100,000+!!! people. Holy crap! That’s 30,000 more than saw the speech at Invesco Field! Then on top of the Denver rally, 50,000 people showed up in Ft. Collins in the afternoon! This is a movement…
Ahna, Ezra and I headed downtown this morning to the Barack Obama rally in Denver. We met up with Teva and Micah at the Tattered Cover for a quick coffee before moving over to Civic Center Park for the event. We had assumed/hoped that there would be a rather large crowd, as reports of people lining up as early as 5am were filtering through the downtown area, but even with the preconcieved ideas of the number of people, the actual number exceeded our thoughts.
We got down there around 10:45 for the program that was supposed to start at 11:30 (which actually started around 11), and the entire center part of the park was filled up from the City Building to the State Capitol steps already (for those that don’t know Denver, it’s a park that is two full city blocks long). Knowing that our chance of actually seeing anything was slim and slimmer, we tried for the closest spot that we could near the stage and speakers. The energy, excitement, and enthusiasm of the crowd was absolutely unparalleled. We also noted that we were thrilled to see the amount of diversity (gender, race, and economic) in the crowd. All ages, all walks of life. It was also the first time that Ahna, Ezra, Teva, and Micah had been able to be in person for a rally and their level of excitement was nearly through the roof.
We were able to hear Gov Bill Ritter, Sen Ken Salazar, and Cong Mark Udall (running for US Senate) speak before Obama came on. Even though Obama was speaking to a crowd of “well over 100,000 people” (according to the Denver Police Department), he came across as very personable, very relaxed, and very much in his element. The speech hovered between the canned campaign speech and new attacks on McCain, but again came across very good; and was very well received by the crowd.
It was a lot of fun, especially with the historic mark that our voice is bringing. It’s always great and very fulfilling to be part of something that inspires you, and to voice that opinion loud and proud.
Nov 4 is just around the corner……
(ps: the first four pictures are mine, and the last five are from the Denver Post and Helen Richardson…added to show the scale of the event since my pictures can’t)
The Life of a Little Hippie 
I’m glad you were able to make it down! It was good to see you on Friday. I hope you are all feeling better! tori