Obama Rally
The Scene
9:30 am–Saturday, January 6th. Nashua, NH, a city of 90,000, on the northeast border of Mass along the Merrimack River (former mill town Lowell is Nashua’s sister city). I’m heading with Geoff Kenyon to Nashau North High School. Traffic chokes the two-lane road leading to the school. Plates from Mass and Vermont and beyond adorn at least a third of the cars.
Outside the high school–a modern, jagged brick and glass compound set on a rolling snow blasted 200-acre plot—a line of hundreds stretches the view.
Inside, the gymnasium is packed with 1800 hundred supporters, according to an Obama staffer. Under a 30-foot ceiling and 8 raised basketball rims, a nearly all white crowd bathes in muted sunlight via frosted windows. In the gym’s center is a podium with CHANGE written on it. On a small raised bleacher behind the podium, 30 or so hand-picked Obama supporters cheer and wave signs; the only non-whites: an albino Hindu in red turban (?!!!) and two black girls.
In the press quadrant, a few hundred buzz about, caged in by metal barricades. David Gergen, NBC analyst and Harvard Kennedy School dean, speaks to a reporter, saying Obama’s a “dynamic speaker” without adding much more.
With The Isley Brother’s “Shout” playing, I approach Obama’s DJ, a black guy in his late 20s in a gray sweater. He stands behind a Mac laptop. Looking at the DJ’s all black R&B/soul play-list–Marvin Gaye, O’Jays, Stevie Wonder, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” Kool and the Gang, Otis Redding, Ike and Tina–I ask why no Kayne West, Obama’s fellow black Chicagoan, and the biggest pop-star in America.
“We used to play him, man,” the DJ says. “But the powers that be nixed it.” Kayne, too black, was censored by Obama! Soon comes the first song by a white act (U2’s “City of Blinding Light”) and with it Obama. He takes the stage in a French cut gray suit-long, slim jacket and tight straight pants. Cheers, chants…Obama takes the mic from the stand and holds it comfortably, confidently.
Stump Speech; Notes On
Endless thank-yous, then: “I moved to Chicago after college to work with a group of churches doing community activism. For $12,000 a year,” laughter.
After showing he knows what its like to be an underpaid organizer, Obama brings two young female staffers onstage–his NH main organizers. “Weslyan!!!” yells a scruffy Bro in the stands, wearing a burlap coat. One of the staffers looks up, smiles, and nods. “How many of you out there are still undecided?” Obama asks. At least 30% of room’s hands go up. “We are coming after you!” Staffers exit stage.
Change Phase
Obama begins with his Iowa victory. The people decided to “vote for what is possible.” Iowa rhetoric for a few more sentences–”lifting the country up” “a new majority”–all so vague. Then a negative jab at Bush gets huge cheers, followed by a joke about “my cousin Dick Cheney”: “I was hoping for someone cool like Willie Mays.” Obama calls for an end of Scooter Libby and Karl Rove politics. (I see a sign that says “Barack N Roll.”)
People want a leader to be for something, Obama says, to have “something to believe in.” He says they want someone to go to Detroit to talk climate change–not just visit the Sierra Club. Someone to overcome drug lobbies, provide tax cuts to companies that keep jobs in America not ship them overseas, to help Americans find a living wage. We should respect work. Obama’s “Main St not Wall Street.” Green policy comes up for a sentence–helping climate scientists and entrepreneurs–before moving to terror: “I will not hesitate to strike those who insult our values.” And Iraq–all troops home in 16 months. “We will confront genocide, terrorism, poverty, disease…”
“Our Moment”-mini phase
Obama quotes Dr Martin Luther King on “the fierce urgency of now.”
Belief Phase
The size of our problems are too big for the current DC structure, he says, promising not a politics of “spin” but of “straight talk.”
“I’m betting on you,” he says forcefully. “The greatest agent of American change is the American people.” He believes this is “destiny,” that we’re hitting a “fever pitch.” But he says pundits are saying, “This is a fluke.” (Who has said that? No one I’ve read or seen since Iowa has.) Pundits say: “He may have great ideas” but he’s a “roll of dice. We need to season and stew him so he acts like us.”
“It’s time to turn the page, because this change thing is catching on.” (Next to me, a black preacher type is amen-ing.) Obama says he’s willing to “reach across the aisle” to make change.
Hope Phase
Discusses his family, about his father leaving him at 2. Raised by a single mother, all he had was hope.
“That lady there has a sign that says hope. I wrote a book about hope,” says Obama, pointing. “I love the word. Some are calling me a hope-monger.” Big laughs. He says hope isn’t naiveté, though. Rather, sitting on your couch is ignorance. Hope is action!
Obama places hope in a historical context, saying without it there’d never have been an American Revolution, an end to slavery nor a victorious Civil War, the Greatest Generation, civil rights, organized labor against Pinkerton Thugs…
(In front of me stands a man with a gray mullet, bald on top, a mustache and glasses, in a trench coat. Next to him: a young blonde girl in knee high leather SS-style boots. Both nodding along.)
Obama says of his poll lead, “There is an assumption that it will not last.” (There is?) But…”There is a moment in ever generation when we set aside fear and stand up for what we believe in. This is our time. I am convinced that if we stand up, if you believe in keeping the dream alive, if you rise up…” cheers so loud but something about winning.
“I love you!” Obama exits stage.
Obama’s stump in one sentence: This is the moment to believe in hope and make a change.
Opinion on Obama’s stump in one sentence: Too much rhetoric and not enough policy makes Obama exciting but vague, which is exactly what you’d expect from a front runner.
Post-Stump Schmooze
A kid wearing a Weird Al Yankovic T-shirt (on which Weird Al’s dressed as a homey in front of a tricked out ride) tells me he likes Obama because he’d end the war in Iraq. Michael Gaughan, 12, came up to see Obama all the way from Long Island, NY. His Dad is undecided, but likes Obama’s energy and wanted to see it first hand. This 12-year old Weird Al fan added, “I want the troops home soon because I don’t want any of my friends to die in Iraq when they get older.”
Obama is shaking hands. Towering above the reception line is Bill O’Reilly, wearing a Fox News varsity jacket. Obama has so far refused to go on O’Reilly’s show. It’s become a constant theme of O’Reilly’s campaign coverage. Obama avoids tough interviews, O’Reilly says, and only does softball interviews like Oprah and Ellen. So now Bill’s here to get some face time with the Democratic front runner.
Five minutes later, Obama finally makes his way to where O’Reilly stands. But a huge guy in trench coat, an Obama bodyguard not Secret Service, steps in front of Bill and his Fox News film crew.”You’re blocking the shot,” Bill yells as he mushes the Obama blocker. “Don’t block the shot!”
Someone from the Fox crew, looking shocked, says worriedly, “Bill just pushed someone.”
Secret Service immediately breaks up the scrum.
As Obama walks by, Bill yells, “Senator Obama, Senator Obama…When are coming on my show?”
Obama turns and shakes Bill’s hand, adding, “That time will come.”
After Obama moves on, Bill says, “He’s the best speaker of all the candidates.”
Obama moves into a second gym, where an overflow listened to his stump over a PA. There, we meet two young Kenyan Americans guys. Both are dressed in American ghetto fashion, but one wears a graffiti air-brushed T-shirt that says “Kenya” over the Kenyan flag. They speak English without foreign accents. Both aged 19 and from New Hampshire, they tell us, “We want to meet our Kenyan brother! It’s too crowded though.” They also want to ask Obama what he would do if Kenya dissolved further towards ethnic violence. The two push and jostle towards Obama, but only one shakes his hand. In mid-grip with the candidate, he shouts “It’s your Kenyan brother!” But Obama, distracted by the throngs, barely blinks.
Trekking through the snow on our way back to the car (we had to park a half mile away) we run in to a network reporter. “He’s good,” the reporter says about Obama. “But still very vague. Hilary’s looking worn down, though, and drawing far smaller crowds. Last night at the NHDP dinner the room booed Hilary-first time I’ve ever heard that at Democratic event. But you could feel the electricity before Obama took the stage at the dinner.”
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