Sunday, November 02, 2008

MORE THAN 80,000 SHOW UP TO OBAMA RALLY IN CLEVELAND, AND THE BOSS PLAYS.....

80,000 Rally in the Pouring Rain....there is Something Happening Here....
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The Malls are in downtown Cleveland- they are four very large fields ( football size) that border the Beautiful older Judicial and Government Buildings in downtown, and also border the Cleveland Browns Stadium...If you stand in the top Mall, you can see a Beautiful Fountain with Lady Justice and Abe Lincoln....and look down to the Water. Atleast 80,000 were there, there were estimates by reporters in the crowd of over 80,000, but that also does not take into account that when the Browns Game let out ( of over 50,000) many came over to the Rally ( bringing their coolers and food). After 4 PM People waited visited and sang sharing stories of the Bush years and hugs and hope...it was beautiful....
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Bruce Introduces Obama...

MORE..

The Rising..( blurry)

Car Footage - very cool 4PM downtown...I was walking downtown, on this same strip at 4:30PM, and there were block after block of people trying to get onto the three Malls that were open....it was pretty amazing...I passed many of these people, even walked to the other side, and tried to get photos with my phone....but this Volunteer's footage and comments are priceless, what she did not know is that the Browns Football Game let out about 40 minutes after her footage, and that added many thousands more to the Rally.

Thankfully Foreign and National Press did an amazing job covering this Event, the Local Media should get a Bush McCain Propaganda Award for their pathetic coverage.

ABC Coverage
Even Newspapers down under are covering this beautiful Event for the Historic Event it was ....
CBS has more, even about the Heavens Pouring On Cheney's Name, and other details.
It may have rained,poured....but no one noticed, and is barely mentioned by Richard Wolfe.
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I didn't plan to attend the rally...I went to go Vote at the Election Center after I got off work. ...BUT....there were blocks and blocks of people and then I was about a block away and I saw 4 HUGE Travel Buses arrive ( apparently Churches here rented buses to help transport people, an excellent idea).It turns out that 6000 voted there today in less than 5 hours. It was beautiful to see these lines of people, but also daunting, I was not well enough prepared. Soooo I will be back tomorrow and take photos, and bring snacks, a cushion to sit on, and ipod and H2O....and hope that once and for all that the precinct sheet was incorrect and that my registration is FIxed as of October 4th.

I had to park over 10 blocks from the Board of Elections...so I turned around to walk back to my car, and then I realized I could walk downtown, it was only about 14 blocks the other way, I used to live downtown, so I know my way around. So I headed down. There were many MANY more empty buildings, boarded up, broken windows, and much damage. So sad, literally many many blocks of buildings, my favorite shops and eateries are all gone.

It was amazing how peaceful the Rally was, how moving. The City did have 80 Cops on, it amazes me- that 80, 000 could be so peaceful. I would love to see the aerials of the Event, I am sure it was close to 100,000. There were helicopters and the Goodyear Blimp, so Someone should have photos.I won't lie seeing that many people gather for Change and Hope is inspiring.,..and yes, Bruce sang his working man ballads and the crowds sang back.."This Land is Your Land, this land is Ours".
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More Photos below...

16 comments:

D.K. Raed said...

I got to see a bit of this before we left to go see "W" (the movie). WOW! Yup, something's happening here (all over)!

Enigma4ever said...

I had to cover this event- since the local media ignored it.....it as momentous..

Hairball T. Hairball said...

I keep reading all these stories of waiting in line for hours and only having a few days of early voting. It made me realize how lucky I am. Here we had early voting for two weeks, eight hour days the first week and twelve hours days during the last week. They were also open all day Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Mr. Hairball and I voted last Monday. When we got there we thought we were going to have to wait as there were about five people sitting in chairs out in the hall. An employee waved us further down the hall and told us those chairs were for people who were waiting for their friends/family members to finish voting. It only took us about five minutes to vote and then we went downstairs to the library to re-check our books. I wish it was that quick and easy for everyone.

I thought of you Enigma and the stories you've told about your son going to vote with you. There was a young couple and their son who rode back down in the elevator with us. The little boy kept showing me the "I voted" sticker that his Dad gave him. *smiles*

Chief2224 said...

Thanks so much for posting this. The local media coverage was such a joke. One local reporter estimated the crowd size at around 30,000. You would think Cleveland media would be thrilled with a crowd of any size downtown. It's good to hear that national - and even international - media picked up on this. At any rate, thanks so much for sharing.

Jan said...

I hadn't even heard about this, so thanks for writing and posting videos. Amazing.

Fran said...

I liked seeing the from the car footage.... lines extending for many blocks. I am hoping for a landslide tomorrow.

Ingrid said...

tick tock tick tock...I'm waiting for Wednesday morn'..lucky you to have witnessed it, I get 'sniffly' just watching it..
I sure hope to meet him someday..as an American citizen! (ok, haven't found my important paperworks yet, isn't there a saint for lost goods?? pls someone let me know..this is nerve wrecking too!! [g])

Ingrid

Hairball T. Hairball said...

Ingrid,
Saint Anthony is who you are thinking of. Hope your papers turn up soon!

enigma4ever said...

Hairball-
thanks for looking that up - you are a good soul....

Ingrid::
yeah- we have to get you citizenized ;-)
Hey we all could sponser you :-)
( oh- is that only Canada...)
I get sniffly too...I was kind of choked up at the rally yesterday and then again today...really amazing.. to watch...( there were some moist eyes in that line..)

Fran::
the car footage was so amazing..and the Puppet Man- I was not far from him- he hung out at one spot- cuz that costume was HUGE and hard to manuver...

Jan::
it was very amazing...never in my life have I see something like this...

LORI::
the strangest thing...Cleveland downtown has been destroyed...and there was no parking and yet people found a way to be there...80 cops for 80,000.....such a peaceful gathering- WHAT city would not be grateful for so many good people gathering.....

enigma4ever said...

Hairball:::
I don't know where you live...but so sweet that you saw that....and that you had such a good experience....lovely...my son did not get to come with me this time...but I brought home a bunch of stickers...I don't know how he would feel watching all those lines....they were inspiring...I can not explain it....but standing in line with three other women we did end up sharing kleenex...there were many moist eyes...

Anonymous said...

I went to this rally. I was one of the lucky ones that actually watched obama speak in person rather than on a screen. It was amazing, an atmosphere that no words could describe, and the rain just reminded me of the spring, the feeling of starting over after winter. Thank you for covering this.

enigma4ever said...

MyPennyMusic...lucky you ;-)

IT was a Wonderful Rally...really was..and So good you could see it up close and ....yes, it did feel like Spring Rain...

thank you for coming by ;-)

Unknown said...

WOw!!! I am just loving seeing all this. So amazing and hopeful!

I CAN'T WAIT FOR TOMORROW!!!

I'm actually voting on election day. But we usually don't have problems here in Los Angeles, esp. in my LIBERAL neighborhood.

You really got the full "experience" Enigma. So cool.

D.K. Raed said...

The cameras rarely turn around and show us how many people are attending these events. Crowd size is part of the news story, too. It looks so inspiring, you are lucky to know your way around downtown & have been able to get there on your own. But it's also very sad to hear the downtown is crumbling so badly.

enigma4ever said...

DK:::
I know that whole area...used to walk my dog there and walk to get groceries...funny how different it looks now...wow....

I also am lucky because I did not plan to go....I just wanted to Vote...

The Mall down there - there is a beautiful statue and Fountain of Lady Justice and Lincoln....that is where I used to walk to think or get "hope" or pray for change..Alone and worried....it was so ironic to see the Boss there and Obama....2 years ago I would never ever have perdicted to have HOPE arrive there...with 80,000.....This is real...and in an odd way...I think it did make voting so much better...with all that Hope in my pocket from the rally...

enigma4ever said...

( btw under Obama I am hoping that Cleveland and other crumbling urban areas can be saved with Works Projects...WPA ....The Deal...)