Obama! Ohio!

Yesterday I went to see Barack Obama speak at the University of Cincinnati.
I took photos and video of both the speech and the parts leading up to the speech.
But I'm not a video blogger and there's very little you would get from my video editing that you wouldn't get going to youtube and searching for Obama.
So rather than post those photos and the videos, I'm going to write about it, what it meant to me and what it said to me.

I arrived an hour and a half before the doors open, excited, curious and intrigued. I've stood in long lines before for many things. Red Sox tickets to opening day, the playoffs... Bruins tickets, Celtics tickets, even the chance to attend a rare Celtics/Bruins playoff doubleheader (what a day that was!). But I've never stood in a line that was so long, in such cold, just to hear one man speak for for a short time.

Obama had already become my candidate of choice so I wasn't there to be swayed on my vote. I was there, like so many others were there, to be wooed and inspired. And oh, were there others...
The line in front of me was formidable, but with 14000 seats, I knew I would get in. But for those at the end of the line, which stretched nearly a third of a mile behind me, I was not nearly so optimistic. The line double backed across campus and a few times I would stop people who were following the line and point them towards the end which lay in the other direction. As long as that line was, and even though it was one of two such lines, they never looked frustrated or cast down at how far they would have to go to get in. Instead they had looks of determination or awe on their faces. They WOULD get in, they believed.
They were right.

Inside, the arena transformed my day from a mass of cloudy gray and cold fingertips and toes to a sea of positivism. Old white men, suburbanite moms with their babies, college students black, white, Asian and Hispanic, working mothers who had probably spent a valuable vacation day to come hear this man speak, to be inspired, to find hope and pride again in our nation rise up chanting his name, waiting for O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!

And then, suddenly, he was being introduced by the Mayor of Cincinnati and he was among us... we shouted, we cheered, we screamed, chanted and stomped our feet for the man who had come to deliver the sweet ambrosia of Hope.

My mind flew back four years to catching a speech during the Democratic National Convention in Boston, to an unheralded aspiring Illinois Senator who gave a speech about hope and snared the attention of the national political stage. Obama had arrived.

Now he was speaking to US about Hope. About the American Dream and of having the opportunity to work hard and make a respectable living in return. About reclaiming dignity at home and overseas and earning back the respect that we have so recently lost. He says things that are political suicide, pledging not just to meet with our allies but also with our enemies, unconditionally, to find common ground. He questions the sanity of a system where an average worker can make less in a year than a CEO makes in the 10 minutes he spends reading the morning paper at his desk [my imagery, his idea].

I have no aspirations to great wealth. And knowing how having a purpose has kept my own grandfather so vital, I have no dreams of retiring to a life of leisure some day. I want nothing more than the opportunity to work hard and earn a good living for the family I hope some day to call my own. But I know that, sometimes, shit happens and should the worst occur, I like to think that I live in a society advanced enough that we wouldn't deny the basic human needs of a person who has suffered. Obama gives his voice to my thoughts and I find myself swept up in a tide of emotion with thousands of others. WeCaught up in a wave of Hope and inspiration, as he exudes charm, sincerity, dignity and pride. A hopemonger, he jokingly calls himself, panning those who chide him for pedaling Hope.

I send a cameraphone photo to a friend of Obama on stage. She replies "That made me get teary eyed! The future of our nation is standing in front of you!" I dearly hope she is right.

I am wooed. I am seduced. I am in love with Obama and his dream. I have a 'mancrush' as some would say. I can only Hope that he does not break my heart.