and all I can say is that Missouri is going blue this year!
This was a spur of the moment idea by my wife. I walked into the house on Thursday and my wife says "Hey, lets go to an Obama rally in Kansas City!" I thought it was just some wishful thinking on her part, so I said sure. Within 30 minutes, she had called another family we do political stuff with and got them to commit and then had our rooms booked. We were going to KC!!!
My wife has been motiviated by Obama ever since learning about the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and McCain being against it. My wife is a Democrat from a heavily Democratic family, but has never really felt the need to get involved. I knock Union doors almost every weekend for Andrew Rice and various HD's and it drove her nuts that I'm gone every Saturday morning. Thankfully that has changed, and it is amazing to see her get so enthusiastic about politics. So enthused that she made "Union Made Babies for Obama" Tshirts for all the girls to wear during the rally.
More after the jump...
We loaded up our 2 daughters (2 1/2yrs and 11mos) and met our friends up in Edmond with their 2 daughters (7yrs and 12mos) and hit the road. The rally was at the WWI Memorial which has limited parking. The gates opened at 4pm, so we aimed to get there by 2pm at the latest in case there was a line.....
Ah, the line! It streched at least a mile down the road. We kept walking and walking and finally found the end and we were immediatly met by Obama volunteers signing up volunteers for GOTV and other efforts. This campaign is the most coordinated campaign Ive ever seen!
Anyways, I guess they had opened the gates early so the line moved quickly and after about 20 minutes, we were inside. After going thru the metal detectors, we found our spot. We were about 40 yards from the podium and were very excited about being so close.
It was about 3pm and we were nervous because we were told not to bring in any bags, so we had to smuggle some diapers and wipes and thats about it. Thankfully, the girls never had to go #2 and were very patient (thank God) because we found out that he wouldnt be speaking until about 6pm.
We met so many people from various walks of life. I met an older white couple who were retired UAW members that were concerned about trade, a mixed race couple with a beautiful infant girl named Marley (if we have another girl, we are stealing that name!) who were concerned about healthcare, and so many more I could go on and on. It was the type of mixture of people that you would NEVER see at a McCain rally. We told people that we drove up from Norman Oklahoma and they were impressed a group of people would drive so far to listen to Obama speak, especially from such a red state. We told them that there is a great progressive movement in Oklahoma with several motivated activists and it is slowly turning blue.
So we waited for 3 hours and finally the speakers began to speak. First was the mayor of KC, then I think the state treasurer, then Ike Skelton, then Katherine Sebelious, and then finally the man of the hour, Barack Obama. The crowd went nuts!!! I put my 2 year old on my shoulders for a minute here and there so she could see and she got so excited!!! Some background on this-the other day my daughter was sitting on the floor playing and she just happened to hear Obama giving a speech. She turned around and said "Morock Obama for President?". I told her it was and now everytime she see's him, she squeals with excitment exclaiming "Morock Obama for President!".
He spoke for about 30 minutes and gave a great speech. The roar of the crowd was similar to a football game. Earlier in the day, we had heard that there were over 100,000 people in St. Louis to listen to Obama. He hit all the talking points, tax cuts, jobs, and trade. He even attacked McCains comparing middle class tax cuts to welfare. It was amazing!!!!
Once he was done speaking, we began filing out and I was shocked by how many people were behind us. It took forever to get out and back to the car, and once we finally got back to the car, it took another hour to get back to the hotel. Completly exhausted, we checked into our hotel, gave the girls baths, poured ourselves into bed and passed out (after watching Texas kick the crap out of Mizzou...I went to UTSA and we didnt have a football team, so I live vicariously thru the Longhorns).
The only thing that bothered me were the few racist people in the crowd. When they introduced Ike Skelton, an African American lady behind us screamed "I didnt come here to listen to no cracker!". This really pissed off my wife! The time that pissed me off was when we were walking back to our car, a rowdy African American couple were walking a little in front of us. We had put a "kid leash" on our 2 year old before the rally to make damn sure we didnt lose her (good foresight on our part, there were at least 4 kids seperated from their folks during the rally). Anyways, this "leash" is a monkey that straps to her back and its tail is the actual leash. Well, they started chanting "Obama, Obama" to some folks in a car, we walked past them and the girlfriend says "Aw, look at that little monkey on her back. Its cute!". I turned and smiled at her was about to tell her thanks and how much of a life saver it was and before I could start, her boyfriend angrily said "They must be McCain supporters with that monkey bullsit on her back.". At this point I decided to walk away from them and I heard him say "I guess they dont understand english, I guess I should try crack-a-lacker". This angered me, but I just kept walking. There are supporters like this for both candidates, but thankfully its a small minority.
All in all, it was an amazing experience that I'm glad I was one of over 75000 people in the audience that witnessed history. I dont think my wife and I will ever forget it and our girls can tell people that they were there when Obama turned Missouri blue.