A small rumble broke out the other night, in Nevada, at a US Senate forum between Harry Reid and Sharron Angle.
Reid provided his forum answers on a pre-recorded video from DC, while Angle answered her questions in front of the live audience. The event, at a Christian school, was attended mostly by Angle supports, with about 20% of the audience backing Reid.
Asked to keep quiet during the presentation, both factions made gestures and responsive noises to both candidates’ replies. As Angle was giving her closing remarks, Reid supporters rudely began to file out of the forum, passing directly in front of Angle supporters, in the rows they were both seated in. It was this contact, and an Angle supporter’s reluctance to make-way, that flared the altercation.
Could this happen here? It could happen anywhere, with this political climate. I would suggest that if a similar forum were to take place here in New Hampshire, say Ayotte-v-Hodes, the organizers should seat each faction on different sides of the room, as many do in weddings. To manage this, they could place ushers at the entrance asking, "friend of the Republican, or friend of the Democrat?", and escort attendees to the correct side.
Why take chances?
It is too bad that this happened, but I’m not surprised, especially in Nevada, with Reid being the Senate President, and one of the poster-children for Obama’s Democratic-Socialist experiments. I suppose it could happen in San Francisco too, where John Dennis is challenging Nancy Pelosi for their Congressional seat. Unfortunately, Nancy doesn’t appear to be willing to participate in such an event. I guess we have to give Harry just a little bit of credit here.
Emotions during the primary races were high, here in New Hampshire. So, as we get closer to November, you can imagine how tense things might get when the factions are no longer from the "same team", so to speak.
Do you think, for a minute, that the Hodes faction, in a forum like this, would be polite, reserved, and respectful? The community of supporters of a particular candidate often take their behavioral lead from the candidate himself, e.g. "the fish rots from the head", so I guess we shouldn’t expect them to be passive.
Let the games begin.