TOWN HALL FREEDOM RALLY
A political “Town Hall Rally” happened in San Diego yesterday. It was arranged by Sweetwater Harley Davidson, whose owners are ABATE members, and they dropped a bunch of money setting everything up. It was quite an event, giving us the opportunity to meet, greet and question a dozen candidates. The audience counted about a hundred and fifty people…. Bikers, political staff members and the politicians who were all running for some office :Governor, Congress, the Assembly, State Senators and Judges. You can check out the names of these candidates at www.icaucus.org It was a pretty important group because some of them will probably be elected and some of them will be good to know to enhance ABATE’s political aims, and we could find out what their platforms are. E-Mails were sent out to 150 ABATE members in San Diego County letting them know about this important event.
At one point Jay LaSuer who is running for Sheriff was on the microphone. Jay is a long-time friend of ABATE, and has carried our bills and done a lot good for us. He asked a question that I think was designed to show the audience how well he was known in the motorcycle community. He asked this audience of 150 “How many people here know what ABATE is” ? Can you guess how many people in that big crowd knew what ABATE is? Or who we are? Or what we stand for? Four. Jay LaSuer asked the question again, and the same four people raised their hands again. Those four people who raised their hands did so because they were members of Locals 6 and 11. It was sad. At this point Jay just dropped his question and changed the subject. So now, from this showing, all of those politicians will know how much help they can expect from ABATE….Very little. They will assume that they know how much we can do for them….Hardly anything. And they know how much service and attention they will need to provide for us….Just enough to support four votes.
Do you remember when there were phone-banks for candidates and so many ABATE members showed up that there were not enough phones? Remember the members who spent bunches of time and money going to court and fighting for our causes? Remember when there were garages full of us making yard signs? Remember walking the streets, stuffing envelopes and knocking on doors? Remember packing City Hall with black leather on Election night? Remember the Candidate who won by twelve votes because of our efforts? And remember that she and her family became ABATE members and solid supporters in the political arena for the next fifteen years?
If we plan on moving forward and accomplishing goals, we need to remember the efforts that we showed, and get back to grass root politics where we were.
