It had all the trappings of a re-election rally: thousands packing a convention center, Barack Obama T-shirts, videos celebrating the health care law, and a wall-size banner with encouraging messages to the incumbent president, the Associated Press reports.
“You are our knight in shining armor — Sarah C., Norman, Okla.,” read one inscription.
But this Obama love fest in Washington was not a campaign event. The nearly 9,000 gathered were teachers in town for the National Education Association’s weeklong annual convention.
For the Republican teachers in attendance, the digs at their political views were impossible to overlook.
“What I don’t like is the harassment going on for people to be an ‘EFO’ — an educator for Obama,” said Maureen van Wagner, a special education teacher from Anchorage, Alaska…