Our Gal Sal
The day before yesterday I joined Ricochet's own John Yoo and Richard Epstein for lunch with Sally Zelikovsky, an activist in--brace yourself--the San Francisco Tea Party.
What was I expecting? Hard to say, certainly, but not, I admit, an entirely normal person. I mean, I'm all for backing lost causes and all, but to devote oneself to railing against big government...here...in Northern California? The ideological heartland of Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer? Surely to take on such an effort one would have to have certain--oh, I don't know. Oddities.
Silly me. Sally proved cheerful, funny, energetic, devoted to her cause, and really, really smart. A lawyer, she's a happily married mother of three teenaged children. Not long ago, she just got fed up. "When I let people know I was conservative," she said (to paraphrase her), "parents would come up to me at Little League games and in the grocery store and whisper, 'Don't tell anyone, but I'm on your side.'" Sally started holding pot-luck dinners in her home once a week purely so conservatives could get to know each other and talk freely--sort of therapy for patriots. Before long, she and her new-found friends felt bold enough to go public--and, at one of their Tea Party events in San Francisco last autumn, close to a thousand people turned up.
A thousand San Franciscans, committed to limited government. My friends, in America anything--anything--is possible.
- Comment (9)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (3)
Comments :
Jul '10
Re: Our Gal Sal
Peter, even here in Marin County, home of Barbara Boxer and Lynn Woolsey, Tea Partiers twice managed to fill the Mill Valley Civic Center.
After, of course, the local town council tried to deny us use of the Center because our views were "not in keeping with community values".
May '10
Re: Our Gal Sal
I love the logo.
Nov '10
Re: Our Gal Sal
The logo adorns the Bay Area Patriots shopping bags that we use here in Silicon Valley. The wife whipped one out one of these logo-emblazoned bags at Draeger's last week -- it shocked the checker, but the bagger gave her a thumbs up.
Another stand-up conservative in the deep-blue Bay Area is Richard Geno, who for the past six years has run the monthly Conservative Forum down here.
May '10
Re: Our Gal Sal
I just emailed this thread to my family who live in N. Cal.
Aug '10
Re: Our Gal Sal
That is genuinely encouraging. There is hope for us yet.
But someone please promise me y'all will ban those tri-cornered hats.
May '10
Re: Our Gal Sal
Yes. It is very clever. It steals their (I was going to write rhetoric) semiotics.
May '10
Re: Our Gal Sal
Peter Robinson, John Yoo, Richard Epstein and Attorney Zelikovsky. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation. If I were seated at the table I would just have had to shut up and listen.
Terrific logo. If I sported it around here however, Oakland/Berkeley, I would probably be mugged.
Dec '10
Re: Our Gal Sal
Wasserman-Schultz is the Rep. for my district (coterminous to both LTC West’s and to Ros-Lehtinen’s here on the beach). There’s got to be a way to evict those usurpers in your district and mine.
We’ll have to hide behind an inventive sort of supine sine qua non third-party label, conjure a message of shameless pandering to the gay community’s economic interests, augmented with feckless promises to the recipients of welfare entitlements, and make a sweeping appeal to the forlorn guilt of the remaining none-of-the-above.
Crass dollar-bill payments handed out to voters at the polls by mimicking New Black Panther Party thugs might help but it could attract unwanted attention.
Maybe it’s as simple as support for surreptitious candidates clamoring for Socialist Democracy who, once elected, will then inconspicuously fit in with our career politicians—by doing the opposite of what they say.
Dec '10
Re: Our Gal Sal
Belatedly catching up on Ricochet, I incline towards the harrumph. Geography is one thing, and I have nothing but geography on my side. However, I'm a biologist.
Imagine, day in and out, for decades, every professional moment, how rare a conservative amongst conservationists may be! I am so innoculated that my beloved is a folk artist with a piece (by someone else) on a wall is entitled, "Hillary, In A Dress, Voting For Obama, Because She Needs A Change, Too". My only release at home is to secretly teach the children that Global Warming may be a scam and they have already learned, from their various entrepreneurial efforts, that poor folks talk more than they buy or hire.