Activists seasoned by weeks of civil disobedience in front of the White House dogged President Obama’s campaign manager today over the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Jim Messina was greeted by about 40 protesters when he came to Harvard University to speak, including over a dozen activists who had been arrested during the White House protests. A majority of the activists had volunteered or worked for Obama’s election in 2008. As Messina tried to evade the rally, the protesters cried:
Obama can stop the pipeline, Yes He Can!
If Obama approves the tar sands pipeline, the protesters would no longer volunteer their time and effort for his re-election.
“Messina can probably expect my vote for Obama, but if he wants me to be excited about the campaign, to donate money and knock on doors like I did last time, President Obama needs to stop this pipeline,” protester Craig Altemose told ThinkProgress. Altemose, the executive director of the Better Future Project, is a graduate of Harvard Law School (like Obama), and was one of the more than 1,000 people arrested at the White House tar sands protests.
Update:
From Danny Berchenco, Obama’s motorcade in Columbus, Ohio was also met by Keystone XL protests today:
Update:
At FireDogLake, John Chandley reports from the Harvard protest:
President Obama’s reelection campaign chairman, Jim Messina recently told reporters that Obama supporters would be fine once the campaign explained all the Administration had accomplished. “No one is calling me up yelling,” he insisted.
That changed today, when between 40–50 Tar Sands protesters, mostly Harvard students and folks from local environmental groups and several of whom had recently been arrested in front of the White House, showed up to greet Messina as he entered a Harvard dorm complex to speak to the few who bothered to show up to listen to him.