A Rally Diary
By Mark Day

    In the wake of vicious attack ads against undocumented immigrants, and hate talk radio spurring violent confrontations at political rallies, John Stewart and Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central organized a “Rally to Restore Sanity” Oct. 30 in Washington. Journalist/Filmmaker Mark Day and partner Fredi Avalos, adjunct professor of Communication at Cal State San Marcos were among scores of San Diego residents who traveled to Washington D.C. for the rally at the Capitol Mall. What follows is Day’s diary covering the event: 

 Friday, Oct. 29, 2010

    While en route from San Diego to Washington D.C. to join the Rally to Restore Sanity,  it didn’t take long for us to see that most of the passengers on our United Airlines flight were heading there for the same purpose. Soon after takeoff, the whole plane was abuzz with rally chatter.

    The theme of the gathering was “Take it Down a Notch,” referring to the hate talk and negative ads leading up to the Nov. 2 elections. Discussions about this continued in the shuttle to our hotels. Everyone felt that a massive group expression, a kind of a five-hour Woodstock, would give some relief to their frustrations. It turned out that hundreds of thousands of travelers had the same idea.

    Hotels were sold out and the city’s grid was overstressed by the sudden influx of liberals, radicals, libertarians, even moderate Republicans. All this was testimony to the fact that people have had enough with the Becks, Lumbaughs, Hannity’s and Savages.

    All this was taking place on the eve of an election commandeered by dirty money, reckless and unresponsive politicians, and a corrupted news media. In fact, one of the rally goers at our hotel was already preparing her picket sign for the rally. It read:  “We get our news from the Comedy Channel and our comedy from Fox News.”

Saturday, Oct. 30, 2010

    The following my morning, my partner, Fredi Avalos, myself and two Cal State San Marcos students, Breanna Easton and Erica  Botorff, took an early Metro from our hotel to the mall. Luckily, we were able to get fairly close to the stage, partially blocked by media tents. There was still a three hour wait until the music began at noon. By that time I dropped back to an area with a little more breathing room, close to a giant TV monitor.

    Later reports indicated that the Metro was grossly overstressed, that several more trains should have been put on. Thousands of visitors either arrived late or were forced to leave the Metro stations and make their way to the mall on foot. The progressive blog “Blue Virginia” claimed that tens of thousands never made it to the mall, but stopped at bars and restaurants to watch the rally on wide screen TV sets. (I envied them, as my legs and back began to feel the strain of four hours of standing in two places, hemmed in all sides by people straining for a look at the TV monitors.)

    Blue Virgina believed that the CBS-commissioned poll of 215,000 attendees at the rally was a wild undercount—that the true number was closer to 500,000. Who knows?  DC natives said it was the closest thing they’d seen since Barack Obama’s inauguration.

    On stage there was inspiring music, hilarious comedy and commentary —from Stewart’s and Colbert’s crazy antics—Colbert arriving on stage in a Chilean miner’s like capsule—to poetry from Sam Waterston and songs by Cheryl Crowe. But to me fellow rally-goers took center stage—from critical thinkers , youthful idealists, seasoned organizers, to libertarian marijuana reformers and Abraham Lincoln look-alikes. 

    They were mostly Democrats, but more than a few Republicans. Said a young woman from Redondo Beach: “I spent some time in the lost persons’ tent, and let me tell you, among the women having nervous breakdowns, there were lots of  Republicans.”

    I spoke with bearded self-proclaimed rednecks from East Texas, Halloween-festooned party goers from Manhattan, housewives from Maine, senior citizens from Michigan, and naturalized U.S. citizens from India and Iran. There were students, too, who rented a van in Los Angeles and drove it non-stop across the country to dine on fast food and sleep on sofas and carpeted floors; and a 90-year-old World War II veteran sitting on the sidelines in a wheel chair.

    One thing that bothered me, though, was the relative absence of Latinos both on stage and at the rally. Stewart and Colbert, both eastern seaboard liberals, underplayed the widely diverse Latino population and its challenges both inside and outside the mainstream media. After all, the Latino vote on Nov. 2  was decisive in California and Nevada.

    Wouldn’t it have been great to have at least five minutes of George Lopez’s zingers, a set by Carlos Santana, and a deep throated canción from Linda Ronstadt? Maybe next time.

 Sunday, Oct. 31, 2010

   Cal State San Marcos student Breanna Easton upacked her feelings about the rally en route to the Washinton’s Dulles Airport. “I felt reassured by meeting all those kind, intelligent and reasonable people at the rally,” said Easton. “All sides of the political spectrum are fed up with the way the media portrays and divides them according to race and politics. After all, we’re all in this together.”

Mark Day can be reached at: mday700@yahoo.com.