John Kerry's sister, Diana Kerry was in
Canada's most American city, Calgary today promoting voter registration for ex-pat Americans.
Since I knew one of the people organizing the visit, I decided to walk down to the Good Earth Cafe at 15th Ave and 11th St to hear what Ms. Kerry had to say.
I arrived half an hour early and there was already a crowd gathering. There was also lots of local media plus a guy from Western Standard (Ezra Levant's magazine) handing out free copies of that publication outside the cafe.
By the time she took the stage, it was a full house - I'd guess 100 people but that's a very rough guess-timate.
She began by talking about her background as a world traveler, teaching English and drama in various locations around the world. Talked about how she always seems to be in hot spots when trouble breaks out - the hostage-taking at the Munich (?) Olympics, a flare up in Tehran, some other unrest in Asia then to top if off, she was back in the US for the 2000 Election! She jokes that she's already promised her brother that she'll leave the country for this year's election then fly back for the swearing in.
Next, she talked about voter registration - how there are so many Americans living outside the US and there are no records kept of where they are so the onus is on them to register if they want to vote. Plus this year, those votes could be the deciding factor if this election is as close as the last one.
(Did some
subsequent research which says there are there are over 7 000 000 Americans living outside the United States, all of whom are eligible to vote, and the 2000 election was decided by the 537 votes that George Bush beat Al Gore by in Florida.)
She took questions and most were about policy issues which she addressed in a very general way or declined to comment on - "I'm not sitting in on the policy meetings - I'm just the little sister plugging for my big brother."
A couple questions...
- there was a married gay couple who wondered about what happens if they try to move back to the US with an adopted child
- one woman wondered if her children, born and raised in Canada but with dual-citizenship, could cast their first ever vote for President even if they've never lived in the US. (Ms. Kerry knew they could if the parent's prior residence was her home state of Massachusetts but wasn't sure about other states. "Where did you live before?" "Texas," the lady replied which got a big laugh from the crowd and a guy behind me blurting out, "depends who they're voting for!")
- a Canadian guy got up and made an apology on behalf of Canadians for how our government acted in recent times calling Americans "bas**rds" and "morons", etc.
- another guy tried to ask about softwood lumber and the beef ban but again, Ms. Kerry only answered generally saying that she knew her brother wanted to work with other countries and solve joint problems in a way that Mr. Bush doesn't seem to.
- it got a bit heated at one point when one American got up and made a statement about how John Kerry would pull out troops from Iraq within four months of gaining power and how could the US retain the right to defend itself with him as leader?
- The next guy in line to ask a question on the other side of the room took offense at the guy's comments and yelled at him, "We can defend ourselves but not when the war is based on lies!" and then they jawed back and forth while the moderator tried to regain control of the discussion. Ms. Kerry replied quite simply that there was a lot of mis-information out there and encouraged everybody to consider what they hear in a critical manner before they vote.
There were probably a few other comments but those were the memorable ones and obviously, I'm paraphrasing what was said based on my memory.
Pretty interesting - even as a Canadian - to hear somebody so close to a potential President speak. Plus should Kerry win, my "six degrees of separation" to a sitting US President would be four!
Me -> my friend -> Diana Kerry -> John Kerry
Of course that's meaningless because it's not as if I'll be calling up John Kerry for favours. But hey, I still find that very cool for some reason!
(Watch tonight or tomorrow's TV news or the newspapers for a recap - I saw reps from all major media outlets.)
edit: clarity
