Obama Goes to College

So for those of you who don't go to ECU or do and live under a rock, presidential candidate Barack Obama came and spoke at Minges Coliseum last Thursday. Clearly my lateness in blogging about this speaks highly of my ability to be a journalist.

The Obama Adventure started at 2:20 on Thursday, when Burch and I boarded the packed Minges bus in hopes of getting there early enough to be let in. Doors didn't open until four, but by 2:30 the line was already stretching down the parking lot and beginning to curve through the grass. Bowman and Merkle caught up with us ten minutes later and by then the line was snaking its way through the majority of the grassy section. After staking our places in line, Burch and I ran off to Rite Aid to stock up on Goldfish, water, beef jerky and gummy worms. We had hours of waiting ahead of us; we couldn't be famished and sitting in the sun. When we returned around 3:30, Ellis had joined us and the entire field was trampled. We were told that only 500 people were going to be let in, but there were already over a thousand people here. We all tried to guess the amount people who showed up, but none of us were very good at that jelly beans in the jar game.

The line began moving a little before four and by 4:15 we were sitting in the cramped seats of the Williams Arena. We were sandwiched between six annoying frat guys, a guy who had a striking resemblance to Louie Anderson, various Pitt County residents and some perturbed ECU students. And there we sat and sat; there was another two hour wait until anything would be happening. Ellis pretended to be doing Buddhism homework, while laughing at the ridiculous material I was putting on note cards for my merchandising final (it consisted of information on mannequins), Burch napped on Bowman's shoulder and Merkle grew increasingly aggravated as the frat boys behind us played a game called "Is this a cell phone?" for five minutes straight. The fear of not being able to get in was expunged when we realized everyone got in and then some. All in all, if I had to guess, there were probably 3,000 people there.

Finally, after our two hour wait, a big, boisterous, black woman emerged on the stage and everyone erupted in applause--for no one knew that we were in for several speeches that evening. Out of all the speeches, hers was the most memorable. The continuous mention of "Doctor BarackA Obama" certainly caused explosions of laughter and even more cheers when she finally pronounced it correctly. A line that stuck out the most for me was, "we welcome him with our hospitable hospitality." Her southern draw let the words fall out of her mouth one slow syllable at a time and the poor articulation caused her credibility to fall on deaf ears. The speakers to follow were an array men with political affiliations (my vagueness also lends itself to my ability to be a journalist), who spout out lines about turning our state "blue." Intermittently, to waste time, campaign helpers would run out throwing Obama "A change to believe in"posters to ECU students, who eagerly flung forward to grab one so they could hang it side by side with their beer posters at home.

Finally, after agonizingly boring speeches by politicians and campaign supporters that I had no interest in, Barack came out. Everyone stood and cheered, people on the floor lurched forward to be able to shake his hand and one girl cried as she waved her Obama book back and forth. Obama took the stage and out came the speech he had obviously rattled off numerous times before.

Now a few points on his speech...
I liked his proposal on allotting a 4,00o dollar stipend each year to college students to pay for college, although I'm not really one for community service. I liked that he wants to start pulling us out of Iraq. I liked that he wants to improve our infrastructure and create more jobs. I even liked his goals of improving health care, although they were lofty and I don't think they are obtainable. I didn't like the obvious use of persuasion in his speech. OK, he's here for one reason to win our votes--it's supposed to be persuasive, but his use of saying "that's why I need to be the next president of the United States," was excessive. Of course everyone cheered and applauded every time he said that, but I found it unnecessary. I found his quote of "I will stop global warming," a bit ridiculous. I'm all for reducing global warming, but you sir, can not stop it. His use of the word "they" instead of "we" when referring to working class people, really weakened his case. Using the fact that Bush will no longer be in office as a selling tool was also a weak point. Whether he is there or not, Bush won't be. Lastly, the ever persistent reference to 9/11 on any candidates point, really has to go. And is it at all possible for a presidential candidate to not use a Bruce Springsteen song as their campaign song?

Obama spoke for about 45 minutes and was far more eloquent then any of the speakers that preceded him. He knew what trigger words to say to really excite the crowd and knew what issues the people in attendance would want to hear. Despite some facets, I was impressed and was glad I went. At the speeches end, the five us pushed our way out of the stadium and were met with a giant smoke cloud seething up into the Greenville night air. (A 100 year old tobacco factory caught on fire.) We ran through the Pirates Place complex and through the grassy field that runs parallel to Evans to find our way home. As the thoughts of the imminent Mexican food
ran through our minds, the dangerous "lime snatch" crawled up our legs.

I am neither a Obama supporter or hater. I am a registered libertarian and if voting for Green wasn't a complete waste of a vote, I would do it. The next best bet is Democrat and so there for, when Obama tears Hilary apart in the Primaries, I will vote for him. I have no support in me for McCain though. I for one am sick of the Religious Right, conservative nut jobs. He wants to keep us in Iraq even if it takes a hundred years, he likes to play up his P.O.W. story as a selling point, he too believes in the ridiculousness of the "sanctity of marriage", he wants to spend more money on defense but thinks we're putting too much money into the arts, and he even considered having Condi as his VP. If he became president and Condi actually was his VP, I'd move to Canada.