Warning: this post is all about politics. Feel free to skip it if you either don’t care or are going to leave me a nasty comment. Polite disagreement is fine, but this is my site and I like things to stay civil.
A while back, I signed up on Barack Obama’s website to be notified of any events that were happening in my area. They would send me things that were totally out of reach, like one email that told me that Biden was speaking somewhere in Virginia, which, um, no. Don’t get me wrong, I think Joe Biden is an ok guy and would probably be a really good vice-president, but I’m not going to drive for four hours to hear him speak for 45 minutes.
On Monday, I got a notice that Obama was coming to Raleigh. I debated on whether or not to bring Cate with me. On the one hand, I thought it’d be kind of fun – I could just pop her in the backpack carrier and off we’d go. I also considered asking one of the neighbors to watch her, since our neighborhood is chock full of stay-at-home moms, but that felt sort of awkward. (Hello, neighbor with a McCain/Palin sign in your yard. Want to baby-sit for me while I go root for the other guy?) I didn’t want her to interrupt Dave’s workday, but he said it was fine, he could watch her so I wouldn’t have to worry about keeping her happy for the entire duration. I decided in the end to go with that option. So Cate and Dave – the two members of our household who aren’t eligible to vote (for different reasons) – stayed home, and I went to the Obama rally all by myself.
It was seriously cool. Actually, the weather was seriously cold. I think it was in the low 40’s this morning, and there was a really crazy wind that was almost painful. I had to stand in line for over an hour, since it stretched out for over three blocks. The highlight was when the old man in front of me asked me if I was a student. I laughed and told him he was sweet, but I’m 32 years old. He said, “Well, we have a lot of graduate students around here who are in their 30’s…” Yeah, nice cover, grandpa. I’m just going to take the compliment that you thought I was 22 and run with it.
Anyway, once the TSA put me through a metal detector and searched my purse, I headed in to find a spot. It was a madhouse. It was still chilly by that point, but pretty soon the sun came out and then I was in a crowd of thousands of people crammed in shoulder-to-shoulder, so it started to get really hot. A couple of people actually fainted during Obama’s speech. Craziness.
I managed to get a couple of decent pictures while I was there.
It was great, I’m so glad that I went. You can see his speech in Raleigh here, if you want. (No way to embed it, unfortunately.)
Also, I’ve signed up to volunteer with the Obama campaign on Election Day. Nothing big, just calling voters and making sure they know where to go to vote. It’s only for a few hours, Dave can take care of Cate while I go do my part for democracy. Six more days, y’all!
I’ve long toyed with the idea of working the polls on election day. It would mean taking a day of work and working on something else, but I think it would be cool. Good for you helping out that day.
Ah! So jealous that you were able to attend a rally in person. Good for you to be able to help out on election day. My plan for election day is to vote at 7 am, since I expect the polls to be swamped, and then help out the economy by going to S-bux. 🙂
I’m glad you got some good pictures! I wanted to go– stupid work meetings!
It’s good you didn’t take Cate. It would have been hard to pay attention to what was going on.
I’m jealous of you, too. My office is only a block or so away from the Halifax Mall where the speach was. But, I was an hour or so away at a site doing work.
I am so jealous! I went but spent the whole time just trying to find the end of the line. It turns out when 25,000 people stand in a line, its a very long line. I never got inside but I did score some neat buttons.