#GOP2012 Monday August 27

Today I visited the Coalition March on the RNC. There weren't many people:

I'm guessing there were about 250 protesters. They were supposed to include everyone protesting in the Tampa Bay area, so I'm assuming that's all there are.

Here's a more charitable view from a hilltop, but you still can't see many people:

And a close-up of the crowd:

Lots of people had rain gear, but there wasn't much rain:

Police were either watching the event, patrolling the area, or standing in clumps on intersections:

There were a lot of news crews:

These were from the BBC, giving international coverage to a march of 250 people:

As there weren't many protesters and so many people with cameras, I had no problem moving among the crowd and taking pictures. Here's a shot from behind the stage they had erected:

Most of their speeches emphasized how much they hated Republicans. They said the party was about hating black people, Hispanics, and Muslims; and about taking money from everyone else to enrich their rich friends. The sort of things Obama would never say, but never corrects anyone else for saying either.

One sign from the rally read "Abort Shit Romney & his Taliban Party":

Surprisingly, there was hate for Democrats as well. This sign read "RNC/DNC = Tool of the 1%":

Here's a sign for the International Socialist Organization:

Here are people dressed in black and covering their faces (I heard someone was arrested for this during the march):

The rally had a high percentage of extremists compared to regular people. There were surprisingly few protesters for a county with over a million residents, in a City which usually votes for Democrats. I would say the protests are a disaster and were wildly over-hyped.

On a more positive note, The Salvation Army brought two trucks in case anyone needed water:

These were the lines for water (the protesters are in the distance):

I took a quick tour of Tampa and found some other protesters, but conservative ones. One guy was so conservative he was anti-Romney. Among other things, his truck reads, "Return to me [Jesus] not Romney":

I'm not sure if this guy was protesting, because he was just reading the bible out loud in the park:

In that last picture you can see a "Vote Pro Life" truck, one of a few "advertisement" trucks I've seen constantly driving around downtown.

Back to the Coalition March on the RNC, which was actually marching and hadn't had a last minute influx of people:

The entire march didn't last very long and had LOTS of reporters:

If you look past the reporters in this picture you can see a guy waving a black flag:

At one point his group was chanting "f*ck Obama, too!" which didn't seem to bother the other protesters, but one did try to get them to chant something else.

No one seemed to have any problems with the police (they did great jobs keeping everyone safe):

And people seemed happy:

I've seen much bigger protests at the local level, and to see a nationally organized protest of this size was amusing. The anti-Democrat and anti-Obama leanings of much of the crowd also don't bode well for the re-election chances of our President. Of coarse this was such a tiny crowd, that their opinions probably wont matter in the election anyway.