It was a raucous reception for the Senator as he greeted what seemed like close to a thousand people at H2O Restaurant and Lounge Wednesday in Washington D.C. The line to get in was long (see photos), but I had my e-ticket and was ready for anything.
The line started moving at around 7:30, and flowed quickly with most people filtering in by 8. Barack didn't speak 'til around 9:30, but I had a great time chatting with fellow supporters who were very quick to share their experiences of grass roots activism and what inspired them to support this man.
I also spied some Families for Obama members who had volunteered and responsible for "crowd control". The crowd wasn't much in need of control, of course until Barack came out to speak. He transfixed us all for close to 45 minutes before engaging the crowd afterwards (I got to shake his hand!)
His speech focused on several key topics, including the importance of education, our faltering health care system, the need for us to get out of Iraq, and the unique promise of the U.S. to be a true world leader once again. His call for the District to finally get an electoral vote was met with the loudest applause of the night, hitting a note that seemed to resonate very strongly with the young hip urban crowd.
Like any time I have watched him speak, he seemed to take the audience to that place, about 15 minutes in, where you realize the rhetoric has been stripped away and all you have is the absolute sincerity of his conviction. The place where our cynicism has fallen away and we have allowed ourselves to hope that what he speaks of can become true. And the best of all is that it starts with us, not with Barack. Getting to that point never gets old to me, and last night was no different.
Driving out of the city that night, due to my unfamiliarity with the city (I am recent transplant) I drove past the Washington Monument and the Lincoln, Jefferson and FDR memorials on my way back to Arlington. All of sudden they seemed like more than mere monuments to me. Instead, cast in the light of the energy of Barack’s speech, they seemed like beacons of hope for the future, a future that I could help create, and not just for myself, but for my young son and others of the coming generation.
I feel Barack Obama is the next cornerstone of that great Amercan legacy, and we are all lucky to witness it, as well as foster and enable it. It’s a very exciting time to be an American.
See my pics here:
Link
And a video I took here:
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