Amy and I decided to take the historical opportunity to have a chance at seeing a presidential candidate in person. Columbia, MO was about an hour away, so we left as soon as I got home from work and headed over. We met up with a friend of mine that lives in Columbia and went to the "rally-bama," as we coined it!
We never actually saw Barack in person because we didn't get there early enough, but it was impressive just to see the sheer number of people that turned out for the event. Below are some pics we took... Enjoy!
The Campus
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The line.
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More line.
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The stage area... this was as close as we could get given the size of the crowd.
Just got home from the Obama Rally in Springfield, MO. Estimated 25-40k people, depending on the source. I was less than 30 ft from Obama's entrance/exit, but my camera doesn't like taking pictures at night, so they are a little blurry. I got some pretty decent pics during his speech that I'll try to get posted in the morning.
I'm not a very political person, but I must say that rally was impressive. Claire McCaskill, Jay Nixon and Robin Carnahan all spoke before Michelle Obama and finally Barack Obama took the stage. That many people in a high school football stadium was pretty cool.
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Even though I am an Obama supporter, if the Republican candidate was pulling crowds like that I'd be impressed. Our country has tuned out of its government for so long. We get the government we deserve, not the government we want. So if we're too busy paying attention to the stupid mud-wars, he-said-she-said garbage, celebrity trash and what-not, our government goes to waste. I believe any person who gets into politics and draws in people who have never participated, people who have dropped out of the system, and people who never thought they mattered in the course of democracy is truly different from the "average" politician. Note I did not say that this is necessarily a good thing (because the same could be said of certain less-than-noble figures in history as well). However, to those who can re-engage the apathetic and energize for the betterment of country, I give props.
