What Went on Outside the Romney Rally

Highway 41, Land O' Lakes Blvd., was congested for miles from both directions Saturday, October 27th, as Romney supporters arrived at LOLHS to see the rally. Security guards on bikes and members of the Secret Service patrolled the area and directed the influx of traffic. News helicopters flew overhead as the engines of large buses transporting rally attendees added to the cacophony of sounds. 

Romney protest groups also arrived, including Students Against Romney and Educators for Obama. Their numbers were diminutive in comparison to the thousands of supporters walking in to the rally. The Students Against Romney protesters, with about a 20-person turn out, stood on the grass alongside the Gator Lane median with signs in hand from 4 pm to 9 pm. A few freelance journalists and reporters took note of the protesters and their mission.

Zach Conn, the leader of the Students Against Romney protest group, addressed issues with Romney's policies and also spoke on behalf of the group.

"We are students," Conn declared "who are informed, earnest, and want policies that will affect us, to reflect us. We are students who do not want the poor ignored. We are students demanding an affordable education. We are students against Romney!"

The student protesters, as well as the Educators for Obama, were met with hostility. There were a couple of people present, with signs defending the Republican party, to counter the student protest. One female student, a sixteen year old junior at Land O' Lakes High, who held a sign that read "My Body, My Business" to oppose Romney's policies on birth control and women's reproductive health care, was called a whore and was accused of having lost her virginity to President Obama.

Many other Romney supporters walking past the student protesters made comments such as "one day you'll learn", "you'll understand once you pay taxes", "get a job", "get a life", "uneducated idiots", and "you guys can't even vote." 

Several expletives from the crowd were directed at the young protesters. One student defending gay rights reports 'getting the finger' a total of six times.

However, not all of the rally pedestrians were outright rude. Some of them stopped to converse with the students on the issues, some made statements acknowledging the students' rights to be heard, and many simply walked past the protest without comment.  

After the rally, Sivan Nizan, a member of the Students Against Romney, stated "I will always respect the patience of protesters now. We received constant verbal abuse, just for standing with a sign."