Obama In Sioux Falls

I saw Obama in Sioux Falls Friday night and I had a great time. Pulling in we noticed a lot of handicap parking had black hoods on them and/or was blocked off by police. I’m assuming laws don’t apply when possibly the future president comes to town?

You would have thought I wheeled in there with a bomb strapped to my chest the way secret service looked me over. I got checked over more there than I do at the airport. Other then practically getting butt ass naked in front of everyone they checked me over with a fine toothcomb. What I find oddly strange is that I went through the metal detector in a wheelchair and with a metal plate in my leg and I didn’t set it off. Are metal detectors silent now? Security took my purse as I went through and looked through every little pocket. I’m glad I left my bag with my supplies in the truck. That’s another thing – the wand didn’t go off either. They did take my wheelchair pouch off and this big bald muscle guy asked me what was in it. As he is digging around I said just a bunch of girl things and he laughed as all he saw was my camera, a few lotions, body spray, and some lip gloss. At least ten people went through as I was getting checked over. I’m shocked they didn’t have a female officer do it. At least I get that at the airport.

I got to sit about four rows back from the stage on the end. I could have gone and shook his hand if the people from the bleachers hadn’t stampeded the deaf people in front of me to trample all over them to get in front of the barricade to get to him. He looked my way a few times and smiled. I told a few Obama volunteers I wanted to go bowling with him — I highly doubt he got the message. If he comes back I am making a sign.

Governor George McGovern came out and spoke first (well after Obama’s SD campaign manager). He has to be in his upper 80’s to early 90’s. He is such a wonderful man and quite the comedian. I last saw him at the Elton John show where he got huge praise from Sir Elton. It was hard to hear him at the podium — those mics were terrible and he is very soft spoken anyway. He explained that the Clintons supported him back in ’72 when he ran for President (and SD didn’t even vote for him) and how they are still very good friends, but he believes Obama is going to change this country.

“Let me make clear, while I have endorsed Senator Obama, the Clintons have been my treasured friends for many years and that will continue when we’re all gathered behind Senator Obama,” McGovern said.

“He now has an insurmountable lead,” McGovern continued. “We Democrats recognize the need to be gathering in a united way and I hope that will occur soon.”

“I’ve got to confess there’s one other reason for my decision and that is that I have three daughters and one son and 10 grandchildren,” he said. “Right after I endorsed Senator Clinton, all 14 of them enlisted in the Obama campaign. That’s some measure of the influence I have at home.”

After McGovern Tom Daschle took the stage. There was no ramp up to the stage so we knew Tim Johnson wasn’t going to speak. Daschle just has this charisma about him and really got the crowd cheering for Obama. I have a feeling he will get a good job with Obama.

Then Obama took the stage. WOWIE! It was literally like being at a rock concert (and y’all know I’m an expert at those)! I’m not the biggest political person and I’m not up on all his policies, but I enjoyed what he had to say. The crowd fell silent and he got a few boos when he said “Hello Sioux City!” Ouch! Big city rival and we don’t like that. He isn’t the first to call us that and won’t be the last. He recovered well after that and we forgot he said it.

I really liked his ideas for higher education. First he said college tuition is way too high and it’s horrible that when we are done with school we have all these student loans to pay. I really liked his idea for us to pay it back. He said college students would get four grand Ito start, (that seems small with what college tuition costs, but I doubt there would be many college students that wouldn’t take that money to put towards books, etc.) but with that four grand students would pay it back with community service. I think that is a wonderful idea and will push more young people into community service. He went into all the issues, war, gas prices, health care, McCain, etc. Google has plenty of articles on his time in Sioux Falls and Watertown.

There was ONE Hillary supporter in the crowd of 7000. He stood the entire time holding a Hillary sign. I’m not really sure why he brought a camera (he wasn’t taking pics of Obama), but he was there. People started holding their Obama signs in front of his Hillary sign and he got pissed off. He was actually kind of distracting to me as I kept looking up there. I didn’t want to see the old guy get hurt, but I feared that was what was going to happen. Someone ended up ripping his sign away for a bit, but he got it back somehow. Obama saw that and said “let that Hillary supporter have his sign. We have freedom of speech in this country for a reason, but I bet the people behind him would like you to sit down as they can’t see very well.” Crowd erupted into cheers. He didn’t sit down. A few Obama, arena, and secret service people talked to him, but he stood his ground and stood the entire time holding up his sign. Hillary was just up the road in Aberdeen — not sure why he just didn’t go there.

After his speech he went and talked to one of the Sioux Chiefs that was there. I saw two – one in the bleachers and one right down in the front. Full head dress on. He was talking about cleaning up the inner city which SD doesn’t have much of, but the Sioux Chief in the bleachers yelled out clean up the reservations and Obama went into that a little bit. I feel Obama doesn’t know the problems our reservations have. The Clinton’s surpass him in this area. Bill Clinton has done work with Pine Ridge, but that still is really really bad. That’s the only area he didn’t cover much. I’d say if he comes back to dive into what to do to help the reservations more.

They think Clinton and Obama will be back before June 3rd and I plan on seeing him again if he does.

Here are some pics:
http://s79.photobucket.com/albums/j137/browneyedgirl7928/Obama08/5-16-08/

Governor George McGovern