4 feet from Obama, and still pinching myself

It all started Thursday night...Barack Obama is coming to town. Okay, so is Hillary. He's speaking a a rally Friday afternoon. Yeah, well Hillary's speaking on Thursday night. It'll be at Key Arena, estimated crowd at least 17,000. Well, okay...now that beats the heck out of Hillary's crowd of 5,000.
Pictures from hope rally

Not to sound like one of those jealous younger siblings who doesn't get as much attention; but quite frankly the caucuses never seems to matter much in Washington state. However this year, Super Tuesday has come and gone and there's still no clear Democratic candidate.

So people are actually paying attention to us. Weird.

Friday morning I got up early--supposedly the line to get into hear Obama had started the night before. So I wanted to get out there and talk to some of the people who were camping out in the drizzly Seattle weather, just to get a chance to listen to, if not meet the Democratic candidate.

That's when we got an email from Jeff Giertz from the Obama campaign.

"Senator Obama to Hold Media Availability after Touring the McKinstry Company"--and I had a press pass to the small gathering.

We rushed off to south Seattle (using the motorcade as a hint we we're heading in the right direction) and arrived at McKinstry, a green engineering and building company.

When we got there, there were maybe 20 other members of the press, and we were by far the youngest in the room.

I took my seat and began talking to the CFO for McKinstry who was sitting next to me. He said that in the last two weeks the mayor of Seattle, one of our Representatives in Congress and the Governor of Washington had all used McKinstry as a backdrop for press conferences about their proposed environmental initiatives.

The employees of McKinstry stood around the room in hushed anticipation; the reporters off the campaign bus had the "just another press conference air."

We were excited. No, we we're freaking out. In just minutes senator Obama was about to answer our questions face-to-face. Let's just say our hearts were beating a hundred times a second. Or at least it felt like it.

The press conference came and went in a blur. Although the senator was an impressive figure, his overall tone was somewhat disappointing. This was a very different Barack Obama than we we're used to see on CNN and the campaign trail.

This was a very different Barack Obama than most have grown accustomed to. There were no grand sermons and little of what many, including Sen. Clinton, have called "naive promises." In his brief speech he was to-the-point, and when answering questions he was realistic and matter-of-fact.
Perhaps it was the lack of 18,000 supporters chanting "fired up, ready to go" or the fact that he was speaking to a group of McKinstry workers who, while energized to meet the presidential candidate, appeared star-struck and in disbelief that the Sen. Obama chose to make this quick pit-stop at their company.

After the conference we sped off to Key Arena, where reports were coming in that the doors we're closing. We got there and were directed repeatedly back by policemen. They were over capacity, it didn't matter we had been with the senator moments before.

So we called up Jeff and next thing we know we're being swept through the crowd by Secret Service and into the press box on the floor of the arena. The atmosphere in the building was incredible. One of positivity and hope.  I've never witnessed anything like it. I spun around to see 18,000 people of all ages, all ethnicities, all backgrounds, dancing, singing, chanting in anticipation.

It took awhile to get things going. Later we were told this was because the senator wanted to take the time to greet some of the 3,000 people left outside in the wet and cold because the arena was full.

This speech was more of what I had been expecting, that spine quivering feeling of empowerment, hope and direction. The feeling of purpose, dreams and future. Even the veteran report next to me mentioned, "This is big. We're witnessing something truly remarkable."

And that's where I'll leave it. A day of truly of truly remarkable events. Now I'm off to cover the caucuses and see if the 21,000+ people who skipped work, school and other commitments to see Barack Obama yesterday, will come out today and do what the senator asked of them. Caucus for Obama today.