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Today was the first day of the fair, and it was miserably hot, but there still seemed to be a ton of people there. I worked at the democratic tent from 2:00 P.M. until we closed it down around 8:00. I saw a lot of things that I thought were very good. The democrats from our tent were out on the sidewalk handing out stickers and cardboard fans and just generally interacting with the people. A very few people gave us the 'disgusted republican' look, but a LOT of people talked about all the bad things that the state and national repubs had done to the country.
We had cardboard fans and Ike Skelton shopping bags and helium balloons and pencils and "Matt Blunt WWJD?" bumperstickers to give away, but mostly what we handed out were round stickers that said, "Missouri Democrats Moving Missouri Forward". We just stood out on the sidewalk and asked people if we could put one of our stickers on their shirt and then asked stuff about where they were from. It led to some great conversations and it was a fun thing to do. The 'unintended consequence' was that we had so many people walking around with the stickers on their shirts, that pretty soon the repubs walked down from their tent to see what was going on. They just stood out in the street and watched us for a few minutes, and then a little while later another group from the repub tent came down and watched for awhile. Of course we loved that,and we worked even harder.
The repub tent has had a life sized cardboard figure of George standing outside their tent for the past five fairs. I cannot tell you how much I hate that stupid cardboard figure. About 5:00 one of the repub 'ladies' came down to our tent and gave us this big long lecture about how 'you need to control your people better and tell them to stop putting their stickers on George!" Of course the 'our people' she was referring to were the general public who apparently thought George needed some "Missouri Democrats Moving Missouri Forward" stickers. After she finished yelling at us about how we needed to control the people, we made it a point to explain to the people that putting democratic stickers on george really pisses off the repubs. Amazingly enough, several people asked for extra stickers after that. I have no clue what they were thinking.
About 5:30 a couple of kids came over to our tent and tried to walk away with entire boxes of stickers and signs. There was strong circumstantial evidence to support a theory that they were connected to the repubs, but we were very nice to them and just reclaimed our boxes and only allowed them to keep a few of each item. The fact that the kids trotted straight down to the repub tent, and a few minutes later giggling adult repubs came out and placed our dem stickers on the side of a dumpster COULD have just been pure coincidence!
The repubs shut their tent down at 5:30, but we kept on going until almost 8:00. The only really bad thing I saw had to do with the tents themselves. I'm assuming the state dem party makes the tent decisions, and maybe there is some rational for not spending much money for it, BUT.. the repubs had a mansion tent compared to ours. Theirs had fans and free ice water and room for at least 6 tables and a row of chairs. Ours had room for one table, a water cooler, and 4 folding chairs. All of their tables were filled with handouts, and there was room for people to sit down and relax. Part of me thinks we actually did better because our small tent forced us outside, while the repubs sat in front of their fans and drank ice water. On the other hand, they really did look far more prosperous than us.
This was my first year in the tent, so I'm not exactly sure how things work. From what I understand though, a different county is responsible for working the tent each day. I don't know if the counties run it differently, but we were thrilled when the dems from the other counties stopped by and either helped or just hung out with us for awhile. I know I plan on spending whatever free time I have hanging out at the dem tent, because I really felt like we connected with a ton of people today. If you get a chance, come to the fair and hang out at the tent!
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