July 29-August 4, 2004

city beat

Scenes from a Political Rally

At John Kerry's last pre-convention stump event, witty T-shirts and buttons were unforgettable.

by Rebecca Bellville

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry stopped by the Philadelphia Museum of Art for a rally Tuesday night. Droves of enthusiastic supporters who braved the hit-and-miss weather, even as the would-be commander in chief intoned predictable lines such as "I will and I can fight a more effective war on terror than George Bush is" and "I think we need a president who fights for your jobs as much as he fights for his own job."

It's hard to blame him for being a little predictable. After all, who can write a different speech for every event during a never-ending campaign. But some of the buttons and T-shirts sported in the audience offered a blunter message.

Sure, there were standard buttons, like rally volunteer Keith Krebs' "Jersey Republicans for Kerry," but how about the boardwalk-worthy "Asses of Evil," as in Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld? Along environmental lines, others declared that "Some things are never meant to be recycled." Like a president named Bush, for instance.

When it came to T-shirts, among the more notable iron-ons (OK, maybe not, but who doesn't love an iron-on decal?) were "Regime change begins at home" and "Hail to the Thief," the latter coming complete with a cartoon rendering of Dubya. Need something a little racier? Well, you could have tried the "We're so fucked" or "Where's Lee Harvey Oswald when you need him?" garments. (By the way, he's dead, and assassination is not a joke.)

"If you aren't completely appalled, then you aren't paying attention," read a shirt donned by Marion Leary of Northern Liberties.

Leary says she's "very anti-Bush." Further, she says, "The more I hear about Kerry the more I like him," adding, "Everything I hear about him in Vietnam, he doesn't shy away from things."

Leary's partner, Lara Kelly, says she has grown more patriotic with Bush in office because she doesn't like the direction the country is going. "If you disagree with anything, it's unpatriotic. That's bullshit," Kelly says. "I want Kerry to win more than I've wanted anything else in my whole life."

Kelly wasn't alone, of course. Krebs, from Clifton, N.J., ran for a state assembly seat last year as a Republican, but he won't follow the party line this go 'round.

"On this election I have to stand for my country before I stand for my party," says Krebs, who worked on Howard Dean's campaign before he dropped out of the race. He opposes the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act. "One of the things about government is that if they have access to information it will be abused."

Towing the "don't bash, celebrate instead" party line that's being bandied about Boston was David Singer of Cherry Hill, who showed up in his Jewish War Veterans hat. He says he's more pro-Kerry than anti-Bush and admires vice presidential candidate John Edwards and others who work with Kerry. For Singer, unemployment is a bellwether issue. After all, he just got a job after being out of work for a year,

"With Bush," he says, "we're in the negative column."

Of course, the event was about the man who was heading to the Democratic National Convention to give a speech that supporters hope will propel him to the White House. Hell, he even showed some personality!

Among the gems he offered during the Art Museum rally were:

On Edwards: "John and I have a lot in common. His name is John. My name is John. He has legal training. I have legal training. John Edwards was named sexiest politician by People magazine. I read People magazine."

On 6-year-old Emma Claire Edwards and 4-year-old Jack Edwards: "I've noticed that they're already so proficient in numbers, I'm sending them down to West Palm Beach in Florida to do the counting, to make sure we get the count right."

And on Philadelphia's landmarks: "The world is waiting for you to walk off the steps of these library steps and plaza Library? Excuse me, art museum. Sorry, it's getting late. I just walked through and I saw all the art, so I'm not completely dopey."

Don't worry, dopey. We're not all that sure your opponent could spell museum if we spotted him the m-u-s-e-u-m. And he certainly couldn't pronounce it.