In Traverse City, Bush faces “largest demonstration in history”

By Eartha Melzer
Sun contributor
TRAVERSE CITY, Monday August 16 — Despite northern Michigan’s reputation as a Republican stronghold, more than a thousand protestors took to the streets to crash George W. Bush’s party at the Traverse City Civic Center earlier this month. The acting commander-in-chief flew into Cherry Capitol Airport on Air Force One and played golf at the Grand Traverse Resort, according to Glen Arbor Sun sources, before addressing a crowd of more than 10,000 supporters late in the afternoon. The incumbent currently trails Democratic candidate John Kerry in Michigan as November’s presidential election looms on the horizon. A majority of this state’s voters are taking issue with his economic, environmental and civil rights policies as well as the disastrous war in Iraq, forcing Bush to court voters outside the labor union strongholds of southeastern Michigan in an attempt to win the state’s valuable electoral votes. He is the first acting president to visit northern Michigan since Gerald Ford 30 years ago. — Ed

U.S. Representative Bart Stupak addressed area Democrats in the parking lot of the Democratic headquarters off 8th Street. Bush has failed to deliver on protecting the Great Lakes, Stupak said. The Bush plan is to allow raw sewage to discharge into Great Lakes waters, he said. “From Detroit and Milwaukee, 10 billion gallons of raw sewage with all the parasites and bacteria that goes along with it…”
“We don’t need another study about what to do with the studies! We need clean up.”
Stupak said that Bush’s rotten environmental record is eroding his support among moderate Republicans.
The Democrats then marched down the street to the Civic Center and converged with a colorful mass of demonstrators, including members of the Sierra Club with signs about the impact of Bush’s weakening of mercury emission regulations.
Traverse City has always been known as a Republican stronghold, but last Monday — in what local historian Larry Wakefield termed the largest demonstration in the city’s history — over a thousand people gathered to protest a campaign appearance by George W. Bush.
Captain Morgan of the Traverse City Police Department estimated the crowd of demonstrators at between 1,000 and 1,500.
For hours before Bush was scheduled to speak, those with tickets to the rally (organizers say 14,000 tickets were handed out) filed into the Civic Center along a sidewalk flanked by a crowd carrying signs and energetically speaking out about the war, job loss, environmental degradation, reproductive freedom and other civil rights issues.
(Front Street was closed between Fair and Garfield and the Huntington Bank at Campus Plaza was ordered closed by Secret Service — there were three bank robberies during a recent stop in Iowa.)
The atmosphere was festive. A giant puppet, a woman in a Chicken Little costume, and mock secret service agents on stilts circulated through the mass of demonstrators which included babies, grandparents and people in wheelchairs. A woman with a French horn played “Send in the Clowns” and “Hail to the Chief” (during which demonstrators chanted “Hail to the Thief!”). There was drumming, accordian playing and a theater troupe that pulled a naked King George on a charriot and chanted, “The Emperor Wears no Clothes!”
One woman on her way to see Bush plugged her ears and talked loudly to herself to avoid listening to the demonstrators. Others engaged in debate. Several said that Bush’s anti-abortion stance is the single issue that will motivate them in the polls. Many acknowledged, with amused tolerance as they pressed through the crowd, that freedom of expression is a treasured and respected right.
The Civic Center, a county-owned recreational complex, had been rented to the Republican National Committee for the day. At least one woman, local teacher Kathryn Mead, was denied access to the event, even though she had a ticket, when she refused to remove her sticker in support of John Kerry. Others were forced to remove political buttons.
Kate Stephan, chair of the Grand Traverse Republican Party said the Bush campaign has the right to admit whom it chooses.
In some towns along the campaign trail people attending the Bush event were required to sign oaths of support.
Earlier this summer the national American Civil Liberties Union sent a memo to groups planning protests. It asked people to note whether the President appeared in his official capacity as President or as a candidate for the Presidency and whether Bush supporters are allowed closer to the President than other types of demonstrators. The ACLU is considering a nationwide class action suit against the Bush campaign for disrespecting First Amendment rights.
Meanwhile, The New York Times reported on the day of Bush’s appearance in Traverse City that FBI agents have been covertly intimidating activists all over the United States and discouraging them from attending the Republican National Convention next week in New York City (Look for coverage of RNC in the September 16 issue of the Glen Arbor Sun). — Ed
After supporters and protestors alike had milled around for hours and the country music band Trick Pony had finished it’s opening act, the Bush motorcade sped into the Civic Center through a crowd of hundreds.
As the motorcade whipped by, local activist and occasional Glen Arbor Sun contributor Holly Spaulding stepped forward in order to be more visible. Holly had been told by police that the “NO MORE BUSHIT” banner she was holding would have to be taken down when Bush’s entourage arrived, but she wanted to make sure that Bush was aware of the opposition massed around the Civic Center.
Spaulding, along with Terri DeFillipo was immediately arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for breaching the “sterile zone” set up by the Secret Service along the motorcade route.
And when their attorney, Mark Messing, attempted to speak with them, he too was arrested.
Once in custody, Spaulding said, she was questioned in an intimidating way by a man who had a wire in his ear, but no badge, and said he was with the Secret Service.
“He said, ‘If you talk to me, OK. If you don’t talk to me it will start an investigation. He asked me: Who did you come with? Are you part of a group? … How you feel about the President?”
Messing said police told him, “Relax, they are just going to take them, remove them from the site, and when this is over they will let them go.”
Messing is outraged that Spaulding and DeFillipo were detained in this manner, forcefully questioned without an attorney present and that he was arrested for identifying himself to police and attempting to represent his clients.
“Clearly no one is paying attention to the Bill of Rights here,” said Messing of the arrest scenario, “…By arresting me they’ve compromised my clients’ abilities to have their attorney of choice. Messing said he intends to pursue this matter.
“Apparently, this president is not able to expose himself to anyone who doesn’t agree with him,” added Messing.
Many people photographed and videotaped the incident (video clips are available online at www.ventingmedia.com).
“I think it’s good that they were willing to put themselves out there,” said 14-year-old Emma Cook who participated in the demonstrations and witnessed the arrests, “(Bush) knew that we were out there and that we were willing to do a lot to get our message across …that’s why they drove so fast.”
Despite the arrests, representatives from the Traverse City Police, the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Department, the State Police and the Secret Service all said that the event turned out well — no security problems, no one hurt, no garbage left behind.
“It was a great day for Traverse City, said local attorney Blake Ringsmuth, who called Monday’s demonstration the most vibrant expression of First Amendment rights he’d ever seen in this town.
Ringsmuth said that in the past people with opposing views may have been hesitant to speak out because of the areas identity as a Republican stronghold but Monday’s Anti-Bush demonstrations were…“Rejuvenating. Galvanizing… a huge day for Democrats and for those who don’t believe in the way this country is going.”
— Glen Arbor Sun editor Jacob Wheeler contributed to this article