I just spent 5 minutes digesting those photos of 100,000 Obama supporters in Denver, after just as many turned out in St Louis as well. I'm not sure how many came out in Philadelphia when they pulled off a string of huge events.
This is unprecedented. Well, maybe not. Remember that (to quote Joe Biden) "literally" millions of people turned out to oppose the Iraq War in 2003. So it's not unprecedented. People will turn out to express their beliefs, to call for change, to demand accountability.
What's unprecedented is the hope, the tangible, powerful, intoxicating truth of optimism. Those crowds that turned out in '03 knew that they were speaking out not to be heard in the corridors of power ... those doors were closed to us and the decisions were being made in spite of the will of the world. We are all feeling something now, though. Not access -- that's way too "Washington" a word, though it's what we lacked then. What we feel now is something more ephemeral and more concrete: connectedness. It's a sense that our actions in the here and now affect our world, bring change, alter perceptions, even alter, ahem, reality.
I only regret that New York isn't in play (65-29?) so that we could see him here.