JUST SAY NO IN ORLANDO

If you are walking south on Orange Avenue toward City Hall the first thing you see is massive wall of signs with the familiar sloganeering about too many taxes, too much spending, throw out the spenders and the all too familiar anti-Obama language. The crowd was perhaps 1000 to 1200 people at most, but crowded into the small courtyard it seemed overwhelming. It seemed that one out of every three people was carrying a sign. Many of the teen aged and pre-teen children were carrying signs that their parents made for them. Some of these signs took a whole four minutes to make, and some were professionally done at a print shop. It was a well behaved group looking and acting mostly like college Republicans and their immediate families. The crowd was noteworthy for two reasons:

1.    It was all white middle class

2.    Lots of anti-this and anti-that tee shirts

The whole event had the feeling of planned spontaneity, yet there was virtually no media coverage that I could determine; even channel 13, the all local news 24/7 channel covered larger events in Brevard County rather than this one. This was also a 6:00 PM event so there should have been many more people there. It was too disciplined and too on cue with crowd reactions. There were no shouts of “Burn The Books” or “Brainwashing”, and no one got out of hand. The speakers of the day all carried the same message that this government was too big, too irresponsible and it’s sacrificing our kids’ financial future. The remedy that they all recommended was the Fair Tax, which would magically solve all of the country’s ills. Every speaker spoke in measured and simple phrases for maximum reaction from the crowd. The most conservative radio talk station in the area, WORL AM 660 announced that the organizers of the event will now have their own talk program beginning Saturday. They also announced that there will be a future rally planned for July 4.