We tried to go to the rally this morning; we arrived around 11 a.m. and waited outside the school for nearly an hour before the fire marshal came out and said they were filled to capacity and couldn't allow anyone else inside. Which was a bummer, but it was cool even to be there with the crowd and the news vans and all the excitement. If it had been just me, I might have gone earlier (some people had been there since 8 a.m.) but there was no way I could wait that long with a toddler in tow.
There were a lot of nurses there because an area hospital is in the middle of a dispute with their nurses and their union (I found it ironic that many of the nurses were smoking). There were nurses in front of us in line, and behind us was a group from Planned Parenthood. There was a group of Bush supporters, but they were way smaller in number than what I'd expected considering what a battleground Ohio is supposed to be for the presidential election. The Bush people were yelling, "Four more years!" and the Kerry supporters chanted, "Five more months!" Which was kind of amusing. Walking back to our car I saw some interesting bumper stickers, like "I wasn't using my civil liberties anyway" and "Regime Change begins at home" and "Let's get this son of a Bush out of office".
Spencer was amazingly well-behaved while we waited, pushing his Thomas train around and giving big smiles to our neighbors in line. I got a lot of comments from people who thought it was great that I'd brought him to the rally. At least I can say we tried!