This afternoon, history was made. Not only were there over 29,000 people -- the biggest crowd in this campaign, and the biggest crowd for any candidate so far -- filling up the stands of Columbia, South Carolina's Williams-Brice stadium...but before the main event even began, thousands of them got out their cell phones, got to calling thousands of undecided South Carolinian voters (whose names and numbers had been passed out on entering the stadium) and together managed to set a Guiness Book of World Records record for the largest phone bank -- ever.
But then it was time to get down to business. That 29,000-strong crowd of South Carolinians went wild for Oprah Winfrey who captured them with her introduction for the man she says she's sure will be the next President of the United States of America: Barack Obama.
The crowd was incredible -- they roared for Michelle Obama, they roared for Oprah, and the cheers were deafening when Barack finally took the stage.
Barack thanked the two remarkable women standing with him on the stage, and then he began by reminding the crowd that next November, for the first time in a long time, the name George Bush would not be appearing on the ballot -- at which point every blue sign in the stadium went up and the cheering crowd would not let Barack continue until they'd gotten in a stadium-wide "O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma!" chant.
But everyone finally quieted down, and leaned in to hear Barack Obama talk about the "fierce urgency of now," to quote Dr. Martin Luther King. Because our American moment is now, he said, because it's time to stop spending billions of dollars on a war that should never have been waged, and start investing that money here at home in places like South Carolina -- because of all that, the time to stand up for our country is now. And everyone in that stadium stood up.
Finally, Barack ended with a story some of you might know by now...about a lady in Greenwood, South Carolina, who came up with a little chant that has become the rallying call for this entire movement: Ms. Edith Childs, and the famous "Fired Up, Ready To Go."
"Are you fired up?" Barack asked the crowd in closing. "Are you ready to go?"
It was a huge day in South Carolina for Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, and of course the amazing Oprah Winfrey...if you got a chance to see it on TV or streamed live here on the blog, let everyone know all about it in the comments below...
Comments are closed for this post.
