{"id":8964,"date":"2006-11-04T12:00:29","date_gmt":"2006-11-04T17:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8964.html"},"modified":"2006-11-04T12:00:29","modified_gmt":"2006-11-04T17:00:29","slug":"when-did-it-become-us-versus-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/when-did-it-become-us-versus-them\/","title":{"rendered":"‘When did it become us versus them?’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vice President Dick Cheney was in Idaho this week, campaigning for some Republican candidates who are struggling<\/a> in this traditionally-red state. When Coeur d’Alene businesswoman Melodee Watt heard the vice president was coming to North Idaho, she waited in line at GOP headquarters for a ticket. After all, as far as Watt was concerned, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.<\/p>\n

Watt, however, was prohibited<\/a> from hearing the Vice President speak.<\/p>\n

“She (a GOP volunteer) typed in [Watt’s information] and said ‘Oops, we have a little problem,'” Watt said. “I thought ‘What? I’ve never been arrested or anything.'”<\/p>\n

The volunteer had pulled up a scarlet “D” by Watt’s name. She was flagged as a Democrat, and Democrats were not invited to the vice president’s rally.<\/p>\n

“I don’t recall ever registering as a Democrat or a Republican. Over my lifetime I have leaned Republican and I have leaned Democrat,” Watt said. “It was kind of embarrassing.<\/p>\n

“I just wanted to put politics aside and show respect for the office. I left there feeling excluded from my country.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kootenai GOP County Chairman Brad Corkhill confirmed Democrats were not allowed in. “It’s our party and that’s what we want to do,” he said.<\/p>\n

It was a public event, on public property, with a public official, and if the local Republican Party even suspected<\/i> you were a Dem, you were excluded.<\/p>\n

The Bubble lives.
\n<\/p>\n

Watt said she thought she would be exactly who the GOP would want at the rally: An undecided businesswoman.<\/p>\n

Now, she said, she felt like picking up a sign and marching out in the cold with the Democrats.<\/p>\n

“No wonder there’s so much division in this country. When did it become us versus them?” Watt said. “No matter how you feel, one way or the other, we’re all Americans.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That, of course, is pre-9\/11 thinking. We’re not all Americans, we’re all either Bush allies or suspect.<\/p>\n

When did it become us versus them? I think I remember the day and time<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vice President Dick Cheney was in Idaho this week, campaigning for some Republican candidates who are struggling in this traditionally-red state. When Coeur d’Alene businesswoman Melodee Watt heard the vice president was coming to North Idaho, she waited in line at GOP headquarters for a ticket. After all, as far as Watt was concerned, this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}