President Obama came through Hollywood, FL as part of today's brutal four state swing from New Hampshire to Florida to Ohio to Colorado. The rally was at the McArthur High School football stadium. My brother-in-law (visiting from Europe) and I went and, despite a rough start, had a great time.
Yesterday someone here called me a "concern troll" because I wondered why the rally was being held at a high school field instead a larger venue, like the Bank Atlantic Center, the place where I saw him in 2008. My "concerns," such as they were, proved to be groundless, as the crowd was large and enthusiastic, with nice weather. According to CNN, over 25,000 people came (more than what the Bank Atlantic Center could hold).
The announcements for the rally said that tickets were free but needed for admission, and they quickly sold out. On some local forums, people who could not get tickets were offering to buy them. Some people came from as far as away from Orlando (over 3 hours away). We had tickets but no one even asked to see them, hope no one ended up paying.
More below.
The president was scheduled to speak at 3:40pm. We arrived at 3pm, worried it would be too late to get a decent seat. We found parking on the street not far from the school, zipped through security (no line), and found ourselves on the school's baseball field, which is next to the football field where the rally was being held. First sign of trouble was that there was a large TV screen set up on the baseball field. Sure enough, we were told we had arrived too late to get any closer, we would have to settle for seeing the prez on the big screen. After buying some bumper stickers and Obama shirts, we thought about leaving, not really being interested in just watching a TV in the hot sun.
Then our luck began to change. Suddenly the gates to the football field were opened, and the crowd poured onto the football field. By this time, the warm-up speeches had started, and we heard (but could not see) Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Charlie Crist, Pitbull, and others. The problem was that the podium was not high enough off the ground for most of the folks standing at ground level on the field to see the speakers.
President Obama took the stage only about 15 minutes late. His voice was hoarse but strong and the crowd loved him. We got a glimpse of him entering through the tunnel but could not see him speaking. About halfway into the speech, my brother-in-law noticed some empty space in the bleachers, so we went up and then had a good view, the president was about 100 yards away from us. Interestingly, there was space in the bleachers because quite a few people had started to move towards the exits, hoping to avoid the post-rally traffic jam. Kos cited a tweet suggesting that a "stream of people leaving Romney rally in the middle of his speech" suggested a "low energy level" for the GOP in Ohio, but I'm not sure that is valid (if it is, we have a similar problem). It just seems that quite a few people go to rallies and see the candidate, take pictures, and leave before the traffic gets bad. Hey, since people pay hundreds of dollars to go to a big sporting event and leave well before it ends, we should not be too surprised that people leave before the end of a political speech, sitting in traffic is not a lot of fun.
For photos and further details about the event, check the coverage from CNN, Miami channel 4, and Politico.