What do supporters of Senator Barack Obama for President think of how far the campaign has come? Who do they want as his Vice Presidential Candidate? I asked people at a celebration event held at San Francisco's Ruby Skye night club on Tuesday, June 10th 2008.
The responses seemed to boil down to this: most of the people I talked to want or seem to think that Kansas Governor Katheryn Sebelius will be the choice. Two people, including San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, thought that the choice should be Senator Hillary Clinton. Two others said she should definitely not be the choice -- a view shared in another video by Oakland City Attorney John Russo, and others gave criteria but no names. Who's your choice for Obama's VP running mate. Chime in here.
Just as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was worrying about the very possible future of violent protests along the route of the Olympic Torch Relay on the evening before the day of the event, April 9th, here in my video below, is Supervisor Chris Daly calling for protesters to "shut down" San Francisco, stating that it's part of the city's history to have such things happen.
Appearing before a crowd of about 8,000 people and as part of a well-done Olympic Torch Protest event at United Nations Plaza and featuring actor Richard Gere, Supervisor Daly took the stage with Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi and after saying "Free Tibet" and waiting for the crowd to respond, he said "to do any less than take the streets of San Francisco would be un-san franciscan.
Daly continued by stating that in "1934, labor shut San Francisco down. In 2003, 300 people were on the streets of San Francisco saying 'no' to an illegal war and occupation of a country where the people were not inviting us in.." and continued as Supervisor Mirkarimi clapped in celebration of his speech, and the crowd got more excited.
Then Supervisor Mirkarimi took the mic and said that Supervisor Daly was called the "Daly-Lama" around City Hall.
Ok.
Still, one wonders what may have happened if Mayor Newsom had not secretly altered the Olympic torch path the next day. Not only would there have been violent protests and perhaps deaths, but Chris Daly would have hit his objective of protests being held, which would have cost the City itself a lot of money in police hours and the almost certain flood of lawsuits that would have been filed.
