It was an opportunity to go see the President. I got the kids from school and we drove to Dallas. We had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe along with Lee and Shelby.
We had tickets from a contact at the Builders Association. The tickets allowed us access to the preferred seating but not to the floor. We ended up we a pretty good view of the stage.
Mark Davis was the emcee for the event. He led out a procession of local politicians. The gimick for the afternoon was to create the worlds largest phone bank. Everyone was given a sheet of names and phone numbers as they entered. The idea was for everyone to place a call urging people to vote for Perry. It was really ill-conceived. First of all the accoustics were such that no one could hear the person next to them. It was certainly too loud to make a phone call. They must have had a private cell brought in just for the event because the signal inside was very strong. That also allowed them to shutdown text messaging later for security reasons.
One thing that was really funny was that before people came in on the floor, someone went around placing signs on the seats that had political sayings on them like “Texans for Perry”. The signs were obviously professionally made, but made to look hand done by the people holding them. You have to question any time you see a sign on TV now.
The President and First Lady landed at Love Field and were met by Govenor and his wife. They drove by limo to reunion. This is when I noticed that text messaging was no longer working on my cell phone even though I had a full cell signal. This must have been a secret service security measure. Looking around the arena you could see the Secret Service snipers up in the top level, all dressed in back and scanning the crowds with binoculars.
Perry talked for a while with Bush standing behind him looking a little uncomfortable. Perry introduced Bush who gave a very general speech that had very little to do with Perry’s reelection. Perry was pretty much a shoe-in to get reelected.
We were not allowed to bring in video cameras. I tried to take some pictures but it was too far away. I shot a little video with the digital camera.
