The Obama Rally Post

Yesterday Sarah took off work early to pick me up and take me out to Leesburg for an Obama rally. We piled into the van with Patti and Jacob and headed off down the Greenway along with 10,000 other vehicles who all has the same hopes of seeing Obama speak. Traffic was INSANE and considering how much time we left in advance I was amazed to see how off the mark we where. It took us about 2 hours to travel a distance that should have taken 25 minutes. Had I know the rally was on I would have spent the day down with Ali and Bob who live within walking distance of the park where the rally was being held. Oh well. We made it there and marched down the street at a quick clip to the park and managed to shuffle through the crowd to the top of a hill overlooking the rally. There where so many people there it was ridiculous, elbows and arms where in people’s faces, children where getting trodden on, and moving was all but impossible. It’s amazing how pushy and rude people can be at these sorts of events when they think they might catch a glimpse of celebrity. Everyone was vying for a view, and some seemed to want to get onto the stage with the amount of elbows they where throwing. Negativity aside I am really glad I got to go and see him speak before the election in two weeks. I hope to say I was there at something historical when he becomes the next president but I don’t want to jinx anything yet. I was there. (albeit at a good distance). I can’t imagine what DC will be like the day the new chief is sworn in…

I think the best part about the whole rally though was the aftermath. There where McCain supporters who posted up on the opposite side of the street shouting things like “Don’t’ Vote for A Terrorist!” and various ramblings about how they don’t want to be taxed more (I really wish they would read the plan and see that's just crap…but whatever they seemed happy). The worst of it though where a group of children that had duct tape over their mouths and hand-painted signs that said “Aren’t you glad your mother chose life?” which I thought was ridiculous. I felt bad for the kids if anything, standing their in the cold while Mom and Dad tossed jibes back and forth with the exiting mob from the rally. Said mob was rather entertaining walking down the Leesburg streets. Everyone was chanting OBAMA! OBAMA! And booing at any McCain signs people has on their lawns. Crowd control was rough when the motorcade came and went with people lingering the streets and in many cases wandering aimlessly in the middle of intersections. All said and done it was quite the experience to say the least, and well worth getting to be a part of even if I can’t vote for the guy.