After i got back from the rally at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, even after stopping off for lunch with my girlfriend, i was still just so filled up with emotion and excitement that i decided to write a letter to one of my oldest friends who was too ill to go to the rally that day. I really wanted to describe as best possible what i experienced that day. Below you can find the pictures and video from our experience, plus the email sent to my friend.
Pictures and video from our day at the rally:
Motorcade: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3043/2925520300_ddd13948a7.jpg
Codi and I: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3140/2925521044_0f35553731.jpg
Obama speaking: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3070/2925519746_17de53b0ce.jpg
Obama: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3116/2924707777_f51da975e1.jpg
Wide Shot of Grandstands: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3126/2924666371_514021ca8a.jpg
VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzO6cTv2Nr0
Okay, i don't have a blog or anything cool to post this too, maybe i'll myspace it. But below is my Oct 8th Obama Rally experience, i'm just so filled with stuff to say about today that i gotta type it all out and i know you can read fast so here goes....
wow that was awesome.my twitter www.twitter.com/djadamjay is littered with pics and comments, codi and i took more close up pics with her actual camera. and some video too.The line to get into the grandstand was huge, from the northwest parking lot, all the way up to 38th street, wrapping around a few buildings, and then into the grandstand. The line was like a giant snake that went through the various fairgrounds buildings. Lots of places along the line to buy Obama/Biden stuff (some legit, some not) and lots of folks signing up more volunteers. Just before the security checkpoint there were a bunch of pro-lifers holding up signs but everyone ignored them and the line just kept moving. It took us about 20 minutes to get from our car to our seat which wasn't that bad at all.
I remember a moment before any of the speeches started, the ABC/Charlie Gibson bus had arrived and a group of students behind me thought that was Obama's bus, i zoomed in and took a picture with Codi's kick ass Lumix point and shoot camera and the digital zoom allowed us to see it was not Obama's bus but Charlie Gibson's. This made the students sad. Then they mistook a spotting of Jill Long Thompson for singer Jill Scott. It was kinda funny really. Looking around, it was really great to be in a crowd that was truley diverse and we were all on the same page. When Andre Carson came on, after Jill Long Thompson, most everyone stood and cheered and Codi looked at me frowning saying "i voted for Orentlicher in the primary", i turned to her and said "yea, but we're all on the same team here, and we're on the same team right now". It sounds kinda corny, hell it even sounds partisan, but its the truth. Whatever we have to do to get Obama to take the reins of this country is what needs to happen. And that's exactly how it felt in the grandstand. The crowd was one. Everyone was chatting with strangers, talking to everyone around them. It was magical.The weather sucked though, cold, overcast, rain and mist. But that just made all the energy in the crowd that much more exciting.
I think the coolest part was the fact that just after noon, from the top of the grandstand we could see his motorcade coming from Keystone Ave. & Fall Creek Parkway, a good half mile away before it even entered the fairgrounds. From there people were cheering and pointing and it was just... amazing. The place was going nuts and the man was still in a car out on fall creek parkway, a quarter mile away. And it continued to go nuts. I've been to some great shows and concerts, i've felt some great crowd excitement, even been fortunate enough to be on stage for some of it, but nothing in my twenty seven years of life compared to this.
The cheering was incredibly loud. It wasn't just the excitement and anticipation of finally seeing the man for all these people. It was their hopes and dreams along with their fears and frustrations and everything else that makes the place our country is in right now so disheartening. Every cheer was a weapon against the last eight years of greed, every clap was a bullet towards the last eight years of corruption, every boot stomp on those old fairgrounds steel bleachers was a battering ram against the oppressive forces that are keeping the people of this country down in the gutter. You could see it on all of their faces, and you could feel it in your bones.
After the motorcade arrived, Evan Bayh gave a great populist speech and introduced Obama. I cannot describe how loud it was at this moment, so its good i took some shakey zoomed in video. They could probably hear us cheering all the way up in Castleton. The entire grandstand was packed, plus the length of the grandstand on the dirt track down front was standing room and the stage/podium. In all, probably 25,000 to 30,000 people.
Other things that pop out in my memory were Obama briefly mentioning his superstition for saying "when i am president" versus what he actually says, which is "IF i am president". He also noted that if the economy gets any worse, the old campaign saying of "are you better off than 4 years ago" will soon change to "4 weeks ago". His speech was just under an hour. I'm really glad that i got to go and that Codi took the day off of school to go with me. I also remember while posting pics via twitter/twitpic i was checking my twitter updates and 1 minute before he went on Obama tweeted that he was here with Bayh and you could watch the video live online. From a purely technical execution standpoint, the man has his shit together. We all know how advanced my.barackobama.com is but last night during the debate when he was talking about how energy independence needs to be the vehicle that pushes us into the future the same way the computer did, it really stuck in my mind. I want a guy like that running the country, plain and simple.His speech was solid, hitting on all the major issues and eloquently so.
Afterwards, we waited patiently to exit and in all it was pretty organized. We got out of there in about half an hour and Codi and i went to get some lunch. We went to the 745 Pub and talked to some folks who wanted to go, showed them our pictures and videos, trying to convey just how big this rally was. I can only imagine how those in Oregon felt when he spoke to them during the primary season, that crowd was easily 6 times this size.
As of now, i am just coming down off this high. I'm incredibly inspired and hopeful.I think what suprised me the most was how much i would be energized by all of the people there, and not so much energized by Obama himself. Politicians, by their definition, are imperfect. But he is captivating people, and they are captivating others. It takes a very specific kind of person to do that to a nation. I'm going to sign up to volunteer, i wish i had time to do more but at the very least i can put in a few hours in the final week before the election.
Now i know what it was like for my mother and how she felt when J.F.K. was running against Nixon.
Now i know.
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