He has drawn record crowds to the streets of Berlin and the parks of Oregon, but Thursday's finale of the Democratic National Convention proved the greatest testament yet to the intensity of Barack Obama's support and the enthusiasm for his candidacy that his party hopes will carry him to the White House.
More than 75,000 Democrats filled Denver's Invesco Field at Mile High, navigating road closures, standing in line for as long as two hours, and waiting under a hot afternoon sun to hear Obama's acceptance speech. This night, they said, was worth it.
The event was less politics than pageantry -- heralded by his campaign as an inclusive celebration typical of a candidate who has thrived on big crowds and small donors, and derided by advisers to his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, as theater and an exercise in indulgence.
"All I can say about the whole thing is it's huge," said Dale Lanan, an Obama supporter from Longmont, Colo., who spent more than eight hours inside the stadium. "I've never seen anything like it. Everybody who is here will remember this for the rest of their life."
The crowd that surrounded Obama spoke to the significance of the night as much as the keynote speaker. State senators leaned toward the stage to take pictures. Families in the upper deck strained to see through binoculars. Concession stands sold T-shirts inscribed with the message "I Was There to Witness History."
The Obama team has thrived by turning his campaign stops into emotional experiences for the crowd, and his advisers worked to maximize their candidate's visual impact. Obama entered a blue-carpeted stage decorated with Greek-style columns and 24 American flags. He walked down a runway and stopped at a lectern on an island. In a stadium filled nearly to capacity, he basked alone under 450 spotlights. Nobody stood within 15 yards of him.
The setup made Obama look like the star of a rock concert, and the crowd responded accordingly. At various times, the entire stadium chanted, danced and shook miniature American flags in unison. A series of megastars rotated onto the stage -- musicians John Legend and Sheryl Crow, singer/songwriter Stevie Wonder, former vice president Al Gore -- and hundreds of cameras flashed each time. The Denver Broncos have sold out this stadium for every football game in its history, but Obama's appearance offered better atmospherics than any of them, vendors and stadium officials said.
To make sure Obama never became just another in a long list of celebrity performers, his campaign continuously rolled video clips from his previous speeches on the stadium scoreboard.
"I never thought I'd see a night like this in my lifetime," said Jennifer Herrington, who drove 12 hours with her husband from Clarinda, Iowa. "We had to apply for credentials, and when we got them, we knew we would come. I mean, a part of me still can't believe we're here, at something as big as this."
Obama's campaign moved the convention away from the 17,000-seat Pepsi Center because it wanted this event to be "for the public," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said. More than 2,000 delegates sat in lawn chairs on the stadium floor, and the bleachers filled with supporters from all 50 states -- including more than 30,000 from Colorado.
It was the biggest crowd for either party's national convention since 1960, when John F. Kennedy moved the event outside in Los Angeles to accept the Democratic nomination in front of 80,000 supporters.
The setup made Obama look like the star of a rock concert, and the crowd responded accordingly. At various times, the entire stadium chanted, danced and shook miniature American flags in unison. A series of megastars rotated onto the stage -- musicians John Legend and Sheryl Crow, singer/songwriter Stevie Wonder, former vice president Al Gore -- and hundreds of cameras flashed each time. The Denver Broncos have sold out this stadium for every football game in its history, but Obama's appearance offered better atmospherics than any of them, vendors and stadium officials said.
To make sure Obama never became just another in a long list of celebrity performers, his campaign continuously rolled video clips from his previous speeches on the stadium scoreboard.
"I never thought I'd see a night like this in my lifetime," said Jennifer Herrington, who drove 12 hours with her husband from Clarinda, Iowa. "We had to apply for credentials, and when we got them, we knew we would come. I mean, a part of me still can't believe we're here, at something as big as this."
Obama's campaign moved the convention away from the 17,000-seat Pepsi Center because it wanted this event to be "for the public," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said. More than 2,000 delegates sat in lawn chairs on the stadium floor, and the bleachers filled with supporters from all 50 states -- including more than 30,000 from Colorado.
It was the biggest crowd for either party's national convention since 1960, when John F. Kennedy moved the event outside in Los Angeles to accept the Democratic nomination in front of 80,000 supporters.
Still, as McCain advisers sent out e-mails mocking the Greek pillars, Plouffe took the stage here Thursday afternoon and defended the setting. The last time Obama spoke in front of a massive audience -- 200,000 in Berlin -- the images became part of a McCain ad that cast Obama as "the world's biggest celebrity."
"Some of our friends in the McCain campaign seem puzzled why we moved the last night here," Plouffe said from the lectern. "I think it's time we taught them a lesson about how to organize and run conventions. . . . We are opening this up to America."
Denver closed its primary highway for the event, and nobody was allowed to park in the Invesco Field lots for security reasons. The light rail, city's public transportation system, temporarily shut down while a bomb squad investigated a suspicious package found inside a duffel bag.
The lucky few who entered the stadium without problems arrived before 9 a.m. and waited outside for about four hours before security officials began the screening process. After proceeding through an electronic scanner, attendees walked into an empty Invesco Field and chose their seats. A high school marching band entertained them with drum rolls and chants of "Obama." Cheerleaders posed for pictures on the stadium concourses.
The rest of the crowd -- those who decided to come downtown, say, only eight hours before Obama's speech -- arrived to find widespread disorder. By 3 p.m., a line outside the stadium snaked around a security fence, curved around walkways and through parking lots. Some of the 15,000 credentialed media members had trouble finding their designated entrance. Former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, a presidential candidate himself early this year, waited in line with everybody else.
Rich Huttenhower, who had driven three hours from Carbondale, Colo., then parked at his brother's house and rode downtown on a crowded light-rail train, said: "I'm going to see if there's any other way to get in, and if I can't find one, I'll go to the MSNBC tent and try to watch on TV."
Most people in line kept waiting, undeterred. They crawled past volunteers handing out water and dozens of roadside vendors selling Obama souvenirs. T-shirts, playing cards, shot glasses, umbrellas -- all transformed into commemorative items with the addition of the Obama imprint.
In such a unique setting, Linda Jacobs of Seattle did not mind standing around for an hour. "I think it's worth it," she said, "because this is a historic event I can tell my grandchildren about."
Staff writer David Nakamura in Washington contributed to this report.
Source : http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/28/AR2008082804171_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2008082804221&s_pos=
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