The Boston rally was, to say the least, amazing. Barack had been to Boston last October and held a rally of 10,000 people. I don't know the raw numbers, but I guarantee that there were a lot more than that this time. I got to the Seaport Hotel/Convention Center at 5:00PM, which was three hours before the advertised rally start time. When I arrived there was already a huge line. Not only was the line long, but it was diverse. I saw people from all walks of life in the already forming line. I saw blacks, I saw whites, I saw Muslims. I saw elderly citizens and students. I saw parents and children. When the rally was over I overheard a security guard (who had walked along the entire line) that he figured the average age of the crowd to be about 25 years old or so. I even saw a 17-year-old who couldn't vote yet making phone calls for Senator Obama. Like I said, it was amazing.
Now, I was fairly lucky. 5:00 was early enough to get a good position in the rally. However, I had to stand outside (and boy was it cold!) for over three and a half hours. It wasn't a pleasant experience, especially when people who decided to show up 35 minutes before doors opened decided to cut in front of you. It wasn't fair to the people around me who had waited for almost four hours. People who will do anything to get what they want should join the Clinton campaign! (Just kidding, Clinton voters)
Finally we were let in a little after 8:30. Security was tight, obviously, but there didn't seem to be any problems getting people through. The rally itself didn't really start until a few minutes after 10:00, so even after getting inside the building we still had over and hour and a half to wait. On the bright side, at least we weren't out in the cold anymore.
Finally, the first big speaker of the night, Gov. Deval Patrick, took to the stage. He gave a great speech, although to tell you the truth I was paying too much attention to the energy of the crowd to remember anything he said.
Next, Gov. Patrick brought out Sen. John Kerry. Kerry gave himself some credit for getting Barack to speak at the 2004 Convention, which ultimately lead to where he is today.
Then, the big kahuna himself, Ted Kennedy, came out...with a surprise guest. Caroline Kennedy had taken a red eye flight from California last night so that she could get to Boston for the rally tonight. The crowd went wild! Here's a short clip from Ted Kennedy's speech (Caroline, Kerry, and the mayor of Fitchburg, MA are sitting on the right):
Finally, it was time for the "main event" (although personally I had also really wanted to see Kennedy, since I had already seen Obama before).
Oh, and the crowd:
I've got plenty of other video clips and pictures that I could add (maybe if this is on the Rec List when I check tomorrow morning at about 10:00. Heh, heh) but I didn't want to overload this one diary too much. This is my first real attempt at adding photos and video to a diary, so I hope everything works out.
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