Seeing Stars On The Campaign Trail

This weekend has shaped up to be a star studded one in good ol' Dallas Texas. Who would have thunk it? Little ol podunk Dallas would be treated to people coming out of the woodworks from Hollywood, stumping for Obama and Clinton.

We already voted early, but we couldn't pass up the action. We rolled down to Obama HQ in Dallas at the Southside on Lamar building. We made our way through the young entrepreneurs selling their bootleg Obama t-shirts on the street corners, and past the artist lofts that Southside is now famous for. What we saw made us proud. Volunteers were packed into the office, mixed in with those who came to see the show.

The main attraction was the arrival of movie star and native Texan, Forest Whitaker. But of course, we had to listen to politicians first. Not that that is a bad thing. Max Kennedy, son of the late Robert F., fired up the crowd with his Boston lingo and support for Obama. The lack of effective a/c left us all drenched in sweat through our nice shirts, including Mr. Kennedy. Congressman Bobby Scott of Virginia was also in attendance and let us know who his choice was. Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas was also on hand.

A young man from SMU introduced us to Forest Whitaker, who gave us a rousing speech of why it was important to vote and caucus (talking points he admitted he was told to say). He was pretty convincing, but it took former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk to step in and razz him a little but, as well as lead us in a rendition of "fire it up", while raising the roof.

After we got our picture with both of the aforementioned people, we were suckered by Arizona State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema into taking Obama lit back with us to the gay strip. So we spent some time handing out literature on Cedar Springs Rd, countering the previous bombardment by Clinton supporters.

Let us just state for the record, that most people are nice when you want to hand them something, even if you like the other person, and will either say yes or no thank you. But then there is the small minority of nasty rude crass sons of bitches who treat you like shit and your candidate the same way. We encountered people who decided to yell in our face that Obama sucked. We also encountered someone who said Obama didn't like queers and that Muslims kill queers (this man being a queer himself). But we did like seeing young gay black men who took their time to come from Georgia, just to volunteer for Obama in Texas. We're sure Clinton has some people like that, but we didn't see them.

Later today, Clinton brings out her own stars. You can meet, for free, Daughter Chelsea, who will joined by Gloria Steinham and Rob Reiner in Dallas at JR's and Sue Ellen's, two of the cheekily named gay establishments on Cedar Springs. Tomorrow, they roll out Sophie B Hawkins, Robert Gant, Ellen Greene, and Bruce Cohen for a fundraiser at S4.

We thank both campaigns for working as hard as they are on our pathetic state. It has finally given Democrats a reason to believe again. Even if all they come out for is the autographs.