I was there and it was beautiful. Follow the jump for some more.
I am only 24, so I haven't been to many Presidential campaign rallies. In fact this was my second ever - the first being a Kerry rally on the eve of the 2004 election. The feeling I had between that rally and this one was a night and day difference. At the Kerry rally, while I was excited for the election I found myself biting my lip and wishing I was watching Governor Dean on stage instead. I went and cast my ballot for him nevertheless, and the rest is history. Last night, though, I felt moved. I've never experienced someone quite like that before in my life. Me being me, I just had to take pictures, and the results are below.
The thousands heading into the arena.
For a good view of how the arena looked at basically capacity, here's a video I took. The Youtube quality is rather terrible but you can download it as a much higher quality movie here (DIVX / 1.8MB).
The Hopemonger-in-chief takes the stage
Senator Obama wasted little time in getting to the point on this night. He basically began by saying since he hasn't campaigned in Michigan as of yet, he might as well start off with a bang. He did so, and introduced his biggest endorser yet - former Senator John Edwards. Like above, the Youtube video came out with terrible quality, and you can download this as a much higher quality movie here (DIVX / 5.7MB).
Edwards talks about how he believes in Obama's message and how it is time to unite the Democratic Party. Amen to that.
This was my favorite picture of the night.
...and then from 500 feet away Obama decides to look right into my camera.
The hope train moves on.
As for the entirety of the speeches their selves? Edwards was a wonderful speech speaking of unity for the party between himself, Mr. Obama, and Senator Clinton. While many people in the audience did applaud, the mention of her name did bring a few boos and hisses from the crowd - so yes, there is a fracture out there that needs to be healed. I think that if she were to drop out and get behind Obama, it would only be a matter of time before those wounds would heal.
Edwards also hammered on the themes of ending poverty, ending the disparity in education between the rich and poor districts, ending the idea of homeless vets, and bringing health care to everyone. Each idea was met with thunderous applause and even though it was already implicit in Obama's campaign that he was for all of these things, hearing Obama say right then and there he supported everything that Edwards wants to do gave a warm reassuring feeling to my heart. I really hope Edwards sees a Cabinet-level position, perhaps the Attorney General spot even.
Obama's speech was amazing. I have never heard someone talk like this before in person. He knows how to work a crowd and get them to their feet. He said proposal after proposal that made me want to wind the clock forward to January of 2009 so we could get a start on all of this - everything from what Edwards said to creating an America where "if you work you should not want" to mentioning upgrading our infrastructure - right down to broadband internet deployment, it was all amazing, I agreed with it all, and for the first time in my young life - a politician has inspired me. At the rate I'm going, depending on how the summer goes I might just do some volunteer work, or slap Obama signs up in places, something - anything to help this man win this state and win this presidency.
The atmosphere was electric and I am thrilled I went. Everyone there was happy and in a great mood. I loved the environment. I am officially drunk on the hope-aid. I am on the Hopemonger bandwagon. Here's to change, and here's to hope. Here's to Obama in this election.
Now, I did promise 59 pictures and videos (you have the two videos so we're down to 57 pictures), but I didn't want to nuke anyone's connection that I didn't have to. So if you would like to see the rest of the pictures I took, you can see them with narration here or just jump straight to the gallery here. A big thank you to anyone ahead of time who likes them.
Here's to hope.