If you've ever been to a Single-A baseball game you know they're not usually sold out. Sarasota hosts the Cincinnati Reds farm team at Ed Smith Stadium, and usually when we go we have the pick of whatever seats we want.
Not this time!
This 7,500-person stadium was at full capacity Thursday (paper said 12,500, police on the ground said 15,000), plus a couple thousand people on the field, in the aisles, and sitting on the dugout. People from all walks of life joined together to welcome Barack Obama to our town. On a Thursday morning. At 9:00 a.m. With 24 hours notice.
Wow, you say. Colorado got 100,000 people. What's the big deal about 12,500-15,000 people or so? It's a big deal because it's Sarasota. We haven't gone blue since FDR.
As I diaried here, Sarasota has traditionally been quite a conservative strong-hold, with a mixture of retirees, developers, doctors, lawyers, bankers, and anyone involved in a service industry related to one of those fields. We were listed as the most unfriendly place in the country to be if you were homeless. We've consistently voted for republican candidates up to 2006 when we finally elected a democratic state representative, Keith Fitzgerald. We have a Supervisor of Elections that can't run an effective election, and 18,000 undervotes occurred in 2006 for the democratic candidate for the US Congress, Christine Jennings.
Florida has 1/10th of the needed electoral votes to win. 27. If Sarasota goes blue on election night, Obama wins Florida.
And as Nate over at 538 says:
LAND OF BEACHES, oranges, old people and theme parks, Florida was the home in 2000 of the nation's most dramatic and profound history-altering recount in electoral history. With 5% of the electoral votes in play, it is a true battleground again in 2008. If Obama wins the state and its 27 EVs, electorally that's all she wrote. If our current projection of Obama by 4.9% holds, then Florida will probably be called early enough to be considered the determinative state on Election Night. If the race closes up, it'll be another long night in the land of sunshine.
We're feeling like we have a lot of responsibility on our shoulders here in Sarasota.
Yet, it's like the news media in this town can't quite believe it. Obama supporters held a "Women for Obama" Bridge Walk two weeks ago that I wrote about, and the news media didn't show up. 5,000-10,000 women, men, and children did, though. Thank goodness the organizers hired an aerial photographer.
A week later, McCain showed up for a rally. In a dank arena. Guess what? That visit was splashed all over the front of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, yet our event without the candidate, had twice as many people.
Today, though, there was no way the media could ignore it. They were out in force. The helicopters were flying overhead.
You know what else was flying overhead? OBAMA'S PLANE!!!! It was the coolest thing, ever. As we were standing there about 45 minutes before Obama was scheduled to go on, his plane, with the great big logo on the tail wing flew RIGHT OVER THE STADIUM!! I could see the logo so clearly. Everyone went crazy in the stadium (which was already full). Here's a picture...not a great picture...but the best I could do because I was so excited.
My husband and I had taken a friend of ours from church who is in a wheelchair. She is a republican who I had talked to and shared my reasons for voting for Obama, and she went out and voted for him. Woo hoo! So, we took her today, and the event volunteers could not have been nicer. She got a great view, and we got the satisfaction of taking someone that could not have gone otherwise.
Here are some pics from yesterday:
Crowd pic. Can you believe this is Sarasota? Katherine Harris' former district?
Kids out of school for the day! (Brought by their parents...not bussed in!)
Obama at the end:
Obama had some great lines --
If you want to know where this country will go if we elect John McCain, just look in the rear view mirror.
and this:
OBAMA: And the central question in this election is what will our next president do differently? How will the next president take us in a different direction? Now, Florida, if you want to know where John McCain will drive this economy...
AUDIENCE: Boo!
OBAMA: You don't need to boo, you just need to vote.
I have high hopes for Sarasota this year. I'm going to be canvassing this weekend.What are your plans for the next 4 days?