An Unlikely Place To Find Me

I went to the Obama rally this afternoon.



Okay, those who know me can take a few moments to compose themselves and come back to this post. I know it's a shocker.



I was presented with a couple of VIP passes is the thing. And my first inkling was to give them away to an überliberal couple I know. But the one I was offering it to was like, 'Are you sure you don't want to go?'



I think it was like Christians trying to coax atheists into church. This is a thing I've had some experience with, and it's the exact same feeling. So I called another liberal friend and asked her if she wanted to go. She said she did if she could find a sitter, and I thought that was the end of that.



Imagine my surprise when she called to say she had found a sitter. She's a bigger fan of Obama's than I realized, because it was worth it to her to spend $30 on childcare to attend an event I was skeptical would be worth my time.



I was also dubious that these VIP passes were all that hot. They didn't say VIP on them or anything, they were just yellow tickets. I suppose making them unimpressive looking and vague prevents bootlegging. Someone not handed this thing and told, 'Here's a VIP pass' would never think it was one.



So Obama was supposed to speak at 6:00 and the gates were supposed to open at 4:00. We got there at 2:45 and started looking for the end of the line. The line stretched from the mouth of the park down around onto Main, as far as we could tell all the way to Union Station.

So we headed that way, and when we got to the corner, there were people waiting as far as we could see down Pershing.

And at that corner...

We circumnavigated the park before finding the end of the line. And in five minutes we noticed that at least two hundred yards of people had accumulated behind us.

I spotted a very cute girl with a Staff lanyard and asked where I'd go if I wanted someone to be impressed with my VIP passes.



She directed me to someone who directed me to where they were letting people in. We could have just gone to the front of the line, turns out.

I told you, I have juice with these people, I said to my friend as we approached the first of many extras from The Matrix. I spotted snipers and watchmen on at least three buildings, but I'll bet there were several I failed to detect. It wouldn't surprise me if the ones you can see are just the decoys to distract the bad guys from the real snipers and lookouts.



So then my friend set off the metal detectors. Turned out to be the zippers on her boots.



So then we see people with hand-held signs, not for the 'VIPs' but for the 'Yellow Tickets.'

We show ours and they say, 'Yes, VIPs, step right this way.'

And we find ourselves in a little spot that's between the press camera stand and the podium. If we hadn't walked the long way around, we probably could have been front row.



I know you're wondering why someone who thinks Obama being President is a bad idea would care to be up close at the Obama rally. Part of it is this is History, and yes, with a capital H. As far as I can tell, he is going to be the next President of the United States. I can't see how McCain could pull it out now unless Obama was caught selling child pornography or hiding Osama Bin Laden in his tour bus. And maybe not even then.



I'm curious if I'd see the same thing at a McCain rally, but the turnout for this was monstrous. They supposedly expected 40,000 people, but I think I walked past that many before we got in, and they were still coming. I don't know what the capacity of Penn Valley Park is, but I guarantee you we hit it.

And these people are absolutely high on the man. I know plenty of people who plan to vote for McCain but none of them seem excited about it. And I know several Republicans who are genuinely insulted by the Sarah Palin pick.



So while I'd be excited to see Bob Barr be the next President, the momentum seems to be with Obama. And I've thought that all along, that there was almost no way the GOP could hold the White House after such a disastrous administration as W.'s. You don't have to be a liberal to spot a total and complete failure of leadership and abject lack of decency and moral direction. In fact, I think conservatives have more to complain about with W. than liberals do.

Another reason I went was the celebrity factor. The Republican and Democratic parties aren't really two parties. They're just two franchises of the Show Business Party. It's why actors do so well in politics. The smack down is fake, just like with professional wrestling. They pretend to disagree, even hate each other. The consultants get rich, the ad agencies, the networks, etc., and then whoever ends up in power does exactly what his counterpart would have done for the most part.



Reagan and Clinton governed in remarkably similar ways if you think about it. And maybe a charismatic President is all we need. In which case, my fears about Obama's bad ideas are unfounded. He has charisma to spare.



And finally, I was curious. Just like why I went to the races when I got the chance to do it for free and in style, I wanted to see what it was like to be at a big rally.

What was it like? Well, a good does of emotional gibberish is involved. Emanuel Cleaver was the first warmup speaker, and he reverted to form, preaching.

Before that, Lisa Henry sang the national anthem. And boy, did she.



After Cleaver, Ike Skelton told us about how he can remember when he was first elected to the Congress of these 19 great states, and how he whipped Harry Truman with a switch when Truman was a boy. Or something along those lines. He's been in Congress 32 years, and if that's not an argument for term limits, the Chiefs will win the Super Bowl this year.

On the other hand, if it wasn't for term limits, Cleaver might still be Mayor of Kansas City, where his ability to damage the world with good government would be limited to a smaller ground zero.



Kathleen Sebelius also gave a speech, though I don't remember anything she said except how she wished Jay Nixon could be Governor of Missouri.



Joe the Plumber was not on hand, and while I did see Chuck the Drywaller on the way in, he didn't get to speak either.

An airplane mechanic who was outsourced out of his job was the guy who got to introduce Obama. And I feel his pain, literally. I lost a job after ten years under false pretenses and they started soon thereafter experimenting with having people in India do my old job. Though it didn't work. And I think I can give some credit to this guy's statement that you don't necessarily want to board a plane that was overhauled by the lowest bidder in some third world hell-hole with nothing like a government to its name.



Not, mind you, that I think electing Obama would make a difference to that.



So then the man himself came on. And it was church again. Obama is a gifted public speaker. Even if some of what he says is utter nonsense.



I was intrigued by his claim that he will go through the budget 'line by line' and get rid of wasteful spending. At least two Republican Presidents I can recall claimed to have the right to the Line Item Veto, but they were both too chickenshit to put it to the test. Thing is, it would be a great check to balance Congress's absolute control of the purse. And it would cut both ways. Along with term limits, the Line Item Veto could actually be a step toward creating budgets that realistically balance.



Or maybe that statement was just so much bullshit, because I have a feeling when he gets to the Oval Office, and he will, he won't find a spending proposition he can't support. W. hasn't, Clinton didn't, Bush I didn't. Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, LBJ, all these assheads love to spend money once they're in power. No matter what they say on the stump.



And of course no political outing would be complete without a crazy street-corner preacher strumming on his ukulele about the End Times.



I took a bunch of video, but I'm far too tired to edit it between the walking at the Speedway and the walking all over Hell's Half Acre for the rally only to stand in one place, more or less, for four hours.