Dems represent at Palin event

SANDPOINT — Local Democrats turned out Thursday to demonstrate that not everybody in Bonner County buys what Sarah Palin is selling.

“We just wanted to show that there were some people who don’t think Sarah Palin is the greatest thing since sliced bread,” said Laura Bry, chair of the Bonner County Democrat Central Committee.

Bry was among a dozen like-minded folks who gathered at the Sandpoint Business & Events Center to express their viewpoint. Some carried signs, the tone of which covered a broad spectrum of sentiment.

One sign read, “Thank God You Lost” and was adorned with a smiley face and a cross, while another read, “Stop Making Things Up.”

Bry, who carried the latter sign, said she went to the former vice presidential candidate’s book-signing event to peacefully protest, not to pick a fight.

“We worked on being polite and not getting into verbal arguments,” said Bry.

Not that there weren’t some harsh words, though.

Some Palin supporters, fresh from meeting a woman they deeply admire after standing in line all day, reacted strongly to the presence of Palin opponents.

There was some nasty jeering and some verbal confrontations.

“We didn’t really want to be anti-Palin,” Bry said of her segment of the protest group. “My best friend thinks Sarah Palin is just an awesome woman. I don’t want to be disrespectful to my neighbors and I don’t want to be disrespectful to Sarah Palin either. I just don’t agree with her on almost anything.”

Jenni Roberts-Martin said some of the Palin supporters’ vitriol was directed squarely at her and her children, but has no regrets about exercising her civil rights.

“I sincerely hope that’s the lesson my children take away from last night — that if you stand quietly and refuse to be baited, free speech is a valuable, inalienable right,” Roberts-Martin said in an e-mail to The Daily Bee.

Both Bry and Roberts-Martin praised Sandpoint Fire Chief Robert Tyler and Police Chief Mark Lockwood for smoothing some of the ruffled feathers.

Lockwood said it only took a straightforward reminder to ease tensions.

“We made it very plan: The woman that’s in there signing books is a staunch advocate of having these people out here and letting them exercise their right to do this and that pretty much diffused it,” he said.

Lockwood added that he was pleased with how the event ultimately unfolded and said there isn’t much he would do differently. He said one of the bigger factors of the evening was Palin’s deep roots in Bonner County.

“The big factor was her family knew so many people,” he said.