dfaROCHESTER's connection with Ted Kennedy

Written by: Thomas Janowski on Aug 25, 2008 9:00 PM EDT

Linked to groups: dfaROCHESTER

The news of Ted Kennedy's appearance at the Democratic Convention made me think back to a rather "dark" time, that was brightened by Ted Kennedy. 

Think back to February 28, 2004.  It was just days before the NY Presidential primary and our local county Democratic Committee had originally planned a "candidate's forum".  Candidates or local representatives were to speak.  At the last moment, several changes were made.  There as a change in venue and the event's title had changed from "candidates forum" to something along the lines of "Kerry Rally".  But some of these changes didn't circulate very well because some took place the morning of the event.

I arrived early, as I usually do, and saw many Rochester for Dean activists go into the event.  Remember, this was a strange time because Dean was no longer a viable candidate, and some of our members were already supporting other candidates.  But there was still a core of the faithful.    I was waiting in the parking lot as others arrived.  When we attempted to go inside, we were asked to open our coats.  No, it wasn't a search for weapons.  It was a search for Dean sweatshirts.  And that is exactly what they found. 

Those at the door saw our Dean shirts and refused to let us in.  When we realized that arguing wasn't going to change anything, we went outside and went into action.  All of us had Dean signs in our cars, so we got them.  We were told to get off the property, so we stood across the street from the union hall.  As more people continued to arrive, we told everyone who walked by that we were not allowed in. 

When people stopped arriving, we continued to stand in the freezing cold.  Then we saw a minivan approaching.  The van slowed, the window went down and none other than Ted Kennedy stuck his head out the window.  He shouted to us to join him inside.  We were thrilled to see Ted Kennedy and his invitation to join him inside was more than we could have hoped for at that point. 

We ran behind the van into the parking lot.  Kennedy's van disappeared behind the building.  Unfortunately, we were again stopped.  Men in the parking lot wouldn't let us get any closer to the building.  We explained that the van that just drove by contained Ted Kennedy and that Ted told us to come inside.  The men guarding the parking simply told us that Ted Kennedy didn't own the building, so we never did get in. 

We were shocked and angered by this event.  It was an extremely sad day in Monroe County, NY because our Democratic Party proved itself to be non-inclusive.  I'm not sure how much has changed or whether something like this could happen again. But I still have good memories of that day because of Ted Kennedy and his willingness to be inclusive. 

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