- Wheeling, WV, got two Presidential candidates for the
price of one last Saturday as both John Kerry and George Bush were in town
as part of their respective campaigns.
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- But there were enough problems associated with both
visits that some of the people who attended either or both rallies certainly
did not wind up happy with either of the affairs.
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- It was nice for Wheeling to get Presidential candidates
for the first time since George Wallace was there during his campaign in
the late 1960s, but there were enough problems associated with the Bush
and Kerry visits that some attendees of either or both visits did not wind
up happy with either of the affairs.
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- I was one of those persons who decided to go see both
visits if it was possible to fit both of them in to the afternoon and evening.
The reason there was a question of being able to go to both was that Bush's
visit, announced just the day previously, overlapped Kerry's to a degree.
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- It was only Thursday, for instance, that word started
filtering through the Wheeling grapevine that Bush was planning to have
his motorcade from Cambridge, Ohio, to Pittsburgh drive through a small
portion of Wheeling on its way between both cities.
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- By Friday, local reporters for the Wheeling television
station and newspapers had heard those rumors, made some fast phone calls
and came out with stories detailing what little they could find out about
the Presidential visit on short notice.
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- Briefly put, the idea was that Bush's motorcade would
drop off of Interstate 70 at an exit by a local restaurant, then proceed
about a mile and a half on U.S. Route 40 to Washington Avenue, then take
Washington back to Interstate 70 to continue on to Pittsburgh. Added into
the short tour, perhaps at the last minute, was a Presidential visit to
the new Cabela's store which is supposed to open during the first half
of August.
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- Bush made it through that small area of Wheeling, but
the stop at Cabela's was apparently the only stop he made along the way.
Rumor on the street had it that he stopped very briefly at a local church
to shake hands with potential voters, but there were no stories in the
local newspapers showing that he did that.
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- There were sparse crowds lining Washington Avenue where
I saw the Presidential motorcade pass through, maybe two or three hundred
people spread out over about a mile of the three or four mile course of
the motorcade through Wheeling. The motorcade arrived about an hour to
an hour and a half late, and when it finally came around the corner of
Route 40 and Washington it just kept rolling on through. A few people got
a bare glimpse of Bush, who was reported to be standing in the front of
the bus so he could be glimpsed through the windshield. It would have been
nice if he had stopped somewhere and talked with people even a little bit.
After all, it's only a once in a lifetime chance for an American citizen
to see a U.S. President despite what you think of him.
- Interestingly enough, the bus motorcade was larger than
I thought it would have been. There were two campaign buses, with Bush
in the second one, followed by four press buses and several other buses
carrying other persons in the entourage.
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- With the Bush drive-through having been accomplished
in short order, it was time to go on and see if it was still possible to
see John Kerry. By this time it was 5 p.m. or a little after, just past
the time when Kerry was supposed to start speaking at Wheeling's riverfront
park which used to be the old Wharf during the glory days of the river
steamboats.
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- By the time I got there, most of a crowd later estimated
to contain 15,000 people had already arrived. The remainder of that crowd
were still trying to get in, which was a slow process due to a bank of
metal detectors which stretched across the street bordering the ampitheater
at the old Wharf where the potential attendees were being screened.
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- There were at least three lines of people waiting to
get through that security checkpoint, with one of those lines stretching
completely around the opposite side of the block onto Main Street. I got
into a shorter line, but it still took a certain amount of time to get
through the screening process.
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- Once that was over, a short walk down to the main part
of the ampitheater showed that all the seats in the ampitheater were already
taken, and the only thing to do was wait by a fenced-off area in the street
that kept the crowds away from where Kerry, Edwards and other dignitaries
at the rally would be entering the ampitheater. The hope was that Kerry
would spend at least the couple of minutes necessary to shake hands with
the crowd of people lining the fence. If he did, I had my old mechanical
35mm film camera ready with a zoom lens on it that had a wide-angle feature
to it.
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- I was lucky in that Kerry was running late also. Unfortunately,
I was unlucky in encountering a number of factors that led to me not being
able to see Kerry on foot in a position to at least get his picture.
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- When his bus pulled up into the small area its front
was only about 20 to 25 yards in front of me ñ easily within range
of the small zoom lens I had on the camera which went up to an 80mm high
end setting. Unfortunately, Kerry managed to get off the bus and into the
main crowd lining the back side of the ampitheater like Obi Wan Kenobe
sneaking into the Death Star. You literally could not catch of glimpse
of him as he got off the bus and down into the crowded ampitheater. I was
watching closely all the time with the camera ready, but neither I or any
of the other persons around me with cameras saw him get off.
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- The plan then was to wait until he came back out after
his speech. But he must have handshaked himself out as he worked his way
out of the ampitheater after his speech. He did not walk around the very
short stretch of fence shaking hands. In fact, he was as impossible to
see getting back onto the bus as he was impossible to see getting off of
the bus. As far as exit and entry from the campaign bus, he has to be known
from now on as The Stealth Candidate. The only look I got at him was when
he suddenly appeared as if by magic in the actual front of the bus, discernible
through the huge windshield of the bus. I did get several shots of him
in the one minute's time he stood in the front of the bus waving to us
fence sitters, but that was it. I still haven't gotten that film developed
so I have no idea if it turned out okay or not.
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- The best I can say for the Kerry rally in a personal
sense is that at least I got a minute's view of John Kerry as he was standing
in the front of his bus waving at us. I hadn't known that Bush was on the
second bus in his motorcade, and missed seeing him. Only a few people around
me had gotten a fleeting look at Bush in the front of his bus as it went
rolling past us on Washington Avenue.
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- If you were in the same position as I was ñ arriving
late at the Kerry rally and not being able to find a seat in the ampitheater
ñ getting a photo of him would have been impossible except for that
little minute at the end before his caravan pulled out. And hearing the
speech he and Edwards gave was next to impossible. The public address system
did not have any speakers nearby, apparently, and it was extremely hard
to hear the speakers except when they were practically shouting into the
microphone, apparently. And seeing down into the ampitheater from the street
was just impossible. It would have been better for the people on the street
if the rally would have been held at some place other than an ampitheater,
where the speakers would have been on an elevated platform where they would
have been seen by everybody.
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- Summing up, the day was a total writeoff as far as I
was concerned. I set out hoping to get a clear look at the two candidates
and a photo or two of each of them. At this moment I don't know if I was
successful in the case of Kerry, which was the best chance I got.
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- I know that with all the stops and speeches they have
to make in one day, these candidates have to get back on the bus and move
on to the next stop at some point. But perhaps, in the interest of keeping
all the potential voters happy, they could cut down on the number of appearances
they make in one day.
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- That suggestion was mainly in reference to Kerry, since
it had been established well in advance that he was going to be in Wheeling
right after the Democratic convention.
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- The Bush visit seemed to be a slightly different type
of situation, since his Wheeling visit seemed to be decided on the spur
of the moment with hardly any advance notice being given in Wheeling that
he would be there.
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- The general reaction from people I talked to was that
Bush merely wanted to be able to steal some of Kerry's thunder in Wheeling,
perhaps, by suddenly having a fast drive through a very small section of
that city. That would have been okay by me if he had simply chosen to stop
the bus and get out to shake hands at a couple of points along the way.
After all, the law enforcement personnel present on Washington Avenue had
stopped all the traffic on that street so nothing was moving there. The
Republicans were obviously paying the tab for the bus rental, so there
would have been no problem with getting the driver to stop the bus so Bush
could get out. While security was not as tight as at the Kerry rally, the
situation on Washington Avenue was that there were a number of West Virginia
State police and other law enforcement officers, plus a number of Secret
Service men on the bus, to handle any situation from the very sparse crowd
in attendance.
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- All in all, I was very disappointed with how both visits
went. I spent seven hours trying to get a decent look at either one of
the two candidates, and perhaps a photo or two of each, and came up empty
on both counts. When I spoke with my mother later in the evening, I was
forced to the conclusion that holds true in NFL championship games also
ñ I would have been further ahead sitting down in front of a TV
set and watching the proceedings rather than going out and wasting the
time involved.
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- Say what you will about old George Wallace. When he
visited Wheeling back in the late 1960s during his Presidential campaign,
he at least was smart enough to be standing on an elevated stage in the
Wheeling Plaza so everybody could get a clear look at him and have the
chance to get a decent photograph of him. Problem is, it's been approximately
30-35 years between Presidential candidate visits to Wheeling. Chances
are that I'm going to be dead from natural causes before the next such
visit, considering the fact that I'm57 now.
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