My report:
So I took off at lunch and went over to Virginia HS to see BO.
Linkage
It was energetic, felt like walking into a rock concert. He handled a few Q&As and yeah they were mostly softballs. But he did call on a couple of the crazier looking people and it was obvious to me that they weren't planted in the crowd. One guy was really twitchy and BO ended up calling on him for a question.
Touching moment when a 95 year old black man gave Obama a cool carved walking stick as a gift. I was proud of the crowd who seemed to be largely pro-veteran and mostly anti-Iraq war. You know, I really don't know anyone that's against hunting down Osama, and finally we are starting to realize that it's a separate deal from Iraq.
Some of Obama's new material was out and, frankly, it's pretty good. His pay-as-you-go idea is more along the lines of Bill Clinton and when talking about universal healthcare he said that some tough decisions would be made and that one plan really can't cover everything. He joked that if you get liposuction, you will be paying for it yourself.
His spiel about alternative energies went over well in coal country, partly because he included a bit about "clean coal" research. I'll prolly think of more later.
I remain hopeful that whether JM or BO is elected, we can heal some as a country from the 16 years of divisiveness where roughly 49% of the country really couldn't stand the president.
Yeah, I'd go see McCain if he came too and I really think that either candidate will be a huge improvement over GWB.
Optimistically,
-Rogue