Organizing for America | take the power b(ar)ack: Barack in The City.

Barack in The City.

By Peter J. Allen 2 - Nov 19th, 2007 at 8:24 pm EST

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Tags: Countdown to Change, Obama, San Francisco

So this all went down last week outside the BGC and it's all true, despite the fact that you may not have heard about it yet…

My friend V and I were late getting to the venue on accounta I had a gig round about midnight in San Jo and needed to make sure I'd be back on time. Parking spots were scarce, as you may well imagine, and I chastised myself for not stopping in Milbrae and BARTing into the City. But whatever, we found a (free) spot after only a few minutes of traipsing around the Civic Center and rushed to the BGC to take our place in the line, which we soon found to be longer than Barack's answer on DLs for undocumented immigrants at the last debate (kidding).

So we're two blocks from the front door and facing the other way. The line lurches a few times and we can finally see where it is we're going, and we're starting to worry. Maybe they oversold this thing. Maybe we won't get in. And that's when it happened…

Barack's motorcade came steaming around the front of the BGC, late for his own party after a day of courting techies at Google and big-time donors at Steve Westly's house. The cheers went up the second we heard the sirens. After all, this may be our only glimpse of the Candidate, despite the assurances of teenage volunteers bussed in from Sacto who said there was plenty of room and they were trying to hurry the security checks. (Honestly, I didn't mind waiting after Barack's last trip to the City, when I was admitted to my seat without passing through a metal detector or encountering resistance of any kind.) So we cheered. And then, something wonderful happened… The motorcade stopped.

Right in the middle of the street! Secret Service swarmed out of the eponymous black SUVs, forming a semicircle around one vehicle. And out he stepped. The Man himself, with a bullhorn in his hand and a smile on his face. And like a wave on the rocks of Cypress Point, the steadfast line to which we had all been adhering for more than an hour suddenly collapsed around me as the crowd surged forward for a glimpse of the Rock Star Senator. And he went right to work, frothing us up with snatches of his new stump speech, which had its triumphant debut at the JJ Dinner in Iowa only days before.

My fellow supporters and more than a few undecideds and malcontents surged forward as though Barack's hands held the healing power of God, and I stood back in awe, a tear in my eye as I thought of what might come to pass, as I remembered my grandfather -- who would have been proud of his grandson on this night -- as I thought of how beautiful this moment truly was. I absorbed every second of it, filed it away for a rainy day when I started to think that none of this really matters anyway. It was a bona fide West Wing moment. Something a Bartlet would do. Something a Kennedy would do. Something a good man would do.

But then he confirmed our fears, saying that even if we didn't make it inside for his speech, we were all an integral part of his movement. And at that point, all bets were off. He put the bullhorn away to start the hand wringing. I tracked down V, who had disappeared into the throngs, and we bolted for the front doors of the BGC, suddenly vacated by the appearance of a living legend. The mob pressed up against itself, a mass of people of all shapes and sizes and types and attitudes, inching ever closer to the womb, hoping we were not too late for the benediction. As promised by the rosy-cheeked volunteer squad from Sacramento High, they opened up the floodgates and let us in unmolested.

And you know what? I didn't care.

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