We got out there at 9am in the morning. I showed up with my son and we sign waved for a little bit after putting up several signs. He is 4, so he was definitely getting the people waving (wish I had a picture of that). I was too paranoid of him going into the street. I put a bunch of signs up around our area. All of a sudden Jefferson Parish (County) code enforcement showed up. One woman talked to me while the other started ripping up our signs. She said she wouldn't give them back once they picked them up. It was pretty crazy. We were standing on city property. I was nice, but it sucked to pick up all the signs I had already put out.
Once people started showing up we had a lot more fun. Wes even had his 2nd amendment on his right hip. Nobody messed with him =). The huge banners I got printed were a great hit. Every red light people would be reading 3 lanes long and 5 cars deep. They all read the message. I think it was effective getting the message out. It definitely helped portray him in a more serious light than he has been given.
Yes we did have beer out there, we were having a good time. There were a few paper bag salutes, but this is New Orleans (Metairie) so nobody cares. We got lots of honks, and sometimes no honks. There was even some Obama and Hillary cars that passed by. All they could do was wave a piddly sign from their car. Nobody could top the 5ft by 3ft banner, and the airplane!
Once the airplane flew overhead it was awesome, a hell yea moment! "CURE USA! VOTE DR. RON PAUL TODAY" The money we raised to fly this plane over Mardi Gras was used to fly the plane on our primary day. Mardi Gras day fell through. Overall I would say pauldigras.com was a success.
Code enforcement came back (we put up all our signs again). One lady sneaked up on one of our corners that Wes and Robert were standing at and yanked our big Ron Paul yard sign off the pole. There was a run in, and she refused to give back the sign. Robert told her to "F*** OFF" and a few other things. They were really being jerks. If you guys could see the amount of political signs on election days our measly 10 or 15 signs paled in comparison. We were all really pissed off the were picking on us.
Around noon 2 old ladies showed up to wave Huckabee signs. They had crosses around the necks, little wooden folding chairs, and umbrellas. Two cute old ladies waving a Huckabee sign. We talked them up, and Robert even helped them carry their chairs back to their car. We were all such nice young men!
I left around 4:30pm, and the sign wave was over at 6:30. All in all I think all of our efforts helped turn out the vote, and was just a small part of ensuring no one got 50% of the vote. We finally had a cute girl show up and help at 3:00. Otherwise it was just mostly us young guys. The old folks didn't come out (Even though they said they would). I had about 4 beers, but some of the other guys had a little more =) It was an awesome time, the huge banners helped a lot, and I hope we can do it again.
Here is some video of the plane flying over: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2gqEf3BhNA
