Yet another Obama post...This time with pictures.
I started this post one day last week...had to leave it to go about my duties. Today, I finally finished my long-winded travelogue.
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Procrastination on getting practical shit done means the perfect opportunity to post the photos from the VA Beach Obama rally. Otherwise, procrastination in that direction might keep them from being posted until after the general election.
Can you tell I'm a bit lazy lately?
So yeah, everything I'm about to write was all my brother's fault.
He decided to take Rob and I out to dinner Saturday night. Afterwards, the whole indecisive lot of us were trying to decide whether to go to a bar for a bit or head home. Citing a previous decision that I'd given in and made, I said it was up to him.
He replied that, if it were up to him, we would all end up trashed.
I said that as long as he was paying for it, Cheri was driving home and I had a place to fall down at the end of the night, that was okay with me.
We're all at a local bar, rather intoxicated (completely sloshed), when I saw the primary results on TV--This was, of course, the week Obama won in every state and had a delegate lead over Clinton for the first time.
Forgetting that I was in public, I let out an enthusiastic "war cry" (not high-pitched enough to be labelled a shriek), followed by what can only be described as a "rant of joy". If you've ever witnessed me in the throws of one of these, you know they're loud, high-speed and liberally spiced with expletives.
People were staring.
Then I saw that Barack himself was coming to the VA Beach Convention Center the next day, which tipped me over the edge into ecstasies of jumping up and down, clapping and yelling, "Wegottago! Canwecanwe!"
People were still staring.
I think Rob would have agreed that we could go to Nebraska if that would have shut me up.
That's how, on Sunday Feb. 10th, I was dragging my slightly hung-over self out of bed and hurrying to get home so I could get ready and make the trek to see Obama.
It was not an easy journey, but we made it and considered it well worth the effort. Note my goofy grin.
Side note--When will I learn that I have very peculiarly shaped thumbs and, without intense concentration, thumbs-up signs make my hands look deformed?
It didn't begin well.
Early Sunday morning, lacking a contact case or solution, I took Cheri up on the offer of shot glasses and the solution her daughter left there when she visited. In my soggy state, I didn't examine the solution too closely, only noting that it was a brand I had used before.
A little before 10:00, after about 4 hours of sleep, I got up, took a hot shower and put in my right contact, which resulted in a sensation a lot like I imagine would result from applying a hot coal to my eye.
After removing the source of my agony, I took a teary, one-eyed look at the back of the bottle and discovered that I had soaked my contacts in enzyme solution. Not only had the six hours necessary to neutralize the solution not completely passed, I'm violently allergic to one of the main ingredients in enzyme solutions.
I didn't have my glasses with me which meant, unless I found a way to get these things in my eyes, I would have had better luck driving home the previous night, whiskey sours and all.
So, I rinsed my eye, applied large amounts of Visine, rinsed my contacts in Chesapeake tap water and bit the bullet. It wasn't unbearable. I could see.
...and I looked like I had the worst case of pink eye ever...like Southpark zombie pinkeye.
We made a rapid trip home. Rob called the convention center while I started soaking my contacts in saline, getting directions, and getting things ready to leave.
There were already "about 20 people" at the center as of noon, at least some of whom had evidently been there overnight.
We got ready to go as quickly as possible. I doused myself with more Visine, put in my contacts again and was relieved to find that they didn't hurt at all and I only looked mildly contagious.
By this time (about 1:30) I was cursing and running around frantically, tripping over cats and trying to do 6 things at once. I had wanted to leave about thirty minutes before because we were having 35 mph winds with gusts up to 50+ mph so, especially not knowing where I was going, I wanted to leave plenty of extra time to be there by 2:30 or so.
As I said in my previous post, a couple fire trucks went by and I wondered if there had been an accident. As I was making a second attempt at applying eye makeup that would camouflage my swollen, irritated eye as much as possible, and getting very frustrated in the process, another fire truck went by and the power went out. I yelled...a lot...while still trying to put on eyeliner.
After a couple minutes, I called it "good enough" and decided to spend most of the day wearing sunglasses.
Largely uneventful drive, we still made it by not long after 3:00. Parking was easy--we were able to find a spot right across from the convention center.
However, either the person we talked to on the phone wasn't so good at counting or a hell of a lot of people had shown up since noon, some looking like they'd been residing there quite some time....had time to put in change of address forms and all.
The front of the convention center, near where we parked...
...a little further down...
...still going...
We got a place in line about 20 feet back from the edge of the photo above.
We actually had very good luck in our spot; We were next to awesome people--A woman named T****, her two children, and her mother who I was only introduced to as "Mom". "Mom" was incredible--She had been both an organizer and civil rights activist and had taken T*** to the March on Washington when she was a baby. Needless to say, she was incredible to talk with.
By the time we'd all made it halfway to the door, we were making tentative plans to meet up in DC for the inauguration should Obama be elected.
Equally awesome to me was the fact of three generations of a family, including a teenage girl and pre-teen boy, all attending a political rally together, with the kids definitely not unhappy to be standing in line for hours to see a politician speak.
Personally, I think all serious criticisms of Obama's "charisma" and allegations that "words don't matter" would disappear if reporters/political analysts/etc spent some time in line for one of his rallies. That his words get people to stand in line for hours to be part of the political process is an accomplishment in itself. That complete strangers standing in these lines end up discussing everything from politics to race without getting into fist fights is miraculous.
Then again, maybe it wouldn't--They have to have something to bitch about.
While Rob staked out our spot, I wandered around getting what photos I could of the folk waiting in line. This wasn't exactly easy since the wind kept blowing my hair in front of the camera and even blowing me slightly off balance.
It was bad enough that their were white-capss in the small pool on the corner.
The wind noise in this video posted on YouTube gives a pretty good idea of how excessive it was--Check your volume before playing --It's really loud (like hurricane coverage on the news).
Obama's supporters were definitely earning their reputation for fanaticism, not only by standing out in high winds for up to six hours but by doing so quite cheerfully. People were outright chipper--even the ones who had to have been there at least since noon.
Close to the doors, evidence of long stays was obvious: Lawn chairs, blankets, fast food debris.
Quite a few people had the same idea we had, leaving one person in line while others went to peep about, get warm, fetch food and drink...
This gentleman seems very happy with his pizza.
These guys were adorable. They'd been there since about 1:00 and were still quite energetic, bouncing up and yelling "Photo op!" whenever some fool (like myself) poked a camera at them.
I was rather amazed at their energy...And how consistently they managed to stay on the correct side of each other so their shirts didn't say, "ACKBAR MAOBA."
After we'd been there less than an hour, there was yet another crisis. The "low battery" light on my camera started flashing. Since I had given up the hunt for my spare batteries before leaving the house, I got directions to the nearest convenience store to get whatever I could. All the nearby parking lots had filled up, so I jogged to the nearest 7-11 and back rather than trying to navigate traffic and park again.
When I left, the line had taken up the three blocks or so taken up by the convention center, turned the corner and stretched about a block back along the parking lot beside it. In the thirty minutes it took me to get batteries, the line had started snaking through the aforementioned parking lot.
By 5:00, it had completely wrapped around every row of cars and looped back to the street.
Evidently, even after our part of the line had made it to the doors, more people had created the same effect all over again. The final total was estimated at 18,000.
Insert another unpleasant moment for me--After running to the store and back, with wind blowing in my face, I was parched. Upon finding Rob in the hordes, I focused on the beverage he was holding. I said, "Oh, give me that. I'm so thirsty." Either the latter portion of that was lost in my general manic chatter, he hates me, or he just follows orders well. He promptly handed over the beverage...without telling me that it had been used as the community ashtray since I left. I had already gotten it to my mouth and realized that something was incorrect when he and a few other people realized what was about to happen and started yelling variations on, "Oh no, don't!"
Too late.
Thankfully, I was well prepared with backup drinks and could promptly rinse my mouth. It's a sign of my indomitable enthusiasm that I was only repulsed for a few seconds before I was back to happily bouncing about.
They opened the doors 30 minutes early, presumably because of the unexpected turnout and in hopes of possibly getting everyone through security somewhere near the scheduled 7:30 start time.
Movement was slow--fine with those of us trying to get in a last beverage and cigarette. Less agreeable were the latecomers who were trying to sneak into the line in places where it turned corners or doubled back. "Mom" was particularly vocal about the shamefulness of such things and not above tapping people on the shoulder to point out that they had not been in front of her a moment ago.
By 5:15 we'd made it to the first corner. It was starting to get cold. Not wanting to haul around a thick coat all night, I was only wearing a shirt and light hoodie. At least we had a pretty sunset to look at.
Progress was also rapid and by 5:30, we were almost to the door.
Rob looks somewhere between giddy at the thought of finally getting out of the wind and terrified of being crushed by the mass of people inside.
That fear was not unwarranted. Once we got into the lobby, we became keenly aware of exactly how many people were in line. The view as we came in the door:
I was a bit befuddled at how they were going to get all of these people, plus at least that many again through "airport style" security involving bag checks, emptying of pockets and metal detectors.
The problem of people sneaking ahead in line got worse with the realization of how many people were there and with the increased opportunity of people clumped together and separated by rope barriers. Add to this stifling heat as well as quite a bit of pushing and shoving and you can imagine that the general goodwill was quickly evaporating. We all had to hold hands (sleeves, belts, whatever) to keep together what had blossomed into a core party of nine people who wanted to be seated together. Toni's son, being both short and fast, cut off people who were trying to get in front of us and hauled the rest of us behind him in what looked like a game of "crack the whip" played in dangerously close quarters.
Yeah, I've been in mosh pits that were more polite and probably much less hazardous.
I think there was almost a riot when people found out that ALL of the routes to bathrooms were behind the security checks. I had been hesitant to leave my place in line again to seek out a bathroom and was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get to one once we got into the rally itself, especially not with hundreds of people in front of me, half of whom were already doing the pee-pee dance. I didn't get to a bathroom until after we left--I have bladder muscles of steel.
We couldn't find out what the capacity was for people to get in, only that the small amount of available seating was already taken. Thus, the potential for violence increased when people from outside were let in ahead of us if they chose to settle for the larger "unsecured" area. We had no idea WHY they were let in ahead at first--We just saw a huge herd of people RUNNING through another set of doors. Until it was explained, there was quite a bit of snarling.
In the end, after being assured by nearby volunteers that our section would "almost certainly" get in, we decided to stick out the long wait for the much closer, less crowded secured area.
It was after 7:00 when we got in --how much after, I don't remember. We were glad we'd stuck out the wait though, after seeing the unsecured area.
In contrast, we were about 25 feet from the stage. We found out later that the convention center capacity was 8,000 people and an additional 1,000 watched from the overflow area in the lobby--meaning that about the same amount didn't even make it inside.
My aching feet were giving me "bleacher envy" for the few people with actual seats--we'd been standing for about four hours straight, and the tall people in front of me were lifting their children onto their shoulders, blocking my every photo attempt. We'd gone from brisk, windy conditions to stifling heat. A couple people passed out, more were putting their heads between their knees on occasion. I was feeling a little woozy myself and was keenly aware that, in all the rushing about, I'd forgotten about food entirely. Between sore feet and a full bladder, I was also starting to look like a flamingo, resting each leg for a few minutes at a time.
It didn't help that I spent pretty much the entire time on tiptoe--Seeing what's going on when you're a vertically challenged person in a standing room crowd is not easy. I spent a lot of time bouncing up to see over people or scooting to one side or another to see between people's heads. My view...
Yeah, Rob got the camera soon after that. I held our coats. I know my place in the height hierarchy.
Another video from the wait...This was too adorably 70s.
At least we didn't have to contend with Clintonesque Merle Haggard songs.
Despite the entertainment potential of the crowd itself, by the time we got through the speeches of Some Guy Whose Name I Didn't Catch and Some Converted Republican Chick With the Obama Campaign, I think most people were thinking along the same lines I was--That Mr. Obama better hurry it up or I was going to fall out and miss the whole thing. Miscellaneous, less-than-polite yells from the crowd and wild applause whenever a speaker promised to "keep it short" support my theory.
Gov. Tim Kaine got a warm reception--helped along by promises to get through his introduction quickly and give us Obama.
Someone posted video of his entrance--Again, watch the volume.
Funniest thing--Gov. Kaine introduces Barack. People shriek. Then, they get confused and rather quiet when he doesn't immediately appear. After about 30 seconds, he's sighted and they freak out yet again. I wonder how many times they could have bluffed the crowd into losing their shit over nothing...
Because Obama supporters do have that reputation for unconditional loyalty and cult-like fervor, I'd like to say that I didn't jump up and down and squeal like a little bitch. However, I'm afraid I can't do that. At least I didn't faint.
However, I do think he could have said, "This state really sucks!" and a sizable chunk of us would have started yelling "Yes we can."
Instead, he told us that we won Maine.
Yeah, flashback to me yelling like an idiot in a bar the night before...except this time there was no alcohol involved.
Admittedly, some of the speech material was recycled but hearing it in person was an entirely different experience than watching it on CNN or Youtube.
I see why he attracts the die hard "following" that he does--Silly as it sounds when talking about a group of 8,000 people, it really is like he's talking directly to the individuals in the audience--carefully addressing the concerns of the people while hitting the emotional buttons. Despite the shit he's gotten for his charismatic "performances", I see it as an asset. We NEED a president who can connect with the people, who can convince people to believe him and pull them around to his way of seeing things.
However, it wasn't like he was saying, as Hillary mimicked recently in Providence, "Let's just get everybody together, let's get unified.' The sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect,"
No--I don't think many people were screaming for the guy because they thought for a second that the minute he took office we'd all have jobs, insurance, an end to the war. It's more about someone being willing to address these things directly...To say that we've been bullshitted for eight years and that we have a right to expect better.
That's the saddest part of the attacks on Obama's message of hope and change--It's like we've gone so long without either that people have forgotten what the words mean. "To hope" has become "to blindly assume that the outcome will be the best possible." Obama, like any candidate, says what he wants to do--He's advertising his potential to the American people. It's up to us to realize the downfalls--that we're a long way from where we were 8 years ago, that it's not as simple as packing up and leaving Iraq, that things like a more stable economy and widely available insurance will take a long time to accomplish.
But, without hope for these things, they'd never be accomplished. A year ago I would have snorted at the thought of standing in line all day to see a politician speak. I was thoroughly fed up with this country in general and, had a chance to emigrate elsewhere suddenly appeared, I would have been very tempted.
Yet I, and a lot of others who have felt like the political system was irrelevant and hopelessly corrupt, am suddenly outright enthusiastic about a candidate. That means something.
As I told Rob awhile back, if he wins, Obama's presidency will be historic, not because he's black, but because he won telling us the exact opposite of what we wanted to hear. We wanted to see our anger and cynicism reflected in a candidate--wanted to hear about fire and brimstone raining down on the conservative right for stealing elections, ruining our international reputation and throwing our economy into chaos. We wanted someone vicious, ruthless and conniving because we thought we had to beat the right wing at their own game.
Then this skinny little fucker with big ears and a funny name pops up saying, "We need bipartisan cooperation...YOU are the ones who can change things, so do it...Let's think about the future...Hope."
Every time I get a little embarrassed at my "hopefulness"...feel like I'm setting myself up to be fooled by a politician (What an indignity!), I also realize what this says about American cynicism and how it makes us ripe for someone who DOESN'T preach these things to come in and live up to our lowest expectations. I remember that thinking of the world ONLY as a hard and ugly place makes us hard and ugly people.
It doesn't hurt that he's interesting...outright entertaining at times.
His classic "And I love you too", jokes about "Cousin Dick Cheney" and the now infamous "I'm skinny but I'm tough."...I grinned like a fool.
And, of course, his last words to the VA crowd were, "We need EMTs down here--This lady has fainted." Evidently, it's a common occurrence.
I was rather impressed that he braved the crowd. We tried to get to him but couldn't quite make it. Rob did manage to get a couple pics of a sort of squished looking Obama getting jostled by affectionate Virginians.
Seeing the news microphone that signaled his location in the crowd bouncing towards us, I was a little surprised to hear a quiet little, "Ohmygod, oh fuck, there he is." escape from me. I threatened myself with a week long ban from news coverage if I squealed, cried or, no way in hell, collapsed in ecstasy.
"C'mon Rachel...He's a primary candidate...You are not being faced with Elvis' pelvis so QUIT IT!"
It worked.
He may be the person in the world I'd most like to meet at the moment, but I insist on keeping a tiny bit of dignity.
Despite my half jokes about The Beatles and my unembarrassed enjoyment at a carnival-like atmosphere, I really do feel like I got to see something important. This may well be my generation's page in the history books...well, the one where we WEREN'T fucking things up. But beyond the potential historical significance, whether he wins or not, I think I witnessed a crossroads in history.
In spite of the near constant cheering and exclamations during his speech, there had been entire segments of the speech where people wherewould get quiet...and watching him intently, listening like we were trying to prove to ourselves that he was for real.
I found myself thinking at times, "You BETTER mean this shit...Please."
In the last eight years, this area has been hit so hard by bad times--I don't know as much about VA, but our economies are so intertwined that I feel safe in guessing that they're experiencing similar problems to what's going on to south of their border.
Just in the 3 years I've been back here, I'm seen a major decline in our standard of living. With the cutbacks in medicaid, grants for college students, food stamps, and most every social program, I've seen the lines at soup kitchens grow every year. On a recent night, 110 homeless people were counted in Elizabeth City alone, a town of 30,000. They included quite a few children, migrant farm workers waiting to spend the spring and summer camping and working fields, veterans and people with college degrees.
Currituck, Camden and Pasquotank all lead the fastest growing counties in NC--Yet we cannot get government funding to help get water and sewer to people in Camden county or build new schools to deal with overcrowding...but they do their best to sink a Navy OLF base in the middle of our wetlands, a project that would take up a huge amount of land and only provide a few low wage jobs.
Meanwhile, in Camden County people are building half million dollar homes within walking distance of "neighbors" who still use outhouses. Crime and drug use are growing along with the population. Last year, for the first time ever, Elizabeth City had a homicide rate above 1. I've seen people lose their homes, lose family and friends to the war, have to worry for the first time in my memory about how to keep a roof over their heads when half their monthly income goes to the electric company. Grocery prices have increased drastically since I moved back...We now spend double what we spent when we first moved here, simply to keep ourselves fed. A full day's pay often goes to gas money for the week.
We've lost jobs with the closing of the Ford plant, families were broken up and forced to relocate. Checking the classified ads this spring, I have seen nowhere near the usual number of ads for summer jobs on the beach--With less people having money to travel, our tourist-based economy is suffering. Farmers are selling off land for development because last year's drought was the final straw for them. Anti-illegal immigrant sentiment is high, not because of patriotism or whatever, but because we're now all competing for the same low paying jobs.
I think a lot of us are wondering if our communities can survive another four years of this.
So, listening to this guy tell us that it's okay to hope, that we can reverse this downward spiral, I thought, "You BETTER be as tough as you say and you BETTER mean it."
I came away from listening to him reasonably sure that he is and that he does.
Moreover, I came away realizing that there is a large segment of the population that is as tired, discouraged and worried as I am. I realized on a large scale how badly we're hurting...how we'd given up so much of what we used to consider our rights by birth.
I'm hopeful, yes--there goes that h-bomb again, that if we can't get Obama into the white house, we still will have learned that we can impact things, that the momentum he has created may be focused on him but is not dependent on him...that we'll find a way to change things no matter what.
There he is. There we are. My eye was really starting to hurt..but I was happy. .
Here's video of the entire speech, though it has annoying intros and far from the best quality.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=hwG-KylnULc
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zgMG6iiFBMw
http://youtube.com/watch?v=G6Uw1BvX2Rw
And my Pbase gallery with more photos and larger versions of the ones here.
So here's hoping that Ohio and Texas come through...Then I can relax a little for a couple months and stop feeling like I placed a $10,000 bet on the world's longest Super Bowl.
Wow, that got really long. It's now 11 a.m. and I'm still in pajamas. Time to get ready to go out and face the world.
***
Procrastination on getting practical shit done means the perfect opportunity to post the photos from the VA Beach Obama rally. Otherwise, procrastination in that direction might keep them from being posted until after the general election.
Can you tell I'm a bit lazy lately?
So yeah, everything I'm about to write was all my brother's fault.
He decided to take Rob and I out to dinner Saturday night. Afterwards, the whole indecisive lot of us were trying to decide whether to go to a bar for a bit or head home. Citing a previous decision that I'd given in and made, I said it was up to him.
He replied that, if it were up to him, we would all end up trashed.
I said that as long as he was paying for it, Cheri was driving home and I had a place to fall down at the end of the night, that was okay with me.
We're all at a local bar, rather intoxicated (completely sloshed), when I saw the primary results on TV--This was, of course, the week Obama won in every state and had a delegate lead over Clinton for the first time.
Forgetting that I was in public, I let out an enthusiastic "war cry" (not high-pitched enough to be labelled a shriek), followed by what can only be described as a "rant of joy". If you've ever witnessed me in the throws of one of these, you know they're loud, high-speed and liberally spiced with expletives.
People were staring.
Then I saw that Barack himself was coming to the VA Beach Convention Center the next day, which tipped me over the edge into ecstasies of jumping up and down, clapping and yelling, "Wegottago! Canwecanwe!"
People were still staring.
I think Rob would have agreed that we could go to Nebraska if that would have shut me up.
That's how, on Sunday Feb. 10th, I was dragging my slightly hung-over self out of bed and hurrying to get home so I could get ready and make the trek to see Obama.
It was not an easy journey, but we made it and considered it well worth the effort. Note my goofy grin.
Side note--When will I learn that I have very peculiarly shaped thumbs and, without intense concentration, thumbs-up signs make my hands look deformed?
It didn't begin well.
Early Sunday morning, lacking a contact case or solution, I took Cheri up on the offer of shot glasses and the solution her daughter left there when she visited. In my soggy state, I didn't examine the solution too closely, only noting that it was a brand I had used before.
A little before 10:00, after about 4 hours of sleep, I got up, took a hot shower and put in my right contact, which resulted in a sensation a lot like I imagine would result from applying a hot coal to my eye.
After removing the source of my agony, I took a teary, one-eyed look at the back of the bottle and discovered that I had soaked my contacts in enzyme solution. Not only had the six hours necessary to neutralize the solution not completely passed, I'm violently allergic to one of the main ingredients in enzyme solutions.
I didn't have my glasses with me which meant, unless I found a way to get these things in my eyes, I would have had better luck driving home the previous night, whiskey sours and all.
So, I rinsed my eye, applied large amounts of Visine, rinsed my contacts in Chesapeake tap water and bit the bullet. It wasn't unbearable. I could see.
...and I looked like I had the worst case of pink eye ever...like Southpark zombie pinkeye.
We made a rapid trip home. Rob called the convention center while I started soaking my contacts in saline, getting directions, and getting things ready to leave.
There were already "about 20 people" at the center as of noon, at least some of whom had evidently been there overnight.
We got ready to go as quickly as possible. I doused myself with more Visine, put in my contacts again and was relieved to find that they didn't hurt at all and I only looked mildly contagious.
By this time (about 1:30) I was cursing and running around frantically, tripping over cats and trying to do 6 things at once. I had wanted to leave about thirty minutes before because we were having 35 mph winds with gusts up to 50+ mph so, especially not knowing where I was going, I wanted to leave plenty of extra time to be there by 2:30 or so.
As I said in my previous post, a couple fire trucks went by and I wondered if there had been an accident. As I was making a second attempt at applying eye makeup that would camouflage my swollen, irritated eye as much as possible, and getting very frustrated in the process, another fire truck went by and the power went out. I yelled...a lot...while still trying to put on eyeliner.
After a couple minutes, I called it "good enough" and decided to spend most of the day wearing sunglasses.
Largely uneventful drive, we still made it by not long after 3:00. Parking was easy--we were able to find a spot right across from the convention center.
However, either the person we talked to on the phone wasn't so good at counting or a hell of a lot of people had shown up since noon, some looking like they'd been residing there quite some time....had time to put in change of address forms and all.
The front of the convention center, near where we parked...
...a little further down...
...still going...
We got a place in line about 20 feet back from the edge of the photo above.
We actually had very good luck in our spot; We were next to awesome people--A woman named T****, her two children, and her mother who I was only introduced to as "Mom". "Mom" was incredible--She had been both an organizer and civil rights activist and had taken T*** to the March on Washington when she was a baby. Needless to say, she was incredible to talk with.
By the time we'd all made it halfway to the door, we were making tentative plans to meet up in DC for the inauguration should Obama be elected.
Equally awesome to me was the fact of three generations of a family, including a teenage girl and pre-teen boy, all attending a political rally together, with the kids definitely not unhappy to be standing in line for hours to see a politician speak.
Personally, I think all serious criticisms of Obama's "charisma" and allegations that "words don't matter" would disappear if reporters/political analysts/etc spent some time in line for one of his rallies. That his words get people to stand in line for hours to be part of the political process is an accomplishment in itself. That complete strangers standing in these lines end up discussing everything from politics to race without getting into fist fights is miraculous.
Then again, maybe it wouldn't--They have to have something to bitch about.
While Rob staked out our spot, I wandered around getting what photos I could of the folk waiting in line. This wasn't exactly easy since the wind kept blowing my hair in front of the camera and even blowing me slightly off balance.
It was bad enough that their were white-capss in the small pool on the corner.
The wind noise in this video posted on YouTube gives a pretty good idea of how excessive it was--Check your volume before playing --It's really loud (like hurricane coverage on the news).
Click to viewObama's supporters were definitely earning their reputation for fanaticism, not only by standing out in high winds for up to six hours but by doing so quite cheerfully. People were outright chipper--even the ones who had to have been there at least since noon.
Close to the doors, evidence of long stays was obvious: Lawn chairs, blankets, fast food debris.
Quite a few people had the same idea we had, leaving one person in line while others went to peep about, get warm, fetch food and drink...
This gentleman seems very happy with his pizza.
These guys were adorable. They'd been there since about 1:00 and were still quite energetic, bouncing up and yelling "Photo op!" whenever some fool (like myself) poked a camera at them.
I was rather amazed at their energy...And how consistently they managed to stay on the correct side of each other so their shirts didn't say, "ACKBAR MAOBA."
After we'd been there less than an hour, there was yet another crisis. The "low battery" light on my camera started flashing. Since I had given up the hunt for my spare batteries before leaving the house, I got directions to the nearest convenience store to get whatever I could. All the nearby parking lots had filled up, so I jogged to the nearest 7-11 and back rather than trying to navigate traffic and park again.
When I left, the line had taken up the three blocks or so taken up by the convention center, turned the corner and stretched about a block back along the parking lot beside it. In the thirty minutes it took me to get batteries, the line had started snaking through the aforementioned parking lot.
By 5:00, it had completely wrapped around every row of cars and looped back to the street.
Evidently, even after our part of the line had made it to the doors, more people had created the same effect all over again. The final total was estimated at 18,000.
Insert another unpleasant moment for me--After running to the store and back, with wind blowing in my face, I was parched. Upon finding Rob in the hordes, I focused on the beverage he was holding. I said, "Oh, give me that. I'm so thirsty." Either the latter portion of that was lost in my general manic chatter, he hates me, or he just follows orders well. He promptly handed over the beverage...without telling me that it had been used as the community ashtray since I left. I had already gotten it to my mouth and realized that something was incorrect when he and a few other people realized what was about to happen and started yelling variations on, "Oh no, don't!"
Too late.
Thankfully, I was well prepared with backup drinks and could promptly rinse my mouth. It's a sign of my indomitable enthusiasm that I was only repulsed for a few seconds before I was back to happily bouncing about.
They opened the doors 30 minutes early, presumably because of the unexpected turnout and in hopes of possibly getting everyone through security somewhere near the scheduled 7:30 start time.
Movement was slow--fine with those of us trying to get in a last beverage and cigarette. Less agreeable were the latecomers who were trying to sneak into the line in places where it turned corners or doubled back. "Mom" was particularly vocal about the shamefulness of such things and not above tapping people on the shoulder to point out that they had not been in front of her a moment ago.
By 5:15 we'd made it to the first corner. It was starting to get cold. Not wanting to haul around a thick coat all night, I was only wearing a shirt and light hoodie. At least we had a pretty sunset to look at.
Progress was also rapid and by 5:30, we were almost to the door.
Rob looks somewhere between giddy at the thought of finally getting out of the wind and terrified of being crushed by the mass of people inside.
That fear was not unwarranted. Once we got into the lobby, we became keenly aware of exactly how many people were in line. The view as we came in the door:
I was a bit befuddled at how they were going to get all of these people, plus at least that many again through "airport style" security involving bag checks, emptying of pockets and metal detectors.
The problem of people sneaking ahead in line got worse with the realization of how many people were there and with the increased opportunity of people clumped together and separated by rope barriers. Add to this stifling heat as well as quite a bit of pushing and shoving and you can imagine that the general goodwill was quickly evaporating. We all had to hold hands (sleeves, belts, whatever) to keep together what had blossomed into a core party of nine people who wanted to be seated together. Toni's son, being both short and fast, cut off people who were trying to get in front of us and hauled the rest of us behind him in what looked like a game of "crack the whip" played in dangerously close quarters.
Yeah, I've been in mosh pits that were more polite and probably much less hazardous.
I think there was almost a riot when people found out that ALL of the routes to bathrooms were behind the security checks. I had been hesitant to leave my place in line again to seek out a bathroom and was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get to one once we got into the rally itself, especially not with hundreds of people in front of me, half of whom were already doing the pee-pee dance. I didn't get to a bathroom until after we left--I have bladder muscles of steel.
We couldn't find out what the capacity was for people to get in, only that the small amount of available seating was already taken. Thus, the potential for violence increased when people from outside were let in ahead of us if they chose to settle for the larger "unsecured" area. We had no idea WHY they were let in ahead at first--We just saw a huge herd of people RUNNING through another set of doors. Until it was explained, there was quite a bit of snarling.
In the end, after being assured by nearby volunteers that our section would "almost certainly" get in, we decided to stick out the long wait for the much closer, less crowded secured area.
It was after 7:00 when we got in --how much after, I don't remember. We were glad we'd stuck out the wait though, after seeing the unsecured area.
In contrast, we were about 25 feet from the stage. We found out later that the convention center capacity was 8,000 people and an additional 1,000 watched from the overflow area in the lobby--meaning that about the same amount didn't even make it inside.
My aching feet were giving me "bleacher envy" for the few people with actual seats--we'd been standing for about four hours straight, and the tall people in front of me were lifting their children onto their shoulders, blocking my every photo attempt. We'd gone from brisk, windy conditions to stifling heat. A couple people passed out, more were putting their heads between their knees on occasion. I was feeling a little woozy myself and was keenly aware that, in all the rushing about, I'd forgotten about food entirely. Between sore feet and a full bladder, I was also starting to look like a flamingo, resting each leg for a few minutes at a time.
It didn't help that I spent pretty much the entire time on tiptoe--Seeing what's going on when you're a vertically challenged person in a standing room crowd is not easy. I spent a lot of time bouncing up to see over people or scooting to one side or another to see between people's heads. My view...
Yeah, Rob got the camera soon after that. I held our coats. I know my place in the height hierarchy.
Another video from the wait...This was too adorably 70s.
At least we didn't have to contend with Clintonesque Merle Haggard songs.
Despite the entertainment potential of the crowd itself, by the time we got through the speeches of Some Guy Whose Name I Didn't Catch and Some Converted Republican Chick With the Obama Campaign, I think most people were thinking along the same lines I was--That Mr. Obama better hurry it up or I was going to fall out and miss the whole thing. Miscellaneous, less-than-polite yells from the crowd and wild applause whenever a speaker promised to "keep it short" support my theory.
Gov. Tim Kaine got a warm reception--helped along by promises to get through his introduction quickly and give us Obama.
Someone posted video of his entrance--Again, watch the volume.
Funniest thing--Gov. Kaine introduces Barack. People shriek. Then, they get confused and rather quiet when he doesn't immediately appear. After about 30 seconds, he's sighted and they freak out yet again. I wonder how many times they could have bluffed the crowd into losing their shit over nothing...
Because Obama supporters do have that reputation for unconditional loyalty and cult-like fervor, I'd like to say that I didn't jump up and down and squeal like a little bitch. However, I'm afraid I can't do that. At least I didn't faint.
However, I do think he could have said, "This state really sucks!" and a sizable chunk of us would have started yelling "Yes we can."
Instead, he told us that we won Maine.
Yeah, flashback to me yelling like an idiot in a bar the night before...except this time there was no alcohol involved.
Admittedly, some of the speech material was recycled but hearing it in person was an entirely different experience than watching it on CNN or Youtube.
I see why he attracts the die hard "following" that he does--Silly as it sounds when talking about a group of 8,000 people, it really is like he's talking directly to the individuals in the audience--carefully addressing the concerns of the people while hitting the emotional buttons. Despite the shit he's gotten for his charismatic "performances", I see it as an asset. We NEED a president who can connect with the people, who can convince people to believe him and pull them around to his way of seeing things.
However, it wasn't like he was saying, as Hillary mimicked recently in Providence, "Let's just get everybody together, let's get unified.' The sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect,"
No--I don't think many people were screaming for the guy because they thought for a second that the minute he took office we'd all have jobs, insurance, an end to the war. It's more about someone being willing to address these things directly...To say that we've been bullshitted for eight years and that we have a right to expect better.
That's the saddest part of the attacks on Obama's message of hope and change--It's like we've gone so long without either that people have forgotten what the words mean. "To hope" has become "to blindly assume that the outcome will be the best possible." Obama, like any candidate, says what he wants to do--He's advertising his potential to the American people. It's up to us to realize the downfalls--that we're a long way from where we were 8 years ago, that it's not as simple as packing up and leaving Iraq, that things like a more stable economy and widely available insurance will take a long time to accomplish.
But, without hope for these things, they'd never be accomplished. A year ago I would have snorted at the thought of standing in line all day to see a politician speak. I was thoroughly fed up with this country in general and, had a chance to emigrate elsewhere suddenly appeared, I would have been very tempted.
Yet I, and a lot of others who have felt like the political system was irrelevant and hopelessly corrupt, am suddenly outright enthusiastic about a candidate. That means something.
As I told Rob awhile back, if he wins, Obama's presidency will be historic, not because he's black, but because he won telling us the exact opposite of what we wanted to hear. We wanted to see our anger and cynicism reflected in a candidate--wanted to hear about fire and brimstone raining down on the conservative right for stealing elections, ruining our international reputation and throwing our economy into chaos. We wanted someone vicious, ruthless and conniving because we thought we had to beat the right wing at their own game.
Then this skinny little fucker with big ears and a funny name pops up saying, "We need bipartisan cooperation...YOU are the ones who can change things, so do it...Let's think about the future...Hope."
Every time I get a little embarrassed at my "hopefulness"...feel like I'm setting myself up to be fooled by a politician (What an indignity!), I also realize what this says about American cynicism and how it makes us ripe for someone who DOESN'T preach these things to come in and live up to our lowest expectations. I remember that thinking of the world ONLY as a hard and ugly place makes us hard and ugly people.
It doesn't hurt that he's interesting...outright entertaining at times.
His classic "And I love you too", jokes about "Cousin Dick Cheney" and the now infamous "I'm skinny but I'm tough."...I grinned like a fool.
And, of course, his last words to the VA crowd were, "We need EMTs down here--This lady has fainted." Evidently, it's a common occurrence.
I was rather impressed that he braved the crowd. We tried to get to him but couldn't quite make it. Rob did manage to get a couple pics of a sort of squished looking Obama getting jostled by affectionate Virginians.
Seeing the news microphone that signaled his location in the crowd bouncing towards us, I was a little surprised to hear a quiet little, "Ohmygod, oh fuck, there he is." escape from me. I threatened myself with a week long ban from news coverage if I squealed, cried or, no way in hell, collapsed in ecstasy.
"C'mon Rachel...He's a primary candidate...You are not being faced with Elvis' pelvis so QUIT IT!"
It worked.
He may be the person in the world I'd most like to meet at the moment, but I insist on keeping a tiny bit of dignity.
Despite my half jokes about The Beatles and my unembarrassed enjoyment at a carnival-like atmosphere, I really do feel like I got to see something important. This may well be my generation's page in the history books...well, the one where we WEREN'T fucking things up. But beyond the potential historical significance, whether he wins or not, I think I witnessed a crossroads in history.
In spite of the near constant cheering and exclamations during his speech, there had been entire segments of the speech where people wherewould get quiet...and watching him intently, listening like we were trying to prove to ourselves that he was for real.
I found myself thinking at times, "You BETTER mean this shit...Please."
In the last eight years, this area has been hit so hard by bad times--I don't know as much about VA, but our economies are so intertwined that I feel safe in guessing that they're experiencing similar problems to what's going on to south of their border.
Just in the 3 years I've been back here, I'm seen a major decline in our standard of living. With the cutbacks in medicaid, grants for college students, food stamps, and most every social program, I've seen the lines at soup kitchens grow every year. On a recent night, 110 homeless people were counted in Elizabeth City alone, a town of 30,000. They included quite a few children, migrant farm workers waiting to spend the spring and summer camping and working fields, veterans and people with college degrees.
Currituck, Camden and Pasquotank all lead the fastest growing counties in NC--Yet we cannot get government funding to help get water and sewer to people in Camden county or build new schools to deal with overcrowding...but they do their best to sink a Navy OLF base in the middle of our wetlands, a project that would take up a huge amount of land and only provide a few low wage jobs.
Meanwhile, in Camden County people are building half million dollar homes within walking distance of "neighbors" who still use outhouses. Crime and drug use are growing along with the population. Last year, for the first time ever, Elizabeth City had a homicide rate above 1. I've seen people lose their homes, lose family and friends to the war, have to worry for the first time in my memory about how to keep a roof over their heads when half their monthly income goes to the electric company. Grocery prices have increased drastically since I moved back...We now spend double what we spent when we first moved here, simply to keep ourselves fed. A full day's pay often goes to gas money for the week.
We've lost jobs with the closing of the Ford plant, families were broken up and forced to relocate. Checking the classified ads this spring, I have seen nowhere near the usual number of ads for summer jobs on the beach--With less people having money to travel, our tourist-based economy is suffering. Farmers are selling off land for development because last year's drought was the final straw for them. Anti-illegal immigrant sentiment is high, not because of patriotism or whatever, but because we're now all competing for the same low paying jobs.
I think a lot of us are wondering if our communities can survive another four years of this.
So, listening to this guy tell us that it's okay to hope, that we can reverse this downward spiral, I thought, "You BETTER be as tough as you say and you BETTER mean it."
I came away from listening to him reasonably sure that he is and that he does.
Moreover, I came away realizing that there is a large segment of the population that is as tired, discouraged and worried as I am. I realized on a large scale how badly we're hurting...how we'd given up so much of what we used to consider our rights by birth.
I'm hopeful, yes--there goes that h-bomb again, that if we can't get Obama into the white house, we still will have learned that we can impact things, that the momentum he has created may be focused on him but is not dependent on him...that we'll find a way to change things no matter what.
There he is. There we are. My eye was really starting to hurt..but I was happy. .
Here's video of the entire speech, though it has annoying intros and far from the best quality.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=hwG-KylnULc
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zgMG6iiFBMw
http://youtube.com/watch?v=G6Uw1BvX2Rw
And my Pbase gallery with more photos and larger versions of the ones here.
So here's hoping that Ohio and Texas come through...Then I can relax a little for a couple months and stop feeling like I placed a $10,000 bet on the world's longest Super Bowl.
Wow, that got really long. It's now 11 a.m. and I'm still in pajamas. Time to get ready to go out and face the world.