Reprinted with permission from The Prairie Progressive

by Rusty Martin

Last November, I called my son Robert, a college student in Minnesota, and demanded that he travel to the Inauguration with me.  He had worked fulltime for Obama in Iowa. After attended our caucus together, we stood side-by-side for then-Senator Obama’s victory speech in Des Moines. We were there on that cold January 4th night when Iowa picked the next President of the United States.  Robert resisted, saying “We won’t be able to see him.”  “Who cares?” I responded. “We’ve seen plenty of Obama. The point is to be there, to be part of that crowd of happy people.” I also wanted to boo Bush in person at least once while he was still pResident.  I figure I was owed that much after the last eight years. 

I found housing with a cousin who lives in Arlington, Robert recruited some classmates to help drive, and we were set.  Our decision to go was reaffirmed  when U.S. Representative Tom Latham’s office told me that I had won two tickets in his lottery. Score!

The drive to Minnesota and then on to Washington was uneventful: a ground blizzard followed by an all night drive through snow and freezing rain. Along the way, I learned that Robert, as a former paid Obama staffer, had himself acquired two official tickets.  His purple tickets were mesmerizing.  The map on the back made it clear that the Obama event organizers, geniuses that they are, were putting their most vocal supporters right up front.

On Monday, we stood in line for three hours with thousands of other lucky Americans, waiting to pick up our precious tickets. I was thrilled to see purple when I opened the heavy official envelope containing two tickets.  That afternoon, Robert got his first look at the Capitol, the Supreme Court,the museums along the Mall, the Washington Memorial, and the Vietnam War Memorial. There were smiling people everywhere. The massive jumbotrons,  the thousands of porta-potties, and the miles of security fencing were part of extensive preparations.  We checked out the purple ticket section. What luck! We would be standing right behind the seated sections. 

With such outstanding tickets, getting started at 4:30 AM the next morning (3:30 AM Central Time) was obviously the right move. Downtown, there were lots of people in motion on the darkened streets, but things seemed well organized.  The police presence was overwhelming in any case.  After a 10 block sprint, we had reached a police barricade in front of the 3rd Street Tunnel, an automobile tunnel running under the Mall. We presented our purple tickets, ran to the end of the line, and turned round.  We were all set to travel the short distance back out of the tunnel and into the glory of a new day for America. As soon as the hour was decent, I made calls back to Iowa to family and friends, eagerly reporting that we were successfully in the purple ticket line, fired up and ready to go.

Unfortunately, that was as close as we ever got to the Mall. The cop who checked my ticket as I entered the “Purple Tunnel of Doom” was the last contact I had with anyone in charge, the sons of bitches.

Now, if you have to stand for hours in a freezing, filthy tunnel while history is made over your head, here are the sort of people you would want to wait in line with.  Little old ladies from North Carolina who have waiting for years for a black president. A retired judge from Colorado who worked non-stop since February to elect Obama. An Obama campaign staffer in Virginia who organized an area with one million voters, registering 45,000 new voters in the process.

As the hours passed, as more people streamed into the tunnel, and as our hope (HOPE!) faded, I argued that we were sure to be admitted. After all, there were thousands of people with purple tickets behind us. If we didn’t make it in, there would be lots of empty spaces in front of Obama. (Check the satellite photos, there were.) 

We gave up when we exited the tunnel to see massive street chaos.  Rooftop snipers were the only sign of authority. After driving 1360 miles, our best option now was to walk directly away from the spot where Barack Hussein Obama would become the 44th President of the United States.  We watched the oath of office in a Chinese restaurant on a black and white TV that occasionally broke into color.  We listened dully to Obama’s speech intermixed with energetic side conversations in Chinese.  And then we left, too tired to eat, too tired to fight for a spot along the parade, too tired to consider what it meant to travel so far and be so disappointed. 

In the end, I’m glad Obama is our President. I’m glad I traveled to DC with my son and his friends.  And I’m very, very glad I was not there at the end, when hope died for the remaining purple ticket people, huddled around cell phones, trying to catch a few snatches of Obama’s first address to the nation as President. 

Rusty Martin of Perry remains a proud Obama precinct captain~

From the
Spring 2009 issue of The Prairie Progressive, Iowa’s oldest progressive
newsletter, available only in hard copy for $12/yr. to PP, Box 1945, Iowa City
52244.  Co-editors
of The Prairie Progressive are Jeff Cox and Dave Leshtz.

ALERT:  If you are a blue or purple ticket holder and have a similar inaugural story, Congress is still collecting the stories of participants that are being used for the Secret Service and DC police investigation.  Go to Facebook, and join Survivors of the Purple Tunnel of Doom, now with over 6,000 members, for e-mail updates, resources and links.  If you have not already done so, send your story to:  Purple Gate and Blue Daze where it will be forwarded to all inaugural committees.

BFIA Comment:  A CNN reporter, live from DC on inauguration day uncovered the chaos and denial of admittance and reported it on the air.   Standing in front of a mob of angry, disappointed ticket holders, he closed with the statement, “this is going to be a VERY big story.”  Well, the “very big story” somehow got relegated to early coverage by WaPo, but we saw nothing after that other than in the blogosphere and a single comment on the Rachel Maddow show (bless her).