{"id":20428,"date":"2011-06-06T11:01:18","date_gmt":"2011-06-06T17:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=20428"},"modified":"2011-06-06T10:47:51","modified_gmt":"2011-06-06T16:47:51","slug":"whilst-on-grand-avenue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=20428","title":{"rendered":"Whilst On Grand Avenue"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was out at Grand Old Day yesterday. \u00a0I took a stroll down the avenue from Fairview to about Victoria, and then back. \u00a0With about 200,000 people out there in high-80s heat and tropical humidity, it was warm <\/em>out there.<\/p>\n

But the Saint Paul GOP booth was set up in a nice bit of shade a block or so east of Lexington. \u00a0I stopped by to chat with the crew there, including the St. Paul GOP’s school board candidates Pat Igo, Lizz Paulsen and Kevin Huepenbecker.<\/p>\n

Now, when you’re a Republican in Saint Paul, you expect <\/em>a certain amount of flak; most of it rote and unimaginative, some of it just plain weird. \u00a0It’s normal, I suppose, when you’re in a one party town where the majority have never had <\/em>to defend their assumptions.<\/p>\n

It was, apparently, no exception on Sunday. \u00a0There were lots <\/em>of people out on the avenue, and most, not unexpectedly, didn’t care about politics at all. \u00a0And most that did were perfectly polite.<\/p>\n

Oh, there were some of the usual crowd, the ones we get at the fair; the ones that chant a few chanting points (“Single Payer Now! \u00a0Single Payer Now!”) and scamper away before anyone can engage them. And there was one nutter, apparently a former DFL candidate who’d lost an election, who came to the booth, sputtered for a bit, and when challenged, interrupted; “I’m not here to discuss with you; I’m here to tell <\/em>you!”.<\/p>\n

But while I was standing there, a couple of women – drawn, dessicated, haggard-looking fiftysomethings who’d clearly had a couple of Bud Lights at the beer garden – brushed past me. \u00a0“You people are cray-zee<\/em>“, said the first woman, wearing a beer cap and a beer T-shirt.<\/p>\n

“Really?”, I responded. \u00a0“How so?”<\/p>\n

The woman, standing on the other side from me of a family, with a couple of small children, bellowed “you can’t run a government with no f***ing money<\/em>!”. \u00a0Before we could point out that the GOP is offering to\u00a0raise <\/em>the budget, her and her friends waddled away, waving their arms like they were guiding aircraft in to a flight deck. \u00a0“You know, there’s kids here”, I yelled after her. \u00a0“Might wanna, y’know, watch the language…”<\/p>\n

But they were gone.<\/p>\n

And I thought – was this yet another symptom of the St.Paul DFL’s approach to everything<\/em>? \u00a0Their ends justify their means? \u00a0Gotta break eggs to make a vegan omelette; your mania trumps everyone else’s rights? \u00a0If you wanna yell, then you’re gonna yell, and screw anyone in the way?<\/p>\n

Or was it just a couple of drunks, babbling?<\/p>\n

I kept 0n walking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was out at Grand Old Day yesterday. \u00a0I took a stroll down the avenue from Fairview to about Victoria, and then back. \u00a0With about 200,000 people out there in high-80s heat and tropical humidity, it was warm out there. But the Saint Paul GOP booth was set up in a nice bit of shade […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mngop","category-st-paul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20429,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20428\/revisions\/20429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}