Tuesday night, Obama's website invited my mom to Friday's rally. When she confirmed, she was able to send out more invites (a viral ticket?), so she sent one to me and told me about it. I confirmed right away, so I had a ticket too. Unfortunately, with the weather so cold and my mom's health so poor, she wasn't actually able to go.
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It just so happened that I had Friday off, so I knew that I would be able to go. I'm a night owl, so I took my time getting up and getting ready, gambling on the fact that Portland has a rather relaxed ethos. I would've been there before the start time of 9:30 a.m. too, if only I hadn't wasted 20 minutes by forgetting my ticket and having to go back home for it.
Anyway. I parked at the park & ride (again), got my all-day Tri-Met ticket, and rode the Max (one of our light-rail systems) about an hour east to the Memorial Coliseum. I sat and daydreamed, as I often do.
I couldn't remember ever going to the Memorial Coliseum before, so just before the stop, I struck up a conversation with a random stranger, a woman (whose name I forget) with a small child, who looked like she was getting ready to get off there too. She hadn't been there before either, so as we chatted, we just followed some other people who looked like they knew where they were going. Turned out that she was using the ticket of a friend who ended up having to stay home with a sick child at the last minute, and so she was hoping that they weren't matching names. Our pack-following strategy worked well, and after making it through the gauntlet of pamphleteers outside, we bade each other farewell at the entrance at 9:35, most likely to never meet again.
The security was nearly airport-level. I wasn't expecting that. I ended up getting wanded and holding up the line because I forgot to take out all the stuff that I keep in my jacket pockets (such as an iPod). It's just always there, you know? Fortunately for the woman I'd chatted with, they weren't really checking tickets at that point, I suppose because it was after time to start and there were still a few seats. Fortunately for me, they hadn't actually started yet.
At about twenty or a quarter 'til, they played will.i.am's "Yes We Can," to a roar of approval. At about ten 'til, somebody introduced Gov. Bill Richardson and Sen. Barack Obama to thunderous applause. (Seriously, it boomed. Was it from people stamping their feet, or just a trick of the acoustics? I don't know.) I took a photo, but with arriving so late I was way up high, and it was clear from the preview that my poor little pocket camera just couldn't handle that much distance gracefully, even with its clever built-in zoom. I would've needed a DLSR with a zoom lens or something. So, I didn't bother taking any more photos, and just stuck to taking notes.
First, Richardson spent about twenty minutes on a wide-ranging endorsement speech of Obama. The crowd looked a lot like Portland -- demographically, I couldn't tell any meaningful difference between it and, say, Pioneeer Courthouse Square at lunchtime. (Sartorially, there were fewer suits and more union T-shirts). I won't attempt to summarize Richardson's remarks here, because his prepared speech is available online, as is video of his actual delivery:
As for my experience of it, I thought it was great. He was getting a lot of love from the crowd, with frequent applause, not just at the obvious applause lines. For example, you could predict applause at "We all know the real culprit -- the disastrous economic policies of the Bush Administration!" However, as I recall, he also got applause for just "As a Hispanic," and even more for "...respect for international human rights."
Richardson also told an anecdote that wasn't in the prepared version. I don't have good notes on it, but basically, he was used to getting very little time in the debates. In one, the moderator unexpectedly returned to him almost immediately, and he hadn't really been listening to the question. He turned to Obama, who whispered "Katrina! Katrina!" So, he gave his standard spiel on Katrina. Obama could've "thrown him under the bus" just by staying silent, and he didn't.
Interestingly, I saw evidence that Obama and Richardson had really worked together in preparation for that event. For one thing, they both used the same technique when the crowd got over-excited with chanting "yes we can," saying "si se puede" instead, which had the effect of empathically echoing the meaning while disrupting the chant itself. The crowd was pretty good about politely stopping their applause and sitting down when Richardson or Obama started to speak again, but chants are harder to interrupt gracefully, so I thought that was really clever.
More importantly, there was meaningful rhetorical setup in Richardson's speech and a corresponding callback in Obama's. Actually, there were probably many, but the one that really jumped out at me was when Richardson said (according to my notes) that he trusts Obama on green energy, a foreign policy based on diplomacy, ending the war in Iraq and bringing our troops home. I was summarizing several statements there, so I'm not sure how many times he used the word trust, but I remember it being more than once, unlike the prepared version. Either way, he strongly emphasized that word "trust". Then, when Obama took over, he talked about Richardson's experience in energy policy and foreign policy, emphasizing how much it meant to him to have Richardson's confidence, as well as his endorsement. I was really impressed by the attention to detail that showed!
[update] Here's a video of those first few minutes of Obama's speech, accepting Richardson's endorsement:
Obama's speech was different from the stump speeches that I've seen so much on TV and YouTube. Here are my notes on the rest of it after he thanked Richardson:
Talked about the fierce urgency of now. His experience in Chicago taught him that change happens from the bottom up, not the top down, because ordinary people can do extraordinary things if given the chance. Said that the politics of "I'm not as bad as that guy, those people over there are terrible" doesn't chart the way forward. It might be good tactics, but it doesn't create a more perfect union.
Told a couple of anecdotes. Thanked the troops for their service. Said that people are patriots, proud of America, wondering how our standing in the world could decline so rapidly. We have to stand up together. The status quo will not give up easily. Talked about health care and education. Housing crisis plan with Chris Dodd, short term. Long term problem, ordinary incomes declining in real terms in boom times. Tax breaks for companies that keep jobs here, not send them abroad. Support working conditions in trade agreements. Make it easier for workers to organize in unions. Invest in scientific research. Taxing [something] for clean energy. Better fuel efficiency standards.
Train and staff our military better, and take better care of our veterans. Tired of the politics of fear. We can't just negotiate with our friends, but also with our enemies. Looked forward to telling the world that America is back: leading in civil rights and health care and Darfur etc. Talked about old habits locking us down.
Except, you know, Obama's actual speech had a lot more detail. He took over 45 minutes! And again, even aside from the obvious applause lines (like the one about how George W. Bush won't be on the ballot in November), he was also getting massive applause all over the place for really crunchy policy stuff. One that really stood out in my mind was "restore habeus corpus." It was so funny and sad, because a technical legal issue was getting all this applause, except that it's actually really important and it's horrifying that it's even disputed. Because it shouldn't be. At all.
When it was over, I ambled on out the door and down to the Max. I was lucky enough to get on the first train, and it wasn't even crowded, since most people hadn't left yet. (I don't like being crowded. With 13,000ish people all leaving at once, I was projecting that I'd likely have to wait an hour or two before the crush would clear enough for me to catch a train.) I chatted with my random seatmate about the rally and Obama and hope until she got off downtown, then sat in thoughtful silence the rest of the way back to the parking garage.