The venue for the speech was an industrial arts education center at the Fort Hayes campus in Columbus, specifically an automotive classroom, explaining the steampunk decor in the room. Many of the 300 or so people present were volunteers in her campaign, myself included, by virtue of a couple of voter registration drives as well as marching in the pride parade last weekend with Ohio Democrats for Hillary.
The message to volunteers beforehand was that this was not be be a “rah rah” rally but rather a serious discussion of economic issues. Thus there were no signs to wave, and everyone was seated.
Madam Secretary shows off her selfie skills working the rope line. Her “oh, that’s so cute!” line in the middle was a reaction to my little GoPro camera I was holding in one hand while waving with the other:
Future Senator Ted Strickland:
Ted gave a rousing speech using visualization of what it will be like on election eve at 11:15pm when the networks announce that Clinton has won Ohio and we’ve elected the first woman president. I recall that Al Gore was very good at that type of rhetorical device (“When you wake up Wednesday morning and pick up the newspaper on the stoop & it proclaims that it’s a new day...”).
Songs in the rotation while waiting for the speakers included Katy Perry’s Roar and Pharrell Williams’ Happy.
This fellow was first in line, arriving at 5am:
He was later extremely excited to be positioned directly in front of Hillary, front row center.
A politically motivated family posing next to Bernadine Kennedy Kent at left, running for Ohio state representative, 25th district:
Working the crowd:
The biggest laugh line of the speech was about Trump writing a lot of books “that end in Chapter Eleven.”
This is rather entertaining—a vendor of politically-themed Hebrew buttons and kippahs explains his design as he works the line waiting to go in:
A brief excerpt of the speech, taken from my point of view:
Full video of the speech: