So where was I Wednesday?

N.B.: As with all my posts, photos are scaled inside the post proper to fit into the blog template – click on any photo to see the larger, better-quality version. Although I should admit that my camera IS dying, so some photos just suck

You know that Obama rally yesterday with the massive overflow crowds which stretched around the block in Denver they keep talking about on the national news?

Yeah. I’ve heard everything from 10,000 to 18,000 people, and all I can say is that it was a crapload of very, very excited people.

I should warn you that because I spend more time with my baby than I do online these days, this may sound like some sort of fangirl post, which it certainly isn’t – I hadn’t decided whether I was going to caucus for Edwards or Obama at the time I went to the rally, though I found out while in line that Edwards had stepped out of the race. And this is not a “why I support Obama post” due to time constraints. I’ll leave it to the policy wonks and political bloggers to dissect what he said – his speech can be found here (part 1 – part 2), and Caroline Kennedy’s here – but I can just say from the crowd level that people were incredibly excited to see him. I got there with my “priority E-ticket” about 7:30 am – an hour before the doors were supposed to open – only to hear from someone who is apparently on the University of Denver Obama listserv that they’d issued a lot more E-tickets than they had space (I have no idea whether or not this is true), and this at an event which was completely open to the public with or without E-tickets. It was pretty cold out, and the folks I was standing with were wondering whether or not we’d get in at all – as it turns out, it was good we got there when we did, because I’m pretty sure that the folks that got into line 15 minutes behind us were forced to go into the overflow areas.

There were a lot of people – this is a photo from the door back toward the line, and it in no way shows the rest of the line stretching down the street and around the block, nor the similar line on the other line which stretched back up onto campus.

People were psyched.

We were in line so long that we started to get to know each other – and all I can say is that my new Obama buddies (Jesse, Jessica and Vivian) and I made it into the arena and onto the floor.

There were a LOT of freaking people in the arena.

If we’d known how long it would take for Obama to get onto the floor, we might have chosen to sit in the seats – there were some decent ones still available – but we ended up standing pretty close, and when the tall (and sometimes very rude) people in front of us moved in the right way, we had a pretty good view of the stage. People were really excited, but after standing so long outside and then standing a long time inside waiting on Obama (I don’t think he spoke until shortly before 11 or so), the audience I think did start to tire of cheers (especially on the floor, where our feet hurt). I personally was getting a little tired of hearing from local organizers, but I understand that Obama was outside addressing the crowds that didn’t get into the arena, so I can’t really blame them for killing time.

Considering that I don’t even have time to blog about my own life right now, I’m not going to go into detail about the whole thing, but I have to admit, I was impressed by a lot. Federico Peña – if you don’t remember him, he was the highly esteemed transportation secretary under Clinton – started to get the crowd prepped for Obama, and introduced the other local dignitaries there who’d endorsed Obama (including Gary Hart – remember Gary Hart? Yikes..), highlighting the fact that while he was a former Clinton official, he was supporting Obama instead of Hillary. He’s a good speaker, and I think his views on Obama reflected those of the audience, so he was a good guy to get people revved up.

Denver Bronco Rod Smith gave a short speech endorsing Obama which we could barely hear due to crappy acoustics (we couldn’t hear a word when the local organizers spoke either, so it wasn’t just him).

We were starting to get kind of irritated when some other Colorado speaker came out (I don’t remember who anymore – the head of the Colorado campaign, probably) – we’d already had a bunch of local organizers killing time and some kids trying to organize chanting on stage, etc, and by then, many of us had been standing and/or waiting for about 3 hours. People were so interested in just getting on with the main event that we almost didn’t hear the organizer start to introduce the next speaker – when I heard and told our little newly formed posse that I thought she’d just said Caroline Kennedy was about to speak, we were all a little disbelieving.

We were wrong

What she said wasn’t substantially different from what she’s been saying in the Obama commercials, but I do know that it made a real impression on some of the people there (there was still a lot of buzz about the Kennedy endorsement in general and the surprise of her getting involved in politics to endorse in particular).

And then, finally, the man of the hour came out.

As I said before, I won’t get into the details of the speech, but I will say that being at one of his speeches is even more impressive than hearing him talk on television. He spoke with passion, reason and conviction, and his authenticity really reasonated with the crowd.

I guess what I personally liked most is that the same person whose reflective, analytical podcasts to his constituents I used to listen to on the Blue Line to work in Los Angeles came through in his speech, even when punctuated by passionate rhetoric.

He did take a few knocks in the Clinton direction, not so much at Hillary personally as at what she and her husband stand for. They weren’t, however, playground swipes designed to be nasty – I think they very much reflected the opinions of many in the crowd, and I think many of us felt vindicated by the recognition of the weaknesses in her position that keep us opposed to voting for her. There was not a whole lot of love for her among the crowd, in any event, but again, it was none of this nasty personal attack crap that went on last week.

My mommy brain can’t remember most of the speech, to be honest – it went on for about 45 minutes and was really inspiring, but since I get no sleep, my brain cells don’t retain anything. Also, there were a lot of freaking tall people in front of me even though we were close to the stage, so I spent a lot of time straining to look.

So since I can’t really say anything substantive about the rally because my brain is all fuzzed from lack of sleep, here are the last two pictures I took, the last part of the speech, and a fuzzy shot of he and Caroline Kennedy leaving. Apologies to anyone who came here looking for some sort of meaty analysis (or any analysis at all), but I am just too tired to do that right now.