Obama Comes to Portsmouth: The Article (complete with Pictures and Video)

So earlier in the week I found out that Democratic Presidential hopeful; Senator Barack Obama was coming to my neck of the woods to speak at a sort of political “pep” rally if you will at the local University here. I got really excited, because though Obama was not my first choice to be the Democratic Candidate (When I started paying attention to the election coverage it was the winter before the Primary season, and I was struck by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson) but of course after the primaries and the playing field got lowered, I took a look at Obama, and I tend to agree with him on quite a bit of issues, and also I remembered hearing something about him when he started being an Illinois State Senator years ago, and I really believed that he might actually fight for the everyday American and not for interest groups and lobbyist. I am actually proud of the Democratic party on the state level with the great Governor Ted Strickland (D-OH), Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), my state representative Todd Book (D-OH), and hopefully Dr. Victoria Wulsin can successfully unseat Ohio 2nd District Congressional Representative and Republican Jean Schmidt (Wulsin had an unsuccessful bid in 2006.) I am also quite pleased with the Democratic party as a whole on the national level.

I am usually not a party political player, I pride myself in being somewhat of a Moderate, I agree with some liberal issues, and some conservative issues, some democratic issues, and some republican issues. I usually look past the candidates political affiliations and look at their stance on the issues. Though I am a registered Democrat because as a whole I agree more with the viewpoint and philosophy of the democratic party, I am open to vote republican or third party if their candidates ever appealed to me and I agreed with them on the issues. However, after the last eight years, I think we need to change it up a bit, give a Democratic majority a chance, they can’t do any worse. We are on our way towards that goal thankfully. In the last two years since we replaced the Republican Governor with a Democratic one ( a good guy at that, he’s from my area of Southern Ohio, he was a representative of ours for years so he knows how we stuggle down here by the river, and all across Ohio.) and We put people like Sherrod Brown in the U.S. Senate on our behalf, I have seen my state grow exponentially better for example we’ve gotten our minimum wage raised to $7.00 an hour in my home state.

Anyway, this is about Obama coming to Portsmouth, and speaking at Shawnee State not my personal views on the parties or to write Strickland’s the state of The State address or anything else along those lines.

So, on with the show!

Anyway, so I was pretty excited and I really wanted to go, but Heather had to work (And she’s not too into the politics this year like I am) so that was a no go, and I couldn’t find an alternative ride to go see Barack. I was just about ready to reside myself to watching his speech on the local News Station’s website when a mutual friend of Heather and myself called me up. ( we all went to school together and we also happen to be co-workers in ‘retail hell’.) She asked me if I was going and I told her I’d like to but due to my ride situation I couldn’t. Being the good friend that she is she swung by and picked me up and off we went. I am greatly indebted to her! Huzzah!

We got there and it wasn’t as packed as we thought it was going to be and so we decided to chance it and try to get in the main area instead of hanging back by the flood levy hoping to be able to hear the speech and possibly see a glimpse of his motorcade or something as he whizzed through Southern Ohio. Boy did it pay off! We got in the main area and got pretty close to the podium, not as close as I’d like to have been (For picture taking purposes and general awe-struckness) but I was just thankful to be there. We had to wait in a semi-long line, but it was moving fairly quickly, as the democratic organizers were passing out free tickets to the event on a first come, first serve basis. And the security check.

Oh, the Security check, that was fun. There were City, State, Federal Police forces everywhere, and Secret Service agents crawling all over the place (I even seen some kind of swat team with spotters with binoculars on the roofs of the university buildings) It was really intimidating, I don’t think anyone would be stupid enough to try to do anything as long as those brave gentlemen and ladies were around. Well when it was my turn to go through the check point I had to lay all of my personal belongings on the table so the uniformed Secret Service (Uniformed because I believed them to be from the Uniformed Division because they were in uniform, and not a suit) agent could go through them and make sure I wasn’t a terrorist or anything like that, and my cell phone and Digital Camera had to be turned on, I guess to make sure they weren’t anything that could be used to make stuff go boom! He even checked the defunct laser pointer that hasn’t worked in years on my keychain, I guess to make sure I didn’t turn it into some kind of weapon or something. After passing through the metal detectors I was free to collect my stuff and go enjoy the rally, I made sure all my stuff was there, it was.




So my friend Megan and I go in, and automatically we run into people we know. Co-Workers and such. We even ran into our Union Steward from UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers – UFCW.ORG) with various representatives from the Union with him. They were wearing shirts “UFCW For OBAMA” I asked him if he had any extra for me, He did not but said that he would drop some off at the store next week. ( I am holding him to it)

So we wait around a couple hours and nothing really happens, just listening to the music they had playing (Country, Punk Rock, Alternative, R&B, Rap) ya know the usual stuff that appeals to College Student and Townie alike. We spent the time by talking to the people we knew and generally shooting the breeze and just taking in the scenario.




Then 7:30 pm rolled around and the President of The University Rita Rice-Morris came up to the stage erected just for the event and gave a brief statement.


Followed by brief speeches to pump up the crowd by local State representative Todd Book (D-OH), 2nd congressional hopeful Dr. Victoria Wulsin (D), then there was a prayer of invocation by Evan Fisher (he’s a good man, I know him, I’ve conversed with him many times. He is a Presbyterian pastor and former Head Minister for the University’s Campus Ministry Program) and finally the pledge of allegiance by a former Armed Forces Veteran and current commander of the local American Legion post.

Of course I thought that was back assed backwards. They should have did the pledge first, then the prayer, then SSU President, then Todd Book, and finally Wulsin should have spoke. But oh well, I wasn’t directing the event now was I?


Gather won’t let me upload some of my videos because they are over 100MBs so I’m going to have to upload them elsewhere and then embed them into this article.

Barack Obama Campaign Rally Portsmouth Ohio 10/09/08