First off...I'm amazed at the selection of people that turned out for today's rally in downtown Miami. Every kind of person from every kind of background. Especially young married couples bringing their young kids to see Barack and Michelle. It was truly inspiring.
Second. I'd say there were 20,000-25,000 in the main area, another 5,000 in the secondary area where no one could see the stage at all, and another 5,000 people at least who didn't even make it in for Barack and Michelle's speeches.
Third...I felt like I was at a rock concert. I wasn't expecting to feel moved, but I was. It was awesome. Pictures and how the day went below the fold.
I live in Fort Lauderdale, FL. I made the 25 mile drive south to see Barack and Michelle speak at Bayfront Park in downtown Miami. The gates were set to open at 3:45pm with festivities starting at 5:45pm.
Judging by everything I've read, I knew I had to get down there early to ensure I'd get a decent place to see Barack and Michelle. I arrived in downtown Miami at about 12:30pm. After I parked and made my way down to the area I was in shock. Over 3 hours before the rally's gates were set to open and more than 5 hours before anyone was set to speak, I'd say there were at least 1,000 people in front of me.
On line I started talking to a few parents who took their kids out of school today because they wanted their children to "see and experience this..." I thought that was heartwarming.
Here's a picture of the line at around 1pm. Its hard to see, but there are 19 lines that stretched from the entrance across the first 3 lanes of Biscayne Boulevard:
While waiting on line, Obama volunteers went up and down asking each person if they wanted to volunteer to canvass, phone bank, drive people to polling places, etc. By the time they got to me, I counted in my line that out of the 60-70 people were in front of me, 26 signed up to volunteer. Multiply that number by the 19 separate lines they had to get into the event area and you can see why Obama's ground game is so impressive.
The volunteer was a very attractive young woman from San Francisco. She said that they flew her in and about 100 other staffers from all over the country that will be staying in South Florida through election day!!! I asked her if she knew San Francisco qualified as pro-America or anti-America. We had a good laugh.
By the time 3pm rolled around, the crowd outside was cutting across all 6 lanes of the main road, Biscayne Boulevard so they decided to open the doors 30 minutes early just to alleviate the bulging crowds outside.
The next picture was taken at about 5:15. I climbed on top of a hill to get a decent shot of the crowd. You're only seeing about 50% of the crowd in this picture:
At this point, they shut the 19 Secret Service metal detector lines down because the crowd inside the park was at capacity so they opened up a secondary area behind the hill where they only things these people could see were the hill, porta-potties, food stands, and they didn't care!!! They just wanted to be there. I climbed back up on the hill and even though they opened up the secondary area there were still at least 5,000 people who didn't make into the park at all, but still stayed as Obama volunteers rapidly set-up additional speakers just so the people outside could hear.
Moments before Barack and Michelle came on stage, I walked off the hill and made my way into the back of the main part of the crowd. I quickly snapped this picture of all of the people standing on the hill. Just think, there were probably a few thousand people behind that hill just listening to the PA system!!!
Among the people traveling with Barack that were introduced were: Senator Bill Nelson, former Senator and Florida Governor Bob Graham, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Robert Wexler, and Congressman Kendrick Meek.
Senator Nelson introduced Michelle and when that happened, pandemonium let loose. It was like being at a rock concert. I tried to get a better view, but there were just too many people. Forget about it when Michelle introduced Barack. I thought Elvis was being introduced.
The following picture is about as close as I could get to the main stage:
I know the picture quality isn't great, but it was from my cell phone. I friggin' forgot my digital camera!!! If you squint you can see a dude in a white shirt in the lower center of the picture, that would be President Elect Barack Obama.
Barack gave his standard stump speech, took some good shots at Governor Sasquatch Palin and gave it pretty good to Senile Senator McCain. He said he wanted to know if Warren Buffet and Colin Powell were "socialistic" like McCain said this morning in Pennsylvania.
Just before he was done speaking, I sprinted over to the main entrance / exit area and snapped this picture of all of the people that didn't even make it in, but stayed just to hear the speech over the PA system:
All I know is it was pretty awesome. I'm 33 years old. Single, liberal, non-practicing Jewish dude living in Fort Lauderdale. I've seen President Clinton speak twice. Once in 1996 in Tampa and once in 1999 in Orlando. I saw Al Gore give his election-eve speech in South Beach in 2000. I've seen John Kerry speak at a rally in Fort Lauderdale in 2004. Nothing compared to this. Not even Clinton.
This crowd was electric from the beginning to the end. A zillion different people from a zillion different walks of life. I was truly amazed.
All of us get so bogged down on the polls and the negative campaigns and what not. Today renewed my faith in humanity, even it was just for a few hours.
I'm exhausted. Pretty sure I have sun and heat stroke, I can feel a migraine coming on and my knees are killing me. I need to lie down.
Everyone: keep it up. Do whatever you can as often as you can and don't stop. Stay involved. Stay informed. We really can do this. It can really happen if we just stay determined.