Councilman looking forward to D.C. trip

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Aaron Kircher of McCook has snagged coveted tickets to President-elect Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony Tuesday -- and all because of a girl.

An ex-girlfriend, to be exact. Aaron Kircher, the 27-year old McCook City Councilman, thought it would be nice if he could get tickets to the inauguration, for a girl he was seeing, who lived in Lincoln. After he secured the tickets and hunted down motel rooms, the two broke up.

But that's not enough to cancel the trip: they're still going to the inauguration as "just friends."

The break-up had nothing to do with politics -- his girlfriend is a Democrat -- but rather is a casualty of a long distance relationship.

"It will be a good trip with a good friend," Kircher explained, who calls himself a "moderate Republican." "I've always wanted to Washington, with all it's history. There's so many places to see and go. It's a once in a life-time experience."

Kircher said he obtained tickets after requesting them from the website of Rep. Adrian Smith, Nebraska's 3rd District Congressman.

Each congressman and senator was given 198 tickets, said Charles Isom of Rep. Smith's office.

According to the Washington Post, about 240,000 tickets have been printed for the swearing-in.

Getting the tickets was the easy part -- Kircher said he will pick them up at Rep. Smith's office when he gets to Washington. The hard part was finding lodging.

After checking online with about a dozen different motels that were all sold out, Kircher finally found rooms in a town 30 miles away in Virginia.

It's surprising he got rooms at all. Thousands people are expected to descend on Washington for the inauguration, with new estimates ranging from about 1.5 to 2 million. Lyndon B. Johnson's 1965 inauguration drew 1.2 million and in 1961, John F. Kennedy's inauguration attracted about 1 million, while Bush drew around 400,000 in 2005, according to the Washington Post.

Still, Kircher said he's prepared for the staggering crowds and the traffic. The only concern he has the drive into Washington.

"I've heard it will be a nightmare getting into the city," he said, who plans to spend three days on the trip.

Despite the crowds, he's still excited about going. The counter on his FaceBook page is counting down the days and Kircher said he plans to take lots of pictures at the swearing-in ceremony, buy a souvenir for a friend and expand his eating habits.

"Maybe I'll try some duck and get out of my cheeseburger diet," he laughed.

The inauguration will be a five-day affair beginning on Saturday, with balls, concerts and other events and ending on Sunday with a prayer service at Washington National Cathedral. The swearing-in ceremony at the Capitol on Tuesday will include an invocation by Dr. Rick Warren, musical selections by Aretha Franklin, Itshak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma and the inaugural address given by the new president.

It's about a 24-hour drive from McCook to Washington and Kircher doesn't plan to spend any more money than he has to: he's done an Internet search so he can avoid all the toll booths on the way.

"I've never paid a toll in my life and I don't want to start now," he said.

MHS classmates taking part

McCook High School classmates Harrison Ford and Navy Petty Officer Ted Chancellor hope to meet at the inauguration.

Ford, a senior majoring in political science at the University of Nebraska Kearney, took last semester off to work on the Obama campaign and is taking his father, Mike Ford of McCook as a guest to the festivities.

Chancellor will march with the U.S. Navy contingent, in the sixth row back, second from the left, where he will echo the commands of the commanding officer. He will soon be stationed in Jacksonville, Fla., where he will undergo training to repair and maintain helicopters.

Comments
View 4 comments
Note: The nature of the Internet makes it impractical for our staff to review every comment. Please note that those who post comments on this website may do so using a screen name, which may or may not reflect a website user's actual name. Readers should be careful not to assign comments to real people who may have names similar to screen names. Refrain from obscenity in your comments, and to keep discussions civil, don't say anything in a way your grandmother would be ashamed to read.
  • *

    I don't know how else to say this...I just wanna barf!

    -- Posted by sameldridge on Thu, Jan 15, 2009, at 4:26 PM
  • So typical of the new level of hypocrisy we are already seeing. In Washington they are rolling out the "green" carpet, the "green" everything they can find that says "green" to annoint their new "king." Yet here we are spending the most EVER to swear in the pres. People from all over are flying in and driving up to part of the big orgy.

    What about saving the planet and all that hope crap. If Obama was half the "man" he claimed to be he should have said, "you know what..I don't need the biggest party ever, tax payers are already being raped by the Federal Reserve, I promised change and spending all this money and having people from all over witness it in person is going to expell massive quantities of carbon inot the atmospere."

    Did he? No. I guess he needs the fanfair and hype surrounding his every move. I guess he's no different than any other politican after all.

    So much for a change. We are people going to realize that we need people to represent us, not to RULE us. What these people are going to do now that they're in charge is make life a living hell for the rest us while they change absolutely nothing in their own lives and work. We'll be the ones paying the global warming taxes and sacrificying at every step of the way, while Princess Pelosi takes her own goverment jumbo jet all over the world to praise his name...Obama!

    This is in no way intended to offend Aaron Kircher...it's just these little things no one ever seems to think about. It's about holding these liars to their word. If Obama thinks global warming is so bad then tell people not to come to the inaguation. Set a new trend. Quit spending tax payer dollars when we're so broke that the Chinese are going broke buying us up. Time to learn Chinese, not Spanish!

    -- Posted by Justin76 on Thu, Jan 15, 2009, at 5:01 PM
  • This is the most money raised for an inaugeration as well.Plus, this is historical, and an event the nation needs to start healing after 8 years of strife and hate. Time to start anew, and those that want to still live with the hate will be the ones that will be left behind. But know you will all be welcome as we all work together to make our nation respected in the world again.

    -- Posted by gcooper on Thu, Jan 15, 2009, at 9:52 PM
  • I guess you liberals will be left behind then. The only people that have been hating anyone for the last eaight years are liberals who want to burn Bush at the stake after ripping his heart out. The media has filleted him time and time again while plastering Barack all over their magazines.

    I don't think anyone hates Obama, and shouldn't. He's done nothing other than the virtually impossible, but he done that with a lot of hefty promises and the hope that things will change.

    I could give a rat's assets if we have some policy changes. The only way this country is going to change is if our high leadres walk the walk. They must live within the confins of what they levy onto us or it's nothing but pure political bullcrap!

    If I was president, even though I don't believe in the severity of global warming or the causes of it that Al Gore claims as a highly gifted scientist he seems to think of himself, but we are trapped by our addiction to foreign oil and the lack of brains to drill our own where we have it in excess. So, the first thing I would do as president is set up the protocols for reducing governement travel in all departments and areas.

    I have a freind who works in government and as of October '08 had already spent over $100,000 just in '08 on traveling the world. I have things I'd like to go see for my business all over the country and the world but I am limited by the fact that I can't afford to do it! Why the hell can every government employee do it then?

    I was hoping that Obama would come in and start right off with modesty and a feeling that since Americans are going through the toughest reccession since the Great Depression, he would try to save us some money and scale things down.

    I don;t care how much $$ yoiu think is being raised I can promise you this fiasco is costing us millions. What if McCook, NE could just have that money today instead of Obama having is big bash? That would sure be boost to any community for years, but we'll blow in all in 10 minutes for our president when you could just as easily watch it on tv!

    The man that claims to be an environmentalist ought to tell people to stay home. Can anyone tell me how much carbon all the private and corperate jets will produce on their way to DC for this occation? What about all the cars and buses?

    It amazes me that even though we have spent billions for years developing awesome technolgy for communication, like wireless internet, broadband, wireless phone, fiberoptics, we can talk ot freinds accross seas with webcams, but yet the mnonkeys in government that use OUR money have to fly and drive around everywhere to get anything done! You have to meet face to face sometimes, but wgy can't we cut government travel by 25% and see how much that shaves off the annula budget!?

    All I'm saying is that if these clowns want to talk about global warmning then they had better act themsleves, not just make you and I do all the work and make all the sacrifices. We need to change our way of thinking completely, just buying electric cars will do NOTHING. they still need coal fired power plants to get the eletricity to recharge...duh!

    I know it seems like a big deal of what I'm making of this inauguaration, but it looks to me like this is juts the first of many, many examples of how these newly elected "different" politicians are going to talk a bunch of BS and make the American tax payers make the sacrifices while they spend spend spend, and waste waste waste!

    Not much different than we had before, just a new name on the desk.

    -- Posted by Justin76 on Fri, Jan 16, 2009, at 1:24 PM
Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: