Just wanted to share my impressions of seeing Obama today at the University of Denver... First off, it was crazy the number of people there. I've never been to a presidential campaign stop, but I doubt that candidates normally get this much interest. There were multiple lines, each stretching around the entire campus. The arena holds 4 or 5 thousand, at least 20 thousand showed up! I got there late, but managed to finagle my way into the main arena. Everyone else sat in an overflow gym or on the soccer field. I guess Obama spoke for a couple minutes to them and then came to speak to us in the main event.
Lots of electricity, and Caroline Kennedy introduced him. It was cool to see the connection in history between JFK's daughter and the man deemed his successor in a sense.
See http://www.newsweek.com/id
It took Obama many minutes to walk the hundred feet to the stage. He was greeting *everyone* along the way. Now I knew why it took so long for this thing to get started... He gave a strong speech, I'll give it a 7 or an 8. He didn't completely bring the house down, but the man can speak. I'm a little skeptical about all this talk of change (that's the campaign moto and something cliched too much)...change to what? But he did have more flesh to his proposed policies than expected. And one of his themes I'll remember is that it's not just enough to improve the policies, we need to change the politics that made Bush's failed policies possible - ie. special interests, attack ads, etc. And I think that overall Obama's run a campaign different in that sense than we're used to.
The day was notable as it was the first time Caroline Kennedy made a campaign stop with Obama. Also, John Edwards withdrew, and Obama praised him, along with even giving Hillary some praise. That didn't last...with McCain looking like the Republican winner, Obama's beginning to frame Hillary as not being very different from McCain - their voting records are similar on Iraq, Iran, etc. He presented himself as the candidate that contrasts with McCain.
So there ya have it, there didn't seem to be anything revelational to get super excited about, but it was a cool experience. The last time I was in the same arena, it was for Peace Jam over a year ago. During that event, I listened to multiple Nobel Peace Prize winners talk about how we need to get our country back on track, re-instantiate Habeus Corpus, shut down Guantamo, etc. Now here I was, in the same stadium, listening to our possible future president talk about doing all of those same things. Now that's neat...
Love, Dan
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