Sunday, June 22, 2008

In Which I Confront Mark Udall re: His FISA Vote

Since it's an election year, there are predictable amount of politicians at Denver Pride. (Strangely Congressional Rep. Diana DeGette CO-01 was not there this year, and I have seen her there consistently over the years. Anyway, that's not important. She voted the right way on FISA.)

But a CO Congressional rep who voted the WRONG way on FISA was there; Mark Udall. And he's campaining for Wayne Allard's seat in the Senate.

It was approximately 10:00 in the morning, today, that I snagged this film. I saw Udall's campaign crowd moving along, but had lost track of Mark himself, who was working the side of the street shaking hands. I finally saw where he was because this woman had buttonholed him about FISA, and the little group around started to press closer to hear what he was saying. The woman did interrupt him, because he at one point said, "The important thing is that we stood up to the President." And she said "NO, you DIDN'T!" and he said "Let me finish!"


Let me continue some from where the video stops when I was yellling about Judicial Review.

I was waving my hands trying to get his attention. I was welcomed by "A Look" and then a swift turn of the heel. I continued, "Judicial Review is STILL IMMUNITY! Do you think we're stupid?" The crowd around me was muttering, and starting to be interactive with me. There was a smattering of "They do think we're stupid" and "We're in Democrat Central right here right now. They know we have no where else to go." You get the idea.

Udall just kept moving, smiling and waving. Perfectly professional.

So I started talking more with that little group around. I asked where they knew about the whole FISA fiasco. Astoundingly, to me anyway, only one was a blog reader, and it was the lady who asked Udall the question in the first place. She caught the vote and then the roll call from Huffington Post. Had never heard of Firedoglake or Glenzilla. The others had heard it from emails from friends or Olbermann from the Thursday night show with Turley. But somehow, these people were relatively informed, cared, and didn't like Udall's response.

None of them wanted to be recorded in any way, voice or video. And I really can't blame them. That made making the video a little harsh, but I promised them I wouldn't. So.....

I told them that Obama had released a statement in support of the FISA bill. The blog lady knew the lingo; she said, "I'm going to have to hold my nose on this one" and the others grinned and laughed to whatever degree.

The Obama campaign actually was after Udall; I just portrayed in reverse in the film for story telling continutity's sake. The O campaign folk were handing out printouts of Obama's LGBT stance. They tried to hand me one and I told the woman, nope, don't need one, and by the way, you guys on the inside of the campaign need to pressure Obama about his FISA stance.

She blinked. "What's that one?" she asked. I replied the whole telecom spying thing. She said, Oh, he's against that. I said "read the campaigns statement from Friday; he's supporting it."

She blinked again and said "No he's not."

I laughed out loud. The others around me from the Udall encounter were all shaking their heads at the campaign lady. I said, "Yes he is. Go look for yourself." Her last response was "No he's not. He's just not that way."

They marched cheerfully on, cheering and chanting.

I looked at the older guy next to me, and went "Baaaaaa."

He grinned, and looked at the ground, his sandals I suppose, since he kicked at a little piece of grass. Looked back up and said:

"It is what it is, I guess."

Yep.


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