My first diary here on DKos, but I finally have a topic I think is worthy of my blather. My wife and I made the trek today to St. Louis to watch Barack Obama's rally at the arch, and it was such an amazing event.
This is fairly long and has some photos, but I don't want to bury the lede here so I'll just say first off what impressed me most: the crowds were buzzing not only with excitement but also a sense of optimism. I've done phone work for the campaign, but this is the first time I've been together with a large group of Obama supporters, and it was such a wonderful feeling.
More on that later, but an account from the point of view of two people who made the long trip.
We left Columbia, MO at about 7 a.m., it's about a 120-mile trip to the downtown from where we are. We wanted to get a decent spot and so we parked just inside the city limits and took the metro downtown. The trains were PACKED with people, and it was great to see Obama supporters of so many sizes, shapes, colors, and backgrounds sharing the same space and moving toward a common purpose.
We got to the grounds of the Arch plaza at about 10 a.m. when they opened the gates, but the line was about a mile long at that point and wrapped all the way around the corner. But it was moving fast, and there were friendly Obama volunteers all over to help out and lead the way. Lots of people signing up people for GOTV. There were lots of people signing up and I was impressed how organized the volunteers were. I think we found a lot more ground troops today.
We got through the gates by 11 a.m. and wandered down. The front area from the stage was about 100 yards and was about 3/4 filled by the time we got there, but we got a decent spot about 60 yards out and waited, dancing to the music.
One person we met and sort of buddied along with pointed out that across the street from the Arch grounds was the old St. Louis courthouse (pictured above) where the Dred Scott case was argued. It was so wonderful to look across and see that, and in between myself and the courthouse was a sea of faces, so many different colors and united for change. Very emotional moment from where I stood.
About 20 minutes before it started, the front area was full and cordoned off, so they just opened up the floodgates. We turned around and saw masses of people coming down the hill behind us. Within about 15 minutes it was full. My wife and I were trying to guess how many we had. I conservatively said 30-40K, I had no idea there was an estimated 100,000 people there. All we knew is the crowd was large, excited, and we felt like we were witnessing history.
The early speakers were great, but two standouts were our next governor, Jay Nixon, who warned us with tongue in cheek that the polls in MO are dangerous and we should travel there in "large numbers." Claire McCaskill, our distinguished senator, warmed up the crowd with a great speech as well. She took a big swipe at Palin's "pro-America" comment and pointed out we ALL are Americans and we ALL love this country.
Obama took the stage and the crowd roared. Now, I've worked as a sports reporter and covered some big games before. NFL games, in particular, have a roar unlike any other sport. I've been on the stadium floor level for some very loud events, and the roar from this crowd was up there with those. It was all around me, and people were so excited to see their man.
I'm not going to cover the stump speech, since I've seen so many of his that there wasn't much new there. But I do want to comment on the people there. From conversations with people around me, we came with a sense of anger and sadness about the last 8 years, but this wasn't McCain rally anger because there was a strong sense of optimism in the air. The feeling was real. People aren't voting against McCain, they're voting FOR Obama and FOR change. That's the main difference I see between the campaign and their supporters.
McCain's coming here to Columbia here next week, or so it's rumored. I'm interesting in going because I want to see for myself the tenor of the crowd and compare it to what I saw today. I am highly skeptical it can match what I saw today in terms of size, energy, optimism, or diversity.
Thanks to all the other Kossacks who made the trip today, we're going to turn Missouri blue! This doesn't feel like 2004 to me, where my small circle of colleagues were Kerry people. This feels like a movement, and it feels good.
Before I exit, a shameless self-promotion shot for myself and my wife, under the Arch.