There was a massive crowd there. No need to keep anyone. This is pretty sad and desperate.
Even if it were 75 degrees, I wouldn’t be happy about being held against my will.
It’s pretty funny that this is exactly what they tried to ding Obama for at the DNC. Because of previous heavy rains the possibility of a storm, they decided to hold Obama’s speech in the indoor arena that hosted the convention, rather than the massive outdoor stadium. Republicans jumped all over it, claiming it was a sign that Obama could not pull in a crowd.
In reality, the Secret Service completely shuts down traffic in and out of a building for 30 mins to an hour before someone they are protecting speaks- at the DNC, I got caught outside for a good chunk of time while they were doing the sweeps for Clinton’s speech. Nobody wanted to face the possibility of locking down a crowded stadium during a rain and lightening storm forcing everyone to be completely exposed to the elements for up to an hour.
So the Dems took a publicity hit to ensure the safety and comfort of their supporters. Romney, apparently, takes a different approach.
I don’t care about the politics. Politicians are late for this kind of shit all the time. That doesn’t make any of them “assholes” (if they aren’t already).
Not enough data to work up outrage.
Will re-calibrate outrage meter and check in again tomorrow.
(davidm; if it turns out to be a bunch of hooey, just apologise tomorrow, and everyone will tell you what a fantastic human being you are. Or not. But do it anyway.)
Here’s what happened (from someone who was there)
The issue was one of the geography of the venue. Behind the grandstands were the farm’s outbuildings, paddocks, barns etc . . . These people were trying to “exit” by barging through the temporary fence into that area that wasn’t an exit.
The people in the grandstands were the earliest arrivals and granted they were there since 2 o’clock and by 6:35 when Romney’s bus finally pulled in it was a bit nippy and a decent breeze was blowing (strong enough to keep the huge flags waving, see pics below).
People were not dressed for the evening weather and I saw plenty of kids (too many under 10 y.o. IMNSHO) and adults complaining about being cold.
The crowd was large (30,000+) and traffic getting in was atrocious so we (Me, my 24yo son and his 22yo girlfriend) left midway through Mitts stump. When I started the truck the temp read 42 degrees.
We had zero problem leaving AS WE EXITED THROUGH THE EXIT!
This is one of the dumber pittings in recent memory. It’s the kind of issue that would not look out of place over at Free Republic.
And it *is *a pitting – I have no idea why it’s in the Elections forum.
So in short, Romney supporters tried to go through a blocked off area they had no right to go through and then over-reacted and started an unfounded commotion on twitter that their rights were being violated? That sounds way more plausible than Romney attempting to illegally restrain folks who showed up to his rally.
The tweets that are getting all the attention are those of reporters . . . Primarily USAToday’s Jackie Kucinich, daughter of loopy-leftie Dennis Kucinich.
So even in the most barren, mundane, and boring story, in which nothing happened, we’re just gonna keep drilling 'till we strike asshole, yes?
I hate election season.
Kucinich’s **last tweets **on the subject read,
"RE folks stuck in the cold at Romney rally in PA: Issue seems to have been abt security, not maintaining crowd numbers "
“*it was a security issue, people were cold and tired. We’re eventually let out once secret service cleared a secure way out *”
IOW, Nevermind . . .
Point out where I’m wrong.
ETA - please note I’m defending Romney and as I said upthread I don’t even like the guy.
And now it seems, after blowing this up, she is trying to set the record straight in this hilarious convo LOL . . .
Poor histrionic lefties feel betrayed and accuse her of being bought off by Romney.
It is just so delicious when the BSMedia’s propaganda backfires on them.
Just so we’re clear, there are silly people on both sides. But if this is the worst thing that Dems have done this election season, they’re losing to the Republican misinformation machine eleventy-billion to one.
[oblivious] Look, the crowd was big enough already: there’s no reason why Romney personally had to hold them there against their will. [/oblivious]
Subjecting them to one of his speeches was punishment enough!
Add from the Mediate article: While Parker is correct that the Secret Service would restrict movement around the stage, the campaign press staff was perfectly capable of escorting these people out. This sounds like a combination of frustrated crowd members, and ill-prepared volunteers and staffers. It sounds like they could have improved their crowd control somewhat – and furthermore that some of the audience should have bundled up more. Frostbite seems unlikely, windchill notwithstanding, but hypothermia is a real risk.
Incidentally, the OP shows a NYT reporting on this. It’s not just Spawn of Kucinich.[sup]TM[/sup]
From Jackie Kucinich’s latest (posted 1:55AM EST November 5. 2012) article in USAToday you would have no idea that she started such a crapstorm:
[INDENT]“The event began more than an hour late after a travel delay in Cleveland, causing those at the rally to have to wait several hours to see Romney after the sun had gone down. This led to a commotion near the press area when a small group of people tried to leave the rally though a secure perimeter established by the Secret Service. Some of the attendees complained that they were cold and felt trapped; with the aid of Romney advance staff and the Secret Service, they were redirected to usable exits.”
USAToday[/INDENT]
Will she be held to task for her actions?
It was a crowd, doing exactly what crowds do. A handful of them went on Twitter to complain about being cold & stuck, which is what *people *do. No one spins this as being a story about a bunch hyper-sensitive, whiny trespassers unless they’re eager to believe the worst about the other side … which is pretty much the theme of election season all around.
But I will give you this much: spinning this as the Romney campaign keeping prisoners so that they can make the pictures of their event a little prettier is 20x dumber, and you were wise to dismiss that explanation out of hand (seriously; I’m not being flip). Even the normally reliable, judicious even sven endorsed a (more thoughtful) version of that narrative. (I know she’s not being totally serious, but still.)
I will be so relieved in 48 hours or so, when this is all over and we can go back to just hating each other the regular amount.
Both reporters mentioned in this thread were Tweeting live, at the event, amidst a decent amount of confusion. I think we can forgive them for providing incorrect information. Especially since both of them seemed to have mentioned that their initial description was incorrect and that it was a security issues. That article you linked seems to be a factual article about the Romney campaign (though I only gave it a cursory skim), hardly the place for making an announcement about things you personally said on Twitter.
No, we haven’t got bipartisan support for the death panels yet.
Though I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt the cause having a captive audience.
Amen.