Rutherford Street Fair

Labor Day - September 7, 2009

Notes from Tim on the Rutherford Street Fair:

The promoters were not kidding about 30,000 people at the event, the place was packed!

I got there a little before 8 am, and Ivan was already there (he got there at 7:30).  We started setting up and then John Tamborini arrived with his stuff and we finished.  Our tent looked great with the sign from the liberty bell float, the Gadston “Don’t Tread On Me” flag, and our national colors.  We had three tables filled with handouts, articles, displays, and stuff.  We had all kinds of signs (quotes from the founding fathers, facts, just all around good stuff), and posters (mostly patriotic and one Obama as a communist Chinese party member [I couldn’t resist]) all hanging up around the sides of the tent.

Our spot was in the park just a little off the main street (second spot in) we had great visibility since the space next to us was empty – TILL – THE PRO OBAMA PUBLIC OPTION GROUP HEALTH CARE GROUP SET UP RIGHT NEXT TO US!!!!  They got the visibility, but a least we were there offering the counter point.  At one point I understand the Obama guy came over and really tried engaging John, but John was cool and dismissed the guy quickly.

The major crowd traffic was on the main street so I spent just about the entire day on the street, except for repeated trips back to the tent to get more hand outs (I was constantly running out!), and I also went back to check on our intrepid volunteers.  John really worked the crowd by the tent.  Ivan did his part in the tent speaking with people.  And I was handing out stuff to the throngs of people working the crowd like a one armed paper hanger.

 

We handed out close to 2000 items (sheets with info taken from the web site about us as a Tea Party, 400 business cards {all that I just had printed}, common sense questions gleaned from Glen Beck, and lots of other stuff – all with our web address on it of course!).  The vast majority of people were very receptive.  I approached most people with the question “Excuse me, are you taxed enough?”

There were LOTS of people who were Really excited when they heard “Tea Party” .