Bus for Change on the boardwalks

The Bus for Change is an old school bus that is painted in Red, White, and Blue, and travels through NJ to help out progressive causes in the state and region. I first had exposure to the bus in mid October when we were in Asbury Park registering voters. It is a great visibility tool for any campaign. If you would like to help out the cause, you can go to www.busforchange.com and make a donation.

In the weekend prior to the election, we were blessed with very good weather. So we decided to hit the boardwalks of Bradley Beach and Belmar. We had people from all walks of life helping us with the campaign. The thing that impressed me the most was the number of helpers we had that were not of voting age. There was a child with us, who was about 10, that wore an Obama halloween mask and stood on the boardwalk waving to people. He wore a blazer, and in my opinion, played the part perfectly. The response to a child did not fly well with me. As much as many people loved him, there was no shortage of negative responses. He did draw a one-finger salute from many drivers along Ocean Avenue. But that was the least of the responses. There were people that actually called a (white) child wearing a mask the N word.

Say what you want to about the likely president, but please refrain from calling a child the N word. That is inexcusable to me, and most people.

Bradley Beach is a lot more liberal than Belmar, but we're still in a very red part of New Jersey. Belmar had a much bigger crowd at the boardwalk due to being more of a destination town, and they had a dog rescue event and hokey-pokey contest going on too. So we were able to get more visibility but a lot more negative responses.

How this election turns out in Monmouth county is still unknown. As someone who is from a much more liberal area (neighboring town to the Clintons' post White House residence) I am not used to that many conservatives around. I guess I will have to get used to being in this red part of an otherwise blue state.