovered during early meet-and-greet discussions that the Paul supporters there today represented a fairly diverse mix of beliefs. A couple were just plain weird and helped hold up the stereotype of Paul as a freak magnet. A few were disinterested in politics altogether until they found out about Paul and figured he's different enough to support because what he says at least makes sense. A few others actually didn't seem all that pro-life -- one even said abortion was "a big grey area" to him -- but wanted to help get Paul's message out anyway. And then there was me and another guy, who disagree with his foreign policy but are willing to compromise that for the sake of the rest of his ideas. There were a few Catholics, several Protestants (including some Reformed Presbyterians I think), and some unchurched folks. The one thing I know we all agreed on was the necessity of a de-centralized government with much more freedom given to the states, but that comes as no surprise. Otherwise it was a lot more varied than I expected, and the info I found is not at all inclusive of the whole group I'm sure.

As for the crowd, I was very surprised that none of the other candidates had any presence at all the whole day. We saw a couple of people with Huckster buttons, and one of the banner holders laughed while telling us about someone trying to wave his pathetically small Thompson sign in front of the huge Paul banner, but other than that there was nothing, no organized effort at all that we saw. This could be because they're all "known" candidates who get press coverage and don't have a lot to gain from street-level blitzes, or it could speak to the dedication of Paul's fan base and lack thereof of the other candidates'. Regardless, I expected to see the place crawling with politicos -- it was an election-year pro-life rally for crying out loud -- and was shocked that nobody else even seemed to make an effort to reach the crowd.***

I was also surprised at how receptive the crowd was to our antics, or at least the lack of rudeness in return for having someone hand pamphlets toward them. I figured we'd get a lot of bad looks, snide comments, etc., but I saw barely any of that. A lot of folks weren't interested in what we had or already had some. But tons of people were also receptive, taking and reading the literature and sometimes even stopping to talk more or ask questions. Several did seem genuinely interested and gave us the impression they learned a bit. We met a lot of Paul supporters, too, many of whom took extras from us to hand out in their groups or at home or wherever. I did encounter a few folks who favored a different candidate and tried to belittle Paul or ask pointed questions to prove points, but even they were nice. And when they realized we had answers -- come on, who hands out leaflets without being prepared to discuss them? -- they didn't carry on the conversation long, opting instead to stutter out of it or just wander off. Given how many leaflets each pack held and how low the supply of literature was at the end of the day, I'd say we handed out several thousand of them. In fact, I'm sure the vast majority of the participants encountered a Paul supporter at some point during the day.

As for the rally and march themselves, I can't overstate how dominant the Catholic presence was. I'd say at least 80% of the people I saw were easily identifiable via signs, shirts, etc. as Catholics, and I bet a lot of others also were but simply weren't openly affiliated with any of the many groups there. A lot of those were youth groups, too. I don't know if evangelicals just don't care as much about the pro-life issue or just aren't as good at getting their peeps out on the street, but there's no question that the Catholics were mobilized far, far more than any other demographic. I saw groups from as far away as Missouri and Wisconsin there. I was told there were speakers from other denominations (couldn't hear them as far back as I was) and even a Rabbi, but from what I saw it might as well have been a Catholic event.

Overall it was certainly worthwhile and a new experience, though I'm not convinced I want to jump into politics with both feet just yet. I heard this year's march had a record number of participants (one guy said 100k, another said 200k, so who knows, but I know from holding that banner for so long that there was a heck of a lot). And I heard we had about 50 Paul-ites, far more than I expected. I saw a few monks, an Italian government-advocacy group, a small marching band with bagpipes sporting German colors and flags, a guy toting an "Anarchist Athiest Against Abortion - Stop ALL Killing" sign, and plenty of other unexpected sights. Good times!

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*A few guys talked to Paul and got pictures with him right after his speech, but I stupidly stayed in the crowd and didn't think to hurry around to the street behind the stage while he was speaking. That would have been a lifelong memory for sure. A golden opportunity missed.

**For the record, I've never seen a minivan hold so many people. No kidding, there must have been a dozen or more of us in there. I'm sure we were breaking a few laws on that short trip. Good thing we're libertarians I guess; otherwise maybe we'd have asked questions first.

***One of the other flier dudes said a Huckabee guy accused him and the Paul camp of "hijacking" the march. Whatever. I suppose telling interested persons (and only interested persons) about the most pro-life candidate of the bunch (without trying to commandeer mike time, or otherwise interfere with the event at hand) or bringing our own on-topic signs is to be considered "hijacking?" I bet it wouldn't be an issue if the Huckster's ground network didn't suck so bad. Sore losers...

UPDATE: I talked to a couple of co-workers today who were also at yesterday's March. When I mentioned that I was there handing out Paul stuff, one guy responded, "Oh man, he had a huge presence there. He had signs everywhere and we didn't see any for the other candidates!" or something like that. The other guy had gone to the Verizon Center mass and pre-rally in the morning, which he said was PACKED and had no empty seats that he saw. I asked him if he got any Paul fliers or passed any supporters, and he said the Verizon Center was swarming with literature and he passed a few Paulites on his way to the mall. So if that's a representative sample, then the effort worked! The second guy also reminded me that Barack and Hillary were present, which I forgot to mention. One of the groups had made a huge (~12' tall) cutout for each of the Democratic frontrunners and added voice bubble things that said "I support abortion 100%" and "my voting record is 100% pro-abortion" or something close. They were raised high enough to be easily seen over the other marchers. Pretty funny.