Thursday, August 27, 2009

Obama Tries To Break A Bucking Bronc

Bronco Barack Obama decided to take his socialized medicine show to Bozeman, Montana. He figured the locals would be a pushover for his Chicago Wranglers and Union Rustlers. "Well, howdy pardner" said the real cowboys and Big Sky residents. And they proceeded to show the city slicker that you don't push Montanans around that easily.

In my final year of law school, I got so annoyed by all things California that I looked into the possibility of getting out of Dodge. One of several locations I looked into was Bozeman, Montana. What a place! Unfortunately, my wife got out her Sunset Gardening Book, and when she discovered that orchids didn't grow well in the Montana climate, my adventure was over. But when I read some of the reports of the Obama fiasco there, I at least had an idea of where he was and what he was facing. The people in the Bozeman area are not that far removed from the pioneers who built the West. They're courteous, but they're tough. And they don't take well to people coming into town to lecture them and bamboozle the rest of the nation into thinking that Montana is the alternate Obama heartland.

Those of us who don't live in the Rockies don't realize that Bozeman, with a population of less than 40,000 is considered a fairly large city by Montana standards. This is a state of great vistas (it's not called Big Sky Country for nothing), climate extremes, and great expanses of land between population centers. Fresh from his grand tour of the Grand Canyon, Obama took his show on the road and headed for Montana. He assumed that folks who were not from Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City wouldn't know a stage show when they saw one. And what a staged show this was.

Obama's impending visit was officially barely publicized. Bozeman and Belgrade both have arenas with places for parking, gathering, and seating. They are only large gymnasiums or auditoriums, but then you're not going to get a crowd of 100,000 to attend an Obama town hall photo op if you depend entirely on the locals in Montana. Still, Bronco Barack was taking no chances that even 3 or 4 thousand angry citizens were going to show up for his town hall lecture on socialized medicine. So he very quietly scheduled the meeting to take place at the airport which is located in a somewhat isolated area between Bozeman and Belgrade. On top of that, the meeting was to take place in an even more isolated hangar on the outskirts of the airport.

Lack of general notice to the public doesn't mean that the Obamacrats hadn't given notice to someone. How many SEIU members, ACORN workers and other paid operatives could there be in a state as sparsely populated as Montana? I don't know the answer to that question, but somehow they all managed to show up on schedule for the Obama arrival. And along with a contingent from Planned Parenthood, electronic bullhorns, and professionally-produced pro-Obama signs and tee-shirts, they arrived in large groups. In buses, and caravans.

But the Montanans are not the ignorant rubes that Obama had pictured. To start with, 94% of the citizens of Bozeman have high school diplomas, and 50% have bachelor's degrees or higher. Can Chicago say that? A few employees at the airport got wind of the visit, and the word quickly spread to Bozeman and beyond. Neighbor called neighbor, and pretty soon the word had gotten out all over the state. They were largely annoyed by Obama's tax plans (there had been earlier tea-party protests throughout the state, including the capital at Helena). They were even angrier about the Obama socialized medicine plan. But they were angriest of all about the way Obama and his press corps and community-organization thugs had set things up to make this town hall meeting look like Montana was Big Obama Country.

About 150 pro-Obama shills from the SEIU and other groups arrived in the middle of the night before the meeting. The locals hadn't organized themselves yet, so they were a bit surprised to find all the choice spots taken up by people that none of the locals recognized. The locals started arriving early the morning of the Obama Snake Oil show, only to find that outside squatters were already trying to control the venue. The local police ordered the shills to disperse from the central area in order to allow proper crowd-control and to give everyone an equal chance to get into the choice spots. The SEIU simply out-shouted and outnumbered the police and the early local arrivals.

Once again, the word spread quickly that this whole thing was nothing more than a giant photo op set up by the Obamists. That got the Montana adrenalin flowing. People began arriving from all over the state (and that's one helluva big state to drive around in). Meanwhile, the locals began to organize voluntarily (unlike the paid shills from the Obama camp). From being outnumbered three or four to one in the early morning, the protesters had by late morning or early afternoon more than equaled the number of the Obama paid apparatchiks. Eventually, to counter the SEIU bullhorns, some of the locals showed up with a fire truck to use as a stage, complete with a very loud public address system.

The SEIU members were very menacing in the early stages. But as the numbers of the protesters began to swell, they realized that their physical and obscenity-laced vocal threats were falling on deaf ears, and that they would soon be outnumbered. More Obama plants continued to arrive, always in groups, but the disparity in numbers continued to favor the protesters, and in ever-growing numbers. No organized groups showed up to protest. Just individuals, and families, and friends in small numbers that added up to bigger and bigger numbers. At least two of the SEIU thugs appeared to have gotten orders to start a fight. The locals were not the least bit intimidated, but refused to to rise to the bait. They knew that the paid photographers from the Obama groups would use a fight to prove that these ordinary citizens were actually vicious fascists using violence to shut down a peaceful Obama assembly.

By the time Bronco Barack arrived, the crowd was running about three or four to one against the President's message. Many had come completely neutral, prepared to ask hard questions, and ended up with the protesters because of the manner in which they were pushed out of the way by the Obama thugs. The Fund for Public Interest with its Montana headquarters in Missoula, had been paying its recruits $10 to $15 per hour to "go out into the communities and help make change happen." They were well-represented and well-paid at the Obama show. But none of their organized and funded activities were sufficient to overcome the spontaneous outpouring of local activism. The "community organizers" failed to make this an easy Obama victory.

Not only did the Obama photo op fail, but they weren't even smart enough to see what was coming. The Sunday before the Obama show was set up, Montana Senator Max Baucus had showed up at a protest meeting at the Museum of the Rockies. As one tea-party participant described it: "Baucus, who acted like John the Baptist clearing the way for the arrival of the Chosen One, was in town to promote the Make Health Happen Montana conference." Baucus got a real earful. The protesters credited Baucus with the courage to show up, and allowed him to speak. But he wasn't expecting the grueling question session that followed. So in order to cover his failure, he told the local newspaper that this was "the closest thing to a mob that I've ever experienced in my life." He then proceeded to tell an outright lie about a contingent of paid protesters being bused in from Texas.

So the airport photo op went terribly awry. The SEIU brigades on one side, and local cowboys, nurses, doctors, merchants, and other ordinary citizens with hand-lettered signs and serious questions on the other. Obama's Big Sky plan turned into the Obama Cow-Pie in the Sky town hall.

To all my fellow American citizens in Bozeman and throughout Montana, this San Franciscan says: "I love the smell of horse manure in the morning. It smells like victory!"

31 comments:

Writer X said...

Love the Bronco Barack visual. Hopefully he wasn't wearing Calvin Klein jeans at the Townhall.

I love Bozeman. I'm not surprised that the people there challenged him. They know a snake oil salesman when they see one--and they're not afraid to call it like they see it. So refreshing.

I wonder if Max Baucus's days are numbered?

AndrewPrice said...

Writer X, I think Michelle had the jeans that night.

Nice description of these events Lawhawk. I think it's great when Americans stand up to paid thugs. What a wonderful country.

Unknown said...

WriterX: I think Michelle brought her entire supply of Calvins for him to wear! He's lucky he didn't get horse-whipped just for that.

From what I understand, Baucus was losing popularity even before he jumped on the Obamacare bandwagon. If he wants to keep that seat, he'd better hop off that bandwagon fast, and start talking genuine, non-government funded health care reform (we'd be glad to send him our plan).

Unknown said...

Andrew: She brought a whole trunk full of Calvins, carried by twenty-two of her personal assistants.

Baucus and Obama both found out that you can disagree with Montanans, but you don't lie to them, and you don't talk down to them. That came as a surprise to Obama, but Baucus should have known that already.

Tennessee Jed said...

A great post. We used to have a program insuring rodeo's and rodeo riders. I am certain we would have cancelled the Obama policy.

On a more serious note, the more I see how these people operate, the more they sicken me, but my confidence is growing a message will be delivered in 2010 and 2012.

David Mink said...

Hi-larious!

Funny post, I love the writing!

Unknown said...

Tennessee: I think he missed another opportunity. Since he is demonstrating on a daily basis that he can shoot himself in the foot, I'm sure the Westerners would have enjoyed a demonstration of his sharp-shooting skills. I am feeling, on an ever-growing scale, that the American people are ultimately going to throw Bronco Barack under the stagecoach.

Unknown said...

David Mink: Thanks for the thumb-up. I hope you'll join us regularly.

patti said...

this settles it, i'm staying in texas. y'all get here as fast as y'all can. i'll keep the light on for ya.

Unknown said...

Patti: You're my pal. I'm organizing my getaway. I'll let you know when the big day comes. We can all meet at the Alamo. Thanks God I had an office manager from Tyler, TX. He taught me how to speak proper English. Although I've never been sure how authentic he was. When my younger daughter and I invited him to join us for a day on horseback, he told me he was afraid of horses. Is such a thing possible?

LL said...

I was surprised that the Messiah went to Montana. What was he thinking?

He needs to stay in the rust belt or on the Eastern Seaboard to feel the love and to keep close to his union roots.

Unknown said...

LL: It's a combination of his believing his own propaganda and trusting his advance cadres to clear the area of demagogues, fascists, and unpatriotic rabble-rousers (aka ordinary American citizens not allied with a leftist union or a community-organizing group).

patti said...

law: afeerd of horses?! sounds suspicious.

fyi: b-i-l has a huga-ass ranch down deep south texas way. i told him when the time comes, we are bogarting it and starting a compound. plenty of hogs/deer/rabbits and fresh springs.

Unknown said...

Patti: Sounds like heaven. My kids think I'm slightly nuts. After spending my whole life in population centers and involved in local affairs, now I'm telling them that I don't care if I have to live in a shack without indoor plumbing, as long as I can look in any direction and see not a single human being who wasn't invited onto my property.

MegaTroll said...

Lawhawk, Montana sounds like a great place. You missed your calling being an attorney, you should have been a reporter. I can see this all unfolding as you're writing it, how the good guys slowly start showing up and the bad guys start to get quieter and quieter. It's too bad the cops didn't arrest more of the bad guys when they resisted early on.

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, I know that when Baucus got elected, it was because the Republican was weak and Baucus ran to his right. I guess that didn't work out as well as the voters of Montana had figured.

StanH said...

Great read Lawhawk! I hadn’t read this but I wondered how regular folk would take to that snob, our Barry, yuk. Montana is fly over country squared, these are salt of the earth people I’m sure that they can distinguish hooey fast. This rent-a-mob junk this guy is pulling is dangerous and dumb. Let us know when you ride off into the sunset there little-doggy, …Ha!

Unknown said...

MegaTroll: Thanks for the compliment. Everything I learned, I learned from WriterX. Now if she'll just get me an agent (and something to write about), I'll be all set. LOL

Writer X said...

LawHawk, I can't stress enough how wildly popular an OBAMA'S GREATEST GAFFES coffee table book (a la Kramer) would sell! Instead of the shape of a coffee table, it should be in the shape of a teleprompter. You'll make millions.

AndrewPrice said...

Writer X, That's actually a brilliant idea!

Unknown said...

Andrew: I actually was working with a company here in San Francisco when Baucus was elected. One of the managers was from Montana. He said he thought Baucus would get elected because the Republican was running a weak campaign, and Democrats in Montana tend to be a lot more conservative than what we're used to on the left coast. He also thought Baucus was a one-term wonder. He may have been right.

StanH: I really liked Montana when I made that tour to look at possible moves. I also looked into Missoula and Kalispell. I'm sure I would have been welcome and happy in any of them. I suspect the same would be true today, although I would try to hide my Chicago and San Francisco connections. Oddly, when I told them where I was from (Simi Valley, at the time), most of the people there had heard of it. And this was long before the Rodney King trials. The whole thing was dead-in-the-water since my [now ex] wife didn't like large open spaces, guns, wild animals, domestic animals, and long drives to the stores. It later turned out she didn't much like me, either (though I can't fault her for that). Oh, well.

Unknown said...

WriterX: A coffee table shaped like a teleprompter, with built-in ashtrays. Ya think?

Writer X said...

And a built-in coaster for a martini. You're gonna need to give the reader an opportunity to drink heavily, especially given the content.

Unknown said...

WriterX: And we'll do the whole thing in ebony and ivory, since we're now completely post-racial.

Writer X said...

LOL. Okay, Lawhawk. My side is aching. Please stop. And don't ask me to sing or you'll be sorry.

Cheryl said...

You guys crack me up!
I love this site!
Informative and funny!

Unknown said...

WriterX: Remember, we're lawyers. Our main job is to inflict the maximum amount of pain. LOL

Unknown said...

Cheryl: Thanks, and I'm glad you're enjoying the site. Andrew and I have been cracking each other up for months now. Unfortunately, the mental health authorities are now looking for us.

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks Cheryl, we aim to please! :-)

Idocrates said...

The comments are truly entertaining,especially when the posted article is as interesting as Bronco Barak.The suggestion by MegaTroll that LawHawlSF should have chose a different vocation would have been good for the media. However I have had the opportunity of seeing him in action pursuing legal vocation. It was like going to a sword fight with the Hawk showing up with a Thompson Sub, no contest.He could generate more pleadings on the fly than an office of Philadelphians could with their secretaries.
Cutting and accurate are the best verb,adjective combination to apply to LawHawkSF. More succinct would be, he is just your friendly neighborhood Wordsmith.

Unknown said...

Idocrates: Thanks for the high compliment. Buried in law books or putting on a hammy performance in court were the places I felt most at home, from the very first minute. Still, I find what I'm doing now to be equally satisfying. If Andrew and I get our message out, we'll have something to be very proud of.

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