Thursday started out as a beautifully warm spring day, a little breeze off the waters of Lake Huron, a mile to the east of us on the northern end of rally perimeter. The setup for the rally went smooth enough, and it promised to be a great day for protesting. Even though the event didn't officially start until 3 PM, people started showing up by 1:30 PM. This year we were spread out over a 2 mile stretch on the main drag, since the numbers anticipated would have warranted the need, but unlike last year, there were more towns and cities holding their own events. Last year, we drew folks from as far as Detroit and Monroe to the south, and Saginaw to the north. And even though our numbers were far more localized than last year, we managed to draw the same ammount and maybe a little more in numbers than last year. And that is with our area of draw being reduced by about 75%.

The nicest thing to see, was a larger influx of young people. We even had teens from the local highschool holding signs! The kids are willing and want to learn more, and many there were well educated on issues. It was refreshing to see.

Our Guest speakers included people running for state and federal election in the midterms, and the Governor's race.

I was very impressed with Mike Bouchard a County Sheriff, who's campaign is centered on exercising the 10th Amendment and as he said, he will use it like a club to keep DC out of our internal affairs. Much the same way Congress uses the Interstate Commerce Clause to bludgeon the states.

The other candidate is the State AG Mike Cox. He has been ding a good job in that position, especially in fighting the Asian Carp problem before it turns into a problem. He was doing a good job when I finally got down to the southern location at the park to hear him speak. But I missed about half of his speech, which he was honest about one thing for sure. It's going to take more than just electing people to office. It is going to take folks to stay involved. Just because you elect good people, it doesn't mean it's time to draw the curtain and go back to hybernating.

My pictures were mostly from early on, as once the crowd built, I was busy with Security Detail, and didn't have time, nor was I in the best places to take pictures.