Live Blog Of Obama Nomination Rally, From Inside the Xcel Center, St. Paul, MN
June 3, 2008 | Permalink
All times are central time.
And YES - this means we’re relaunching in general election mode starting TODAY. So that’s nice.
6:17: I’m inside. While waiting to get in, I saw a certain female Democratic Senator enter the building. Of course, I’m referring to Senator Klobuchar. I last saw the lines outside around 4:30 - nearly two hours ago - and they were massive. Going around the building, across parks; no one knew where the line ended, It looked like some people slept outside to get first in line. There were three separate conversations about Obama on the bus ride in that I overheard.
6:20: MSNBC on the big screen, and the VP talk makes me really annoyed. Who cares? McCain and Obama will make their decisions in good time. It was slightly funny to see Stephanie Tubbs Jones forget Lyndon Johnson’s name for a minute though.
6:30: Senator Klobuchar in the press area! Her handler is trying to look worried, but Klobuchar doesn’t seem to care who she talks to or what she talks about.
6:33: I haven’t slept for 21 hours now. And I have only slept for 7 hours out of the past 53 hours. So there’s no telling what I’m going to write tonight. Luckily, it’s as cold as hell in here so the chances of me falling asleep before the crowd gets going are remote. And if I make analogies or references to the Federal Rules of Evidence, that’s just my inner law student talking. Feel free to ignore it.
6:46: Drudge posts what apparently is Obama’s entire speech tonight. That cannot be intentionally leaked.
6:51: There’s few things I am annoyed by as much as biographical talk. I think its drastically overblown and focused on. That said, it’s hardly surprising that the last three nominees of parties (Obama, McCain, Kerry) have fantastic biographical stories. That said, I think those stories end up swallowing the policy discussion.
7:32: Yes, I am still here. Nothing much is going on - just more and more people filing in. The Minnesota Congressional delegation just walked by, though.
7:34: Howard Fineman is talking over Bobby Jindal on the big screen. He’s really not adding much that I’m really dying to hear. Switch to Jindal, please. Yes, it’s a Democratic rally, but no one cares about the Obama-Clinton dynamic today. That’s for tomorrow.
7:35: I’m reminding myself that it’s a historic moment tonight. It’s easy for me to be a cynical passive-agressive person, but tonight means something. And it doesn’t just mean that McCain is co-opting Obama’s “Change we can believe in” and turning it into “a leader we can believe in.”
7:37: As Chris Matthews talks about the power of the VP, I think back to me Con Law final - is the Vice President a member of the executive or legislative branch? Yes, it was a quirky final, to say the least.
7:38: McCain is on the big screen, and he’s still terrible when he uses a teleprompter for a speech. He gets booed, and then promptly ignored by the crowd.
7:40: The first few minutes of McCain’s speech contain so many cliches, I felt like I’m watching the end of Bull Durham. Some changes in lives have distressed Americans? I mean, seriously. There’s no policy goals, there’s just nothing. Now that the Democratic race is over, McCain has ot start playing with the big boys. He’s trying to smile a lot and use optimistic tones, but mixing absolutely nothing of substance other than some vague references to Democrats being wrong. And I want to emphasize vague.
7:43: It’s like McCain is giving a parody of a political speech. He’s using a tone like he’s talking to five year olds.
7:44: He’s saying that bad change is like the federal response to Katrina? And now he’s criticizing Obama for being a young man buying into failed ideas? This is not a winning strategy. McCain needs to get real. Clinton tried the “I’m a politician” schtick for a while, and it doomed her.
7:46: He says he’s not Bush. He has a point. He also philosophically overlaps with Bush a lot in terms of a general election. (Obama does with Clinton too, and he ran against her in the primary for the 90s).
7:48: If Obama really ran his campaign against Bill Clinton, then John McCain is really running his campaign against Donald Rumsfeld. They may as well tape a cardboard cutout of Rummy underneath the Straight Talk Express.
7:50: I wonder if running against Obama on Iraq is really a good idea. I think Obama wants that fight.
7:53: Ambinder points out the strange green background for McCain. It is weird. Also, McCain is less a parody of himself now, so he’s got that going for him.
7:56: The control booth is having fun with the crowd, by cuttin back and forth from Obama’s podium to McCain speaking. They’ve now cut the McCain feed permanently, it seems.
7:58: They’re playing that Will.i.am video. I can’t stand it, myself, so I’ll spare you a longer blog entry :about it. Kareem Abdul jabbar actually looks like he joined a cult in the video though.
8:06: They’ve turned MSNBC off inside. All I have is the internet and Richard Wolffe looking a bit confused and walking around. And is that ever enough?
8:08: Like a Roman General returning to Rome triumphantly from war, David Axelrod enters the press area.
8:17: Obama is in the building, but persuant to the advice of a certain Jack Sparrow, will wait for the opportune moment to speak.
8:19: They just opened up the obstructed seating (everything around the press area behind the main riser) and people are literally sprinting to get to it. Is this in any way meaningful? No. But I have precious little else to blog about. I could blog about the intricacies of the lyrics of the All-American Rejects, if you wish. (Not the ideal band title, but yet one that really fits the Democratic Party like a glove.)
8:25: I just talked to a few people in the crowd in the obstructed seats - actual reporting, sort of!!! - and there’s apparently still a line of people “around the block” waiting to get in. The upper deck is mostly full all the way around. The area behind the riser is full to the extent that people have any line of sight to the stage, and empty where they don’t.
8:40: I don’t have any thoughts on Hillary’s speech because they decided not to play it here. After playing the McCain speech - or at least most of it.
8:42: People are still filing in.
8:51: David Axelrod has a giant smile on his doing media interviews on the riser. Maybe he’ll end his interviews by jumping into the crowd to go body surfing. Somehow, I doubt it.
8:58: I hope you all got coverage of Clinton’s speech somewhere else. Finally, some introductory speakers are taking the stage here, and the crowd responds to mere mentions of Obama’s name by going nuts. The content thus far is really, really tame. It seems that every word has been vetted twice or more.
9:02: Big cheers for the son of the speaker serving in Iraq, on his second tour.
9:05: It turns out the speaker (a professor at the U of M) is also an Obamacan.
9:09: The crowd reaction for Obama is - in a word - overwhelming. I was slightly underwhelmed at the enthusiasm of the crowd in Minneapolis before Feb. 5. The arena was full, but they seemed to be listening. This crowd is incredibly loud. Wow.
9:11: He starts by thanking everyone on his team, singling out the unlikely duo of David Plouffe and his grandmother. All the times Plouffe got thrown under the bus, finally he gets credit once.
9:14: The crowd can taste the general election. People are literally jumping up and down in the crowd when he claims victory. I’ve been to sporting events my entire life and I’ve never seen a crowd like this, ever. Wow.
9:16: The initial applause for the “other field of candidates” is very strong, too. Big applause for the first explicit mention of Hillary Clinton too. Not jumping in the aisles, but still, big.
9:18: The crowd goes nuts again when he says he wants to fight for universal health care.
9:19: Every ovation is a standing ovation: no one wants to sit down. Except the people behind him, apparently.
9:22: The crowd politely listens to the attacks on McCain. They’re already convinced.
9:24: The 100 years charge is back? Ugh. That’s about as baseless as it comes. The care for veterans applause line is astoundingly large in compared ot other applause lines.
9:27: There’s one super enthusiastic Obama supporter behnd him, and a bunch that looks like they couldn’t care less. How the Obama people found all the quiet ones to put in the shot - I have no idea.
9:28: Challenging McCain to go to visit economically hit people is a loud applause line.
9:29: Hey look, it’s Populist Obama. And the people certainly are cheering.
9:31: The crowd is going absolutely nuts.
9:32: Obama tries to somehow distinguish an honest debate from one based on wedge attacks, to large applause. I don’t know about HRC’s speech, but this is like NFL football compared to Pop Warner of McCain.
9:35: The slow crescendo of Obama’s walk through history slowly builds tension in the room - they’re waiting for the final applause line.
9:37: This finish somehow actually is getting the crowd more excited.
9:38: And that’s all. Richard Wolffe signals the end by walking out of the press area, looking at the crowd.
Please send comments to jw . I promise I’ll read them.
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Very respected Mr. Obama, I would be delighted if you become American president. You are one of the rare real intellectuals in the U.S., not only of today, but also for the many years back… Nobody in your country would have a reason to be ashamed of having you for a president (unlike embarrassments having Bush…). Regarding your “statement” about Kosovo, it is obvious that someone with personal interests at hearth has “briefed” you on the Kosovo issues. Could you not have engaged or checked independent sources on that? It would be in the interest of the U.S., and your own if you look on any issue in the future from both sides - the promoters of the policies and the critics (only from independent sources - outside mainstream press and Washington). I understand that, have you done that, your statement would still be the same, but it is certain, the blame of the Serbia for the Kosovo problem would be omitted. Indeed, it would be a pity, if such a mind would rely on advices of the same Washington “group”- that has been there too many years, and which has caused formation of the poor American image throughout the world. You could repair American image if you surround yourself with honest and objective “judges” of the world affairs. Respectfully…., and good luck . P.S. Not to forget your very intelligent wife Michele, she also has my respect.
Don’t get me wrong, I like John McCain too; he seems to be a great guy, personable, likable, a kind of guy that you could invite over to a BBQ. Yeah sure, I respect him for his military service. No it doesn’t bother me that he graduate in the bottom 5% of his class from the Naval Academy, (hey I dropped out of High school) or that he crashed 4 planes,(I crashed my car twice) or even that he was shot down on his first mission over Vietnam,(hey, I’m three time loser) or even the that he started singing like a bird when captured by the NVA, without being tortured, or that he cheated on his wife, while in office, and is trying to portray himself as the candidate for family values, hey who am I to judge, I’ve mad my fair share of mistakes and then some, so who am I to judge McCain for his.
What really gets me is that some of your readers, won’t name any names, (hint:on a 2001 car trip to Florida), spoke about how Bush was going to do this, and bush was going to do that, and how the economy was going to be better. What happened? We started out with a surplus and eight years later were going to end up with the biggest deficit by a president ever recorded in history, and McCain supported Bush 95% of the time.
Our economy has tanked, our Gas Prices have skyrocketed and everything from the cost of food to diapers has gotten insanely expensive. I won’t mention how many Americans lost their jobs, or the tax breaks to companies that ship American Jobs overseas. Maybe those of you that are well off can afford the basic necessities, or have a nest egg to carry you over until the economy gets better, but many Americans, including myself cannot.
We went to war in IRAQ on a LIE, remember WMDs, 4,146 soldiers are dead 30,182 wounded for a LIE .How did Americans get duped into agreeing to spend 12 Billion a month in Iraq for a war that shouldn’t even be? So far we spent $368 billion on military operations, $45 billion more in veterans care, diplomatic services, training with that type of money we could of rebuilt the nation’s Infrastructure, invested in alternative energy and established our own Universal Healthcare.
Come on, be honest, when “W” changed his focus from looking for Bin Laden in Afghanistan to invading Iraq, you weren’t all scratching your head thinking “why in the hell are we doing that?” Intelligent and hardworking Americans such as yourselves?, didn’t have any doubt about that decision? OK, ok, I will give you the benefit of the doubt.
What about when the excuse for invading Iraq was proven to be a LIE, WMDs? How about then? Were you outraged? No. no, you just voted him back into office for another four years, with the excuse, “Well,we want him to finish what he started.” What!? Come on, wake up! If that was any other American, he would be in prison.
John McCain has been in Washington for a long time, twenty-six years and nothing’s has changed. He is out of touch with reality. He doesn’t even understand economics and even admits it himself,
“The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” McCain said on December 17 in New Hampshire, http://lburl.com/idd0k
I’m astounded, How can smart, Intelligent, hardworking people want McCain for president? Don’t get me wrong, I like John McCain, even after all the crappy things he has done, even after all his flopping around on issues like a fish out of water, I like him, just not as my Next President!
I am 36, and this will be my first election that I will vote in: presidential or otherwise. It’s Time for a change in Washington.
It’s time for a president for the people, from the people, someone who has seen the same hardships that we have, made the same kind of sacrifices we made, and works hard for success, Think about that when you cast your ballot in November.