Route 90 Run-N-Gun Campaign Tour continued: We headed into southern South Dakota where we first stopped in Spear Fish. The city limits sign has a picture of (that’s right) a fish with a spear through it. Clear enough. I put up a flier in the town grocery store, then Jonathan and I walked about a bit, including passing out some campaign cards to patrons in the Common Grounds Coffee Shop. Then it was on to Sturgis, SD, where the week before there had been the annual (and massive) Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. This year it was estimated there were some 600,000 bikers. We came across a few stragglers, but for the most part the bikers had cleared out. I stopped in at the Motorcycle Museum here, then walked about town passing out more campaign cards. Every chance I could, I said I was “pro-motorcycle.” Well, when in Rome… Then it was on to Rapid City, South Dakota. Note: We are asking our supporters to go about their town(s) posting and passing out handouts in as many places as possible. This is our answer to the big money campaigns. Grassroots.
Butch Cassidy and, well, Harry Longabaugh?
The I-90 Run-N-Gun Tour continues: While still in Wyoming, I noticed the tail pipe on our campaign vehicle was hanging by a thread. I went to Nappa for some muffler tape. I’ve gotta be the only presidential candidate buying muffler tape. And that populist appeal goes on, and on… We stopped in Sundance, Wyoming, right near the eastern border of that state. This is where Harry Longabaugh spent 18 months in jail for “horse rustling.” When Longabaugh got out, he helped form the Wild Bunch Gang, which then set out to establish the longest string of bank robberies in Old West history. Because of his time in the Sundance jail, Harry Longabaugh was dubbed: “The Sundance Kid.” Which was probably good. I mean, how much draw would a movie title like: Butch Cassidy and Harry Longabaugh have had, huh? Note: Speaking of crime (sort of), we have an extensive position paper on how to cut crime dramatically in this country (‘horse rustling’ notwithstanding). Note 2: While in downtown Sundance, I walked about passing out campaign cards to people on the street, then stopped in at the Aro Restaurant (town hub), where I put up a campaign card on the notice board and got a cup of coffee to go. While waiting, I noticed a sign behind the cash register. “Warm beer, lousy food, terrible service… Have a nice day!” Yet another five-star “average Joe” restaurant.
Street Fair
We have headed east out of Billings, Montana, on our I-90 Run-N-Gun Tour. (I realize this is a bit of a departure from our Moseying in Montana Tour, but the polls are showing we’re behind — and no one else has even declared yet!) Yesterday we stopped in Sheridan, Montana, where I lifted some weights at The Body Shop Gym, then the family and I headed downtown for a Street Fair with, it seemed like, a couple thousand people. Liz, the kids and I walked about passing out a lot of “average Joe” campaign cards, and talked politics. (Incidentally, we urge our supporters to get creative with making up some “average Joe” cards yourself and stump in your respective areas — and beyond.) At the street fair, I got in a conversation with Alex Lee, who is running for City Council in Sheridan. He said his biggest plank is a one cent tax on everything sold in Sheridan, which he estimates will generate $5 million a year for local roads, a senior center, and other city services. Shortly after talking to Mr. Lee, I found myself in a conversation with a couple from Clovis, NM, who were vacationing here. They said they’d like to see a simplified tax system where a certain percentage was taken from every dollar they made (with no tax loopholes, etc.). They weren’t adverse to paying taxes. “We are willing to pay taxes for the privilege of living in this country,” the husband said. Note: We propose a simplified, progressive tax with an easy to decipher one-page form.
Log Cabins, and such
Montana Moseying Campaign Tour cont: We stood in solidarity with a group protesting in front of an abortion clinic in Billings. (I told the Lewiston-Argus newspaper in Lewiston, Montana, several campaigns back, that as president I’d be protesting abortion on the streets as well.) Afterwards, we met with some of the pro-life group for coffee at the Log Cabin Bakery here. Move over Mr. Lincoln… We then headed southeast through the Crow Reservation, which includes the Little Big Horn Battle site… We got to Sheridan, Wyoming (voted the country’s best “western town”), at sunset. Note: Our Native American position paper was recently featured in a Cengage Learning college text book. Note 2: The Billings Gazette noted that Social Security is now 75 years old. Benefits are currently being paid to 53 million people, with an average monthly pay out of $1,026 a month. The SS Fund is in trouble because, in part, the government has continually borrowed money from the fund to finance various government projects, including waging war, according to a Gazzette op-ed piece. It is our belief, the SS Fund should be a “lock box” that the government can’t borrow from.
Mustangs
We went to a Billings, Montana, Mustang game with some friends. The Mustangs are a farm team of the Cincinnati Reds. (And no, they didn’t ask me to throw out the first pitch. I’m starting to get a complex.) For the first three innings, I walked about the stadium (it seats 3,500) passing out campaign cards. One Mustang fan, tongue-in-cheek, said he just heard that there was a new proposal for term limits. “Congresspeople get two terms. One in Congress — and one in prison,” he laughed, sort of… Earlier in the week, I talked at length with a man in Billings, who used to work for the U.S. Forest Service in Alaska. He said a key to healthy forests is regular selective cutting, to cut down on the intensity, and frequency, of forest fires, insect infestations, and the like. For more on our position on the environment…
right out of Mayberry
Having ended our Roaming Wyoming Campaign Tour, we have embarked on our Moseying in Montana Campaign Tour. (Notice, not only the consonance in ‘Moseying in Montana,’ but the implied western theme as well. And I even do my own speech writing, too.) Anyway… Crossing into Montana on I-120, we stopped first in Belfry, Montana. Belfry High School’s mascot (What else?): a bat. In fact, there’s a big black one, wings extended (the whole thing), hanging ominously in front of the school. In Belfry, I also passed on a campaign card to Earl Black who runs the town’s one-pump service station. It’s a throwback to, say, Mayberry. The services station has a small bay, air for town kids’ bicycles and no snacks inside. Earl said this little “Mom & Pop” station is having trouble anymore competing with nearby truck stops, convenient store gas stations, and the like. I paid for the gas, then offered Earl an extra five dollars — as a donation to help keep him going. Note: We do that periodically at small town “Mom & Pop” places (service stations, hardware stores, barber shops…), because we think it was these small stores, these small family farms, that was once the backbone of America. And should be again. See our position on this…
and they work, and work, and work…
Tying up loose ends from our Roaming Wyoming Campaign Tour… In Cody (as in “Wild Bill Cody”) Wyoming, we attended an Old West Show in the downtown area. While the kids watched the fake gun fight (they do it every weekday night in the summer), Liz walked about in her cowgirl hat, and me in my Cleveland Brown’s cap. passing out campaign cards to the audience. (Given some of my stances, I’m surprised none of the gunfighters aimed at me.) …We then headed north to seven miles before the Montana border on Highway 120. There we toured the Mt. Carmel Boy’s Youth Ranch. Troubled youth (drug and alcohol problems, behavioral problems, et. al…) are sent here by their parents from all over the country. Volunteer “house parents” here, said they had to actually hire a “transporter,” (former DEA agent) to come into their house in Kansas late at night, handcuff their son and transport him here. He had become severely addicted to marijuana and was becoming a threat to his family, the community… After six months of clean living and hard “cowboy work” on the ranch, the son turned things around and is now attending college and doing quite well… Youth Program Director Lester Dumm said that after the youth arrive here, they are stripped of any vestiges of the negative culture they often come from. No earrings, no jewelry, no wearing pants too low, no rock/rap music… Each is issued some cowboy jeans, cowboy shirts, cowboy boots… and a horse. They’re given a short time to learn how to ride (a couple hours), then sent out to the ranch to work, and work, and work… It’s a working ranch in the truest sense, and they learn early on, that they are valuable to the operation. Many of the youth have never had that type of responsibility, said Lester. And it becomes a key to their character development.
“…will carry the baby to term.”
We landed in Cody, Wyoming, as part of our Roaming Wyoming Campaign Tour. While here, I attended a Catholics United for Life meeting. They discussed an upcoming conference they were sponsoring titled: Making sense of In Vitro Fertilization and Embryonic Stem Cell Research. The conference, slated for Oct. 2, will be a look at: “…the “moral, medical and legal issues surrounding reproductive technology and regenerative medicine.” On the moral side, the Catholic Church teaches that embryonic stem cell research is wrong because it is believed life begins at the moment of conception. During the meeting, Rev. Dwayne Borgstrand, from St. Luke’s Anglican Church here, gave a presentation on the proposed new Heart Mountain Crisis Pregnancy Center to be located in Cody. He said figures showed that in the year 2008, there were 134 abortions at the abortion clinic in nearby Billings, Montana: for women with northern Wyoming addresses. Rev. Borgstrand said they were trying to raise funds for a sonogram machine for the center, because these figures show some 85% of women who see a sonogram picture of their child “…will carry the baby to term.”
…where the brave dare not go.
Our Roaming Wyoming Campaign Tour took us further north toward Cody (as in “Buffalo Bill” Cody), Wyoming. But we first stopped in tiny Meeteetse, Wyoming, where I passed out campaign cards in the downtown area. In the Meeteetse Museum there, I also learned that 14 miles to the west on “Pitchfork Ranch,” the Marlboro Man (Remember him?) commercials were filmed for the better part of two years. Unbeknownst to us, not only was the memory of the Marlboro Man lurking here, but someone else was ‘lurking’ here as well (we found out the next day). An escaped convict from an Arizona prison, who may have been involved with killing a couple campers in Yellowstone park during his exodus, was on the lam in Meeteetse the same day we were there. (He was caught by U.S. Marshalls the next morning while still in Meeteetse.) To say we go where other presidential candidates dare not go, would be, well, an understatement.
Gift of Waters…
We headed north out of Lander, Wyoming, stopping first in the town of Riverton on the Wind River Reservation. I passed out some campaign cards in the city park. Some fo the cards went to a group of motorcyclists heading to Sturgis, South Dakota, for the yearly mega-motor cycle rally there. One man, after reading the card, asked me for two more so he could pass them on to “the only two sober guys who will probably be in Sturgis.” …Leaving Riverton, we headed north through a long canyon to Thermopolis, Wyoming (pop. 3,150). This weekend is the 60th Anniversary of the Gift of the Waters (Historical Indian Pageant). This is the commemoration of Chief Washakie and his nation giving the gift of some hot springs in the area to the “white man” as a show of friendship. We entered the Average Joe Mobile in the Saturday morning parade here, passing out a lot of campaign cards along the route to shouts of “Go Joe!”, and the like. We then attended the evening performance of a reenactment of the “Gift of Waters,” complete with colorfully dressed Native American dancers, actors… About halfway through the performance, our seven-year- old, Jonathan, had to go “#1.” But there were no restrooms around. I took him out by the parking lot and positioned him behind a tree, and me. He was doing his thing, if you will, when unexpectedly a couple people appeared and walked right by us in the parking lot. Jonathan turned startled and, well, instead of the tree, my lower left leg was now in his trajectory, if you know what I mean. Apparently, Jonathan’s ‘Gift of Waters’ to me. And so it goes on the campaign trail…