Last week I went to an Obama rally at North Carolina Central University, Durham, with my son and his friends.
Big news coverage.
Most of the crowd was herded to one side of a stadium. Only about 1/8 of the available seating was made available to the crowd. The rest of us had to stand. Since most of the crowd was pretty young, they didn’t seem to mind.
My son and his friends had been to a John Edwards rally a few weeks before. They noted that the Edwards rally was not as well attended. And, unlike Obama, Edwards looked unhappy and ‘sweaty’.
Some people were allowed to take these extra seats, but we weren’t.
We had about a half hour before Obama was scheduled to arrive, so I took some pictures of the press…
A few minutes before Obama arrived, a campaign guy came up to us and told us that we were among the special 30 people chosen to stand in a cordoned-off section near Obama. We wondered whether we were chosen because we were very special, very desperate, or very attractive. We decided on ‘attractive’ and allowed ourselves to be herded closer to the platform.
When the mike was turned on, we found out why we were chosen. We looked gullible enough to accept places next to the biggest amplifiers. Most of us listened to the speech with fingers in our ears.
Obama with the Mayor of Durham, who endorsed Obama’s candidacy. (an additional dis against John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator who lives a few miles away)
My view through most of the speech.
Obama’s speech covered most Democrat talking points; let’s end the war in Iraq; lets fix the mess that Bush and Cheney have made, let’s win back the respect of the world; He made a joke about his “cousin”, Dick Cheney, the black sheep of the family.
He talked about fixing the health care system, a point that was a major hit with this young, under-insured crowd.
My son and his friends have seen Obama on TV a few times, and they noted that he said the same things with a few additions and subtractions here and there.
It was nothing new, but his delivery played well with the crowd. He gained a few fans that day.
This lonely, long-distance newsman was a Fox News reporter. He may have been filing a report that may have led to this “little girl crying” controversy?
Mary P. Madigan 