Aleksandra the Great’s Exploits

As my last entry mentioned, there was this (enormous) Barack Obama rally at Independence Mall on Friday night. It was his largest rally yet, with approximately 35,000 people in attendance—and I was one of them.

You wouldn’t have known that there were that many people there from where David and I stood in the thirdish row of the second class ticket-holder field. The first class people with the blue tickets got to crowd around the stage, or they even had room to move around and still see Obama. There were, at least, people worse off than we were—down the hill and across the street with no possible hope of seeing him.

So, I met David in line with some interesting Democrats Abroad Canada person around 4. He was brilliant enough to think to go get us the orange/salmon/pink/coral tickets that so many people in line were holding. It turned out, later, that those tickets were required for the line we were in. The doors opened faithfully around 6pm, and everyone poured into the barricaded field. There were pretzels and water bottles for sale as well as porta-potties; these became increasingly inaccessible as more and more people entered the field and crowded to the front.

For about two and a half hours, we sat on the ground on Clean Coal tee shirts that advocates had given out for free (even if I don’t support coal as a power source, they made nice mini-picnic blankets). There were some too-young-to-vote-aged children there, but not nearly as many as had come to the Bill Clinton rally at Bryn Mawr for the 2006 elections, so it didn’t feel like my spot was in jeopardy thanks to a bunch of kids who wouldn’t make a difference in the election anyway. We had also happened to befriend a lone man from New York, so the three of us were reading or playing video games on the ground.

At a little after 8, when someone around us had predicted the event would start, announcements began. Only a couple of people were announced before what would seem like endless music began. Even though Obama was not even at the event yet, everyone stood up and crowded forward. I left my empty water bottle on the ground, vowing to throw out at least two water bottles on my way out to make sure that I hadn’t contributed to the litter on the ground even though I wasn’t willing to hold the bottle for two more hours. We managed to push and be pushed forward to, as I said, about the third row of people. There just happened to be a bunch of people 5′9″ and taller in front of me who did not like to be cramped. (I really didn’t understand all the people complaining about space, though—you have to expect to be squished against other people. At least they’re all Obama supporters.)

About an hour later, Obama finally came onto the stage. I was able to see him for almost all of his 25- (more like 15-)minute speech if I stood on tiptoes, but at least they had fixed the speakers so that we could all hear him.

I didn’t really have room to jot down any direct quotations, but he said some pretty expected things about how the country started in Philadelphia and how it was now up to us, in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, to bring about change. He did address Clinton’s efforts. One of the things he said that I remember (probably because I later saw it quoted in a CNN article) was that Clinton believes that the “say-anything, do-anything” politics of Washington can’t be changed, so we might as well nominate a candidate who knows how to play the game. Obama, however, is committed to changing the politics of Washington.

Despite the shortness of the speech, the entire crowd was revitalized from its sourness and tiredness at having spent five and a half hours standing around waiting. At least we had been fortunate enough to have perfect weather.

As soon as Obama dropped below the level of the crowd, having stepped off the stage, everyone turned around and pushed toward the exit. On the way out, I located my original water bottle about 20 feet back from where we had ended up. I threw it and another water bottle out on the way.

Instead of taking the subway back to Drexel, we joined the insane crowd of people flooding down Market Street. The crowd on the right spilled out into the street. Beeps from cars were originally celebratory, but eventually became more frustrated with the inability to drive among the people. There was even one person trying to turn a corner who had (Hillary) Clinton bumper stickers—needless to say, she was stalled by the mob of Obama supporters. The crowd was alive with spontaneous outbursts of “Yes, we can!” and “Obama, Obama!” It continued through City Hall (it looked like Obama supporters were storming City Hall, actually) before dispersing on the other side. Everything was so alive and energetic, it was amazing.

Philadelphia really loves Obama.

I was fortunate enough to attend a rally with Michelle Obama at Haverford College on Tuesday. She’s practically my new favorite person.

As eloquent as Barack is, she too is a very good speaker, though in a different way. She seemed really down-to-earth, sometimes even lapsing into an accent (what does the South Side of Chicago sound like?). She had very good control over the crowd, talking through our clapping to get us to be quiet so that she could move on with her speech.

She opened with a very funny summary of the campaign so far, catching up those of us who didn’t know by saying that she’s “married to this guy who’s running for president.” She went through all of the things that people said were really important—fundraising, the Iowa caucus, New Hampshire, Super Tuesday—until Barack was successful at them, after which they were devalued. One of her recurring images was the bar of American standards that everyone’s trying to reach that keeps moving once they think that they get to it.

She moved on to the more serious matter of education, (appropriately) sentimentally bringing in her hopes for her two daughters. She told of her and her brother’s education in the local public schools in the South Side of Chicago and how they both went to Princeton. She said that she tells this story because she wants everyone who “see[s her] to know what an investment in public education looks like.” Everybody clapped. She lamented that the dream jobs that people want to go into don’t even earn enough money to pay for the college degree required to go into those jobs. The focus on college tuition had to be because she was speaking at a college, and she went on to say that she and Barack had just recently finished paying off their college loans and asked, “When’s the last time you’ve seen a president of the United States who hasn’t paid off his [college] loans yet?” (She’s really very funny.)

She talked about the experience that Barack has from having traveled to so many countries while he was growing up (including a funny bit about his childhood, being raised by a teenaged, white, single mom in Kansas in the 1960s, saying that his mother was definitely a dreamer—another part of her speech was that American kids should be able to have the biggest dreams imaginable without being told “no”) and his seven-way race for state senate which he won.

Like much of Obama’s campaign, her speech was mainly pro-Obama (as opposed to anti-Clinton*), and ended in a positive direction. She asked us to “imagine a president of the United States of America who understands and respects other cultures” and, in talking about her and Barack’s upbringings, said, “We learned things like truth and honesty actually matter.” Her final note was that America is not where it needs to be yet, but that Obama would be a great step in pushing it in the right direction.

Throughout the speech, she kept asking “Am I telling you something that you don’t know?” and suggesting “Maybe I’m out of touch” when talking about working class people. I hadn’t quite gotten the effectiveness of this rhetoric until I realized its connection with the Obama elitism complaint, but it always got applause from the audience. The biggest round of applause and cheering, besides for when she entered and left, came when she called out to us as Pennsylvanians.

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Barack Obama is having an open rally downtown tomorrow night, and I’ll be damned if I don’t try to get in and see him. I’ll certainly post if I do.

On Radio Times this morning, the guest speaker said the cliché that this is an election of firsts—the first African American leading candidate, the first female leading candidate,… and the first time someone as old as John McCain is running. So, not just Colbert, but more serious news programs as well can’t find anything unique about McCain besides his age? Ha!

*Are the lawn signs everywhere “Hillary,” or is that just in Pennsylvania? Can the Democrats really endorse a candidate whose last name they’re afraid to put on their advertising because of its Republican-unification nature?