Early Voting Rally

I just returned from an Early Voting Rally. It happened to be sponsored by Texas Republicans… not 100% sure who exactly was sponsoring it (e.g. Travis County Republicans, Texas as a whole, etc.), but it was attended by all your big Texas Republicans: Gov. Rick Perry; Sen. John Cornyn; Jerry Patterson, Texas Land Commissioner; Susan Combs, Texas Comptroller; Attorney General Greg Abbott; Melissa Goodwin, 3rd Court of Appeals; Paul Workman, candidate for Texas State House District-47; Dr. Donna Campbell, candidate for US House Texas District 25; and a host of other Texas Republicans.

Now, I’m not a Republican… and on more than one occasion I wanted to shout out something that would have rubbed folks raw. But this was not the place for such things, and I had bigger reasons to not stir the pot. For you see, I took my children to this event. I was glad to see other parents brought their children too, because this is a lesson in civics. Furthermore, it let’s them see these people close up and see they’re not just a picture on the TV. Besides, you can’t appreciate Gov. “Good Hair” unless you can see him up close.

What I loved most? Oldest. He groaned at the thought of attending this event, but of course he had no choice… he was going. Then I happened to notice during Gov. Perry’s rousing speech… there was Oldest, cheer and applauding with gusto! Yeah, he got into it.

As a random aside, it was fun watching Gov. Perry’s security detail. One guy (you can see him behind Jerry Patterson in the above picture, in the sunglasses) was pretty tough and serious looking. I nicknamed him Agent Franks.

As the rally broke up, I managed to chase down Dr. Campbell to say hello. Introduced Daughter to her as well. I could tell she was a tired lady, but a tough one. I applaud her efforts and hope it pans out in a couple of weeks. Daughter was excited to meet Dr. Campbell.  I was also happy that on the drive home we saw a couple more Donna Campbell yard signs in the neighborhood!

For me, that’s the big reason I went this morning: I wanted my children to experience this. Oh sure, I’ve done things like this before, when I was a kid and my Dad was a Congressman; but then it was “Ugh.. can we go home now?”. Today was the first time I attended a rally because I wanted to be there, and I wanted my children to be there. I want them to understand that politics can and does suck, but we cannot ignore it. It’s important to our lives and something all responsible citizens must care about and partake in. Plus, since they had such a good time, I think it left a positive impression on the kids that sometimes yes, politics can be fun.