At Saturday's Wasilla Teabagger Picnic - Updated

Dennis Zaki and I were at Wasilla Wonderland Park this afternoon.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and family came, but, apparently, the governor didn't even get out of her silver-grey SUV. Todd and Piper did, as a Palin staffer came up to the car and talked to somebody in the rear seat. Then they left.

At the time, Dennis was covering one side of the park, and I was on the other. I'd been tipped off that the governor would be there briefly. We couldn't find anyone attending who had actually seen her. Eddie Burke, who was there when Palin visited, didn't see her. Weird, huh?

Additionally, both Alaska Sen. Charlie Huggins and Alaska Sen. Linda Menard had been asked to speak, but didn't. Sen. Huggins hung around for about a half hour. When Sen. Menard got there, Charlie and his wife were starting into the parking lot, on their way out. Charlie spoke with Linda for a while, and left. Linda walked into the event area, spoke to about three or four people, and snuck out a side entrance. She was probably inside the event area for less than six or seven minutes.

I did two head counts, one at 2:30, one at 3:30. The first indicated about 185 people, the second, 225. This was a very poor showing. It wasn't raining at all, and was sometimes sunny.

Representatives Bill Stolze, Wes Keller and Carl Gatto all spoke to the "crowd." They all spouted teabagger talking points. The most truth challenged of the three was Stolze, who claimed that Obama's current FY budget contains more debt - or funds (he changed his take as he repeated the false mantra) - than all the Federal budgets in the history of the United States, strung end-on-end. Do these people actually believe that? They seemed to, by their applause and hypnotically induced arm waving, back and forth.

There were no evident Asian, Native or African Americans there. When one young skateboarder of color skated through, hundreds of sneering eyes followed his brave journey.

With Dennis, I interviewed Eddie Burke for about ten minutes on the teabaggers, John Ziegler, Jerry Prevo, equal rights, and other issues. Dennis is pretty busy, so we'll see how long it takes for him to put something together.

Here are some pictures:

The event stand
Anti New World Order coat (where were they during the Bush years?)
Rep. Stolze
Rep. Gatto
Rep. Keller
Sen. Huggins - probably advising Sen. Menard the place was full of nutcases
Eddie Burke

Updated - Sunday 10:30 a.m: In the above post I described the scene around the silverish-grey SUV in which the Palins were sitting, in the northernmost Wasilla Wonderland parking lot. That description - of Todd and Piper outside the car, while another person appeared to be speaking to somebody in the back seat, was my own description, from what I saw of the Palins.

I was looking for Dennis Zaki's truck at the time. He had 3-ring binder for me, from Ray Metcalfe, in the truck. So I didn't focus on them directly, expecting the Palins to emerge from the vehicle and come into the park. A minute later I realized that the Palins' vehicle was leaving the parking lot. It headed then toward the main parking lot, but then drove by, leaving the scene for Glennallen.
all images - Progressive Alaska