There are ways to deal with protesters gracefully at a campaign event, and then there’s kicking a Navy veteran out of your rally because she’s wearing a t-shirt you don’t like.
Melissa Harmon tells TPM she was given the latter treatment by Mitt Romney staffers at an event in Columbia, SC Tuesday. Harmon, who was discharged honorably from the Navy under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell before the policy changed, showed up at the rally to protest Romney’s suggestion that VA benefits should be at least partially privatized.
Harmon, like a lot of veterans, is worried about the idea. But she said the Romney campaign thought her form of protest — a handwritten T-shirt — was too hot to handle and so she was kicked out of the Columbia event. There’s video to back up her story, but it’s somewhat vague.
The Romney campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Harmon’s story.
Here’s how she says it went down. Harmon, a member of the OccupyColumbia movement that’s been staging a running protest outside the South Carolina state House for more than month, went to the Romney rally along with several other Occupiers who are military veterans in the hopes of protesting the VA privatization scheme. They wore their homemade t-shirts questioning the plan underneath bulkier outer shirts.
The Romney organizers seemed to be prepared for something to happen, Harmon said.
“They were actually asking people who were entering if they were with OccupyColumbia, which was strange,” Harmon said. “Once we were inside, they actually escorted in three different groups the other people I was with out. I managed to to stay in.”
When Romney’s remarks turned to health care, Harmon says she took off her outer shirt and exposed the homemade T-shirt underneath.
“I stood there peacefully until somebody came around and asked me to leave,” she said. Harmon said person kicking her out looked to her like a member of the campaign staff.
“They were pleasant enough,” she said. “There were two of them when they came.”
This is what Harmon was wearing when she took off that outer shirt:
And this is video of her being escorted out, as captured and sent to reporters by American Bridge, the Democratic campaign tracking firm:
As Harmon pointed out, there may have been good reason for the Romney folks to be nervous about Occupy protesters in their midst. Just the other day, a team of Occupiers briefly forced Michele Bachmann off a Columbia, SC stage with a loud protest at one of her campaign rallies. Harmon said her group’s intention was to be “non-disruptive” and protest silently.
The issue of VA benefits is an important one, Harmon said. She joined the Navy in 1999 and was honorably discharged under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in 2002. Now, she gets all her healthcare from the VA and worries what Romney’s idea to change to the policy might do to her and other vets.
“With a voucher program, it would start leaning toward privatizing, I believe,” she said. “That may not be the intention in the beginning but it’s one of those things where you see the slide and how easily it could happen.”
