Skip Pyeatt was having none of it. A Vietnam veteran clad in camouflage jacket, his grey hair slicked back, Pyeatt stood out in the largely young crowd gathered to hear the wise words of Massachusetts senator Edward Kennedy.
"God may forgive him for Mary Jo Kopechne and Chappaquiddick, but I never will," said the Arizona native, who says that Republican John McCain, a personal friend of his, has his vote.
But Pyeatt was interested enough to bring himself to the Barack Obama campaign rally on a bright morning at an east Los Angeles technical college. Snapping images of the rally on his phone, he had words of encouragement for Obama and the hundreds of supporters gathered to hear Kennedy speak.
"This man will some day be a good president," he said. "I just don’t think he has the experience yet."
At that moment, whoops erupted from the crowd of several hundred as Kennedy made his way to the stage, a shock of white hair just visible in the phalanx of photographers surrounding him.
Wearing an open-necked black shirt, a red handkerchief neatly folded in the breast pocket of his black jacket, Kennedy cut a handsome figure, recalling another visitor with the famous surname.
"Are you glad to see me?" he shouted. "Are you glad I’m here?" The oratorical gimmick met with the appropriate response, the crowd roaring its approval of the visitor.
"Moo-chi-mas gracias," he answered, in disastrous Spanish. "Vamos a ganar este martes. Vamos a ganar este noviem-biem-biem-berey."
As an exercise in living Esperanto, it was illuminating; fortunately, the crowd laughed with the grand old lion of Democratic politics, not at him.
"There may be some who don’t understand my Spanish. It’s the Castilian accent," he explained.
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