I just returned from the Barack Obama and Joe Biden rally at University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. I went equipped with a camera. I had hoped to have a lot of pictures of Obama and Biden on stage to share with you. But I have no such pictures to show you. I never got to see them.
I am absolutely thrilled by the experience.
I left my home in Loudoun County, Virginia this afternoon under sunny skies for the one hour drive to Fredericksburg. I took my seven year old daughter with me. We arrived near the campus a little after 4pm and found parking about a mile and a half away. As I drove past the university I saw the line of people waiting to get in. It seemed to go around the perimeter of the university campus. I was undeterred. I had been to the Obama rally at the Nissan Pavilion in Northern Virginia right after the primaries. Although it was crowded, the lines were not too bad and I was still able to watch the rally from the cheap seats.
By the time my daughter and I made it from our car to end of the line, the line had grown much longer. Then it began to rain. I figured a little rain wasn’t going to keep me from this rally.
Then it began to pour. Luckily the two men behind us in line had a big umbrella, and they offered my daughter space under it. I was a little too big to make it four under the umbrella. So I, like the thousands of others in line, took the downpour in stride. The line inched forward slowly. More the rain came down, the longer the line grew behind us. I spent my time chatting with the grand mother and her grand son in front of me and the two middle aged men behind me. All four said that this is the first political rally they had ever attended in their lives.
An hour and a half in the rain, and about one mile on from where we started in line, we finally entered the campus. And then we made our way toward the field where Obama would speak.
We never got to the field. It was full. Instead, we stood along with thousands of others within hearing distance of the field, but not within view of it.
And finally the rain stopped, and we waited and chatted with our very wet fellow Virginians.
Just before 7pm, Joe Biden took to the stage (or, what I assume was a stage) to an immense cheer. We heard him warm up the crowd. He skewered McCain with some post-debate contrast. "Time and again John was wrong…Barack was right. It is about judgment."
Then he introduced Obama. And the crowd went wild. We heard Obama say "Hello Virginia" and the place erupted, including those of us in the audio only section.
I am sure you will see YouTube of Obama’s speech shortly. All I can say is that it was rousing and he connected with the crowd, as he always does. Even those of us who could only hear him felt part of the moment. The importance of this election, and the sudden importance of Virginia in the electoral math, was on all of our minds.
What I find amazing is that all these people stood in a line for hours, in the pouring rain, just to hear – not see – the candidate speak. The enthusiasm level was far greater than it was at the previous raucous rally at the Nissan Pavilion. The crowd was much bigger tonight, and no one seemed to want to go home.
Virginia was a red state. Democrats do not usually draw crowds like this here. I do not really know what the crowd size was – I couldn’t see the field where the rally was held. But judging by the length of the line, and the size of the audio only crowd, the total number had to be massive. This was something extraordinary.
Virginia is poised to turn blue. There is something afoot here. We were wet today, but we came and stayed – by the thousands. Come Election Day, this kind of enthusiasm will carry the day for the Democratic candidate for president. We here in Virginia fully intend to put Barack Obama over 270 electoral votes on the night of November 4th.
Yes we can.
Update: Washington Post is reporting that the crowd at the rally was 26,000. 12,000 watched Obama in Ball Circle, while 14,000 of us were outside the Circle listening to him.
