Sorry I didn’t come back last night after the rally to write everything up. I went to dinner and drinks with a group of friends after the rally — what makes it exceptional, unlike other Saturday nights is that they all came from the Obama rally.
I’d like to think that as a whole this group is above average when it comes to voting and civic participation, occasionally voting in primaries, voting in every general and giving a fighting try at being informed voters. With one exception they’ve never caucused before, and they’ve never been to a political rally (I think, and I know they’ve never been to a political rally in January).
For them the Saturday before the SuperBowl is spent preparing for the parties on Sunday. It is not spent waiting for 2 hours in a line that they joked “went all the way to Golden Valley”. It’s not spent waiting another 2 hours in the nosebleed seats before the rally even starts (although Golden Smog was a welcome distraction). But they did. The gave up their Saturday (well… at least the afternoon, which I argue is the most productive part of Saturday for mid-2o somethings) to see a guy speak because they believed in what he said. They took a Saturday to cheer on a guy who speaks to them who inspires them in ways that obviously they hadn’t been previously.
They raved about how great it was to see an arena full of people from every walk of life, the cheers from the crowd as the jumbotron focused on two older women with a sign “Women over 60 for Obama!” the multicultural, multigenerational dance party that started behind the stage for Golden Smog. They believe in Obama and in his potential for America.
And they’re all going to caucus for him on Tuesday. Every single one. They’re going to tell their friends about it, and tell them how important it is to caucus, and how easy it is.
That’s why I’m so excited about Obama, not because of what he does for me, but what he inspires in people who haven’t ever been involved.
After the jump some more of my thoughts on the day.
Wow. 20K people is a lot. Deafeningly loud. This wasn’t just a pep rally, great care was taken to get as many of the 20K people out to caucus. Volunteers going up and down the lines of folks at concession stands asking if they know how to caucus and where there caucus was. Stand set up in the concourses to help people find out where they caucus, sign up to volunteer, and to pledge to go caucus for Barack Obama.
Obama’s hour long speech was well received, interrupted several times by standing ovations. I entered the hall at about 1 and was pleasantly surprised to watch the building fill. There were three sections in the upper deck behind the stage that weren’t full (one, in the center was about half full, the other two were maybe a quarter full). He covered the bases in his speech, (I figure the UpTake should have some video up and we’ll put that up when they do) and was alternately inspiring and disarming (he had some ‘technical difficulties’ at the beginning where he was hearing another persons mic in his ear monitor and it could have been awkward when he stopped the speech and asked about it, but it seemed more to put the crowd at ease).
Here is some follow-up and liveblogging by other members of the Minnesota Blogosphere, Jeff Fecke, Ollie Ox, Flash.
I’ve got to prepare for a SuperBowl party tonight there will be more content with photos later. I’m going to try and go to the Hillary event, but I’ve got a couple commitments — so we’ll see what happens.
Sean Adds: Joe Bodell at our scrappy kid brother blog, Minnesota Campaign Report puts up a great post chock full of multimedia content.
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some photos from yesterday’s event.
Romney’s event had about 200 people at it. http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/tneil/CGBxr
That’s pretty good, Sean.
The strength of Obama - is the power to energize & inspire new people to get involved in the political process.
The intelligence to know that you can’t do it alone - you need those specialist advisors & that transparency in government is important to average Americans! (Maybe even the lazy ones?)
If we’re going to get it, then its probably an Obama administration that has the best chance of delivering it.
I wonder how much enthusiasm and energy Mitt Romney or John McCain generate at their rallies?? Does anyone know???
I just hear Obama on the television or read one of his books, and I get FIRED UP!!!
I was at the event as well. Your summary is spot on! I have a couple pictures up on my flickr stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maiku00/2238414420/
I am sending out a donation today, my guilty conscious has finally gotten the best of me. Go Obama!
Video from the Obama event is now up here: http://theuptake.org/?p=499
I just hope that these people that are going to Caucus stick around for the whole thing, not just vote for the president and leave. There is a lot more then just picking your presidential choice. The most obvious being the U.S. Senate race.
The crowd cheered when Obama mentioned strengthening Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate, so it’s likely they’ll stick around for the rest of the festivities as well, thank you very much.
I went to the Mitt Romney and observed it. People were fired up. There were about 2000 people there by the time Mitt spoke (he was an hour later than the stated start time of the rally.)
Roseville man, so what if I get up and leave after voting for President? You guys can play around with your walking caucus subs and precinct captains and what not. I’m going to go home and put my kids to bed.
what do you all think of the Wellstone references Obama made? On the videos (that’s all I’ve gotten to see) it seemed like a shallow ploy to tug at heartstrings, but maybe it was different in person.
I thought the reference to being the ‘current occupant’ of a Senate desk formerly used by Senator Paul Wellstone was an attempt to personalize his message to the Minnesota audience so it would not sound just like a speech telecast on CSPAN that was given to a different audience in a different city.
I give him credit for getting enough sleep to remember what state he was in!
I agree, the Wellstone comments personalized his MN speech.
If you think about it, if Wellstone was alive who do you think he would endorse?
O.K. but what’s with the “welcome Republican’s” !! by Ryback to start off??
What’s with “cousin of Dick Cheney”, is this true?? Then why admit it??
Have a full digital video of the event with great sound.
I know the band members well.
You Tube hit tonight???
RockObama
I am no techy
If you want to do it post me and I’ll ask the band.
I too stood in line for 2 hrs to hear Obama speak and it was worth it!
Just a note about Mitt Romney — -I lived in MA during his tenure and all he did was push his social agenda. I did not see any evidence of a “CEO style governor”. I don’t care that he is a Mormon but I do care that he is so nastily against gay marriage and those of us who are pro choice (or who at least think that goverment has any business in these personal arenas.) I hope McCain kicks his butt and hard.
OK, a couple of things -
1) Some dickwad Cheney did some geneaological research last year and found out that Obama and Dickie-boy share a common ancestor (WOW! What news. BTW, I’m related to Sam Huston, Anton Dvorak, Chuck Daly and our famed 11th president James K. Polk - seriously).
2)OK, to the person who is non-plussed by the “welcome republicans” comment by our esteemed mayor, think of this: The repub candidates will NEVER, NEVER invite us Dems into the “big tent,”, and they will fight with each other tooth and nail to prove who is the “real” conservative - and trust me, NONE of us are invited to their party. Yet, here WE are, saying that if there are Independents or Republicans out there who believe in change, who believe in Obama’s message, well, come and join us! I can’t TELL you how may republicans I know (even more independents) who are telling me they will vote for Obama over McCain ANY day - they truly believe in his message - they trust him and his vision and leadership. The thing is, I don’t give a rat’s ass what party you belong to - when the real thing comes along, they aren’t going to tell you they disagree with you because of a “label” - they are going to invite you go join them in the march to a better life for the greater common good.
I first saw the Relationship thing on friday’s DC Dirt segment on Tucker quite awhile back. It’s just a silly fact and a funny joke when Obama says, “You always hope to be related to someone cool, I just got Dick Cheney”.
Norman, the “Welcome republicans” was pretty important. I am a republican who attended the event and waited in line and waited in the nosebleed seats. I felt welcomed and I know many other republicans who where there did as well. Why wouldn’t you want to make people normally not voting with you feel more welcomed and help them want to join the cause?
Also, to the fools walking up and down the line (that I waited quite some time in to show support for Obama) who tried to sell me a “Ban A Republican” T-shirt…Obama is about bringing people togethor and someone should push you off the bridge that we lined across for playing partisan and divisive politics.