Reply #7: Unprecedented interest in Hampton Roads -- suburban/military naval base area [View All]

[Leopolds Ghost]

Column by Not Gretchen Bulova:

Growing up in Virginia Beach, I never knew Virginia Beach or Hampton Roads for that matter to be a "political" area. Generally low turnout in primaries and generals reinforced that idea. Even in 2004, when working for Gen. Wesley Clark in Virginia Beach, we had trouble garnering a large crowd for his visit 2 days before the primary (I believe we ended up with about 500 people at VA Wesleyan). Last night changed all of my long held beliefs about the political scene in Hampton Roads.

I arrived on the scene of the VB Conference center at 3:20. Over two hours before the doors were scheduled to open and over four hours before the event was scheduled to begin (though if you've done this before you know they never start on time). The line to get in already stretched the length of the building and people I spoke with began lining up as early as 7:00 a.m. The line continued to grow throughout the afternoon as BHO volunteers walked the line signing up volunteers for Tuesday and beyond.

At 4:30 I made a McDonald's run for my group and low and behold Mickey D's was packed too. So crowded in fact that they were out of many items (no McRibs). The doors opened at 5:15 (15 minutes early!) and the crowd poured in only to find another snake like line to go through security. Finally, at 7:10 my group passed through security and entered the airport hanger like room. At about 7:20 the campaign realized the crowd was so large and allowed about 12,000 people to file into the back of the room, blocked from the main area by two steel fences.

The place was humming. First the Obama coordinator asking for volunteers, then Bobby Scott spoke. A 20-minute break and then a Republican spoke about voting for Obama. She introduced Gov. Kaine who apparently had the same feeling about Obama as he did the night before at JJ. Obama finally appeared and the crowd went nuts. He gave a similar speech to his JJ speech, but one line stood out and received huge applause. "If we want change, we can't keep sending the same people to Washington, expecting a different result."

The estimates for attendance were 18,000 which I can believe having seen the people in this hanger. The crowd was diverse, with large pockets of African-Americans, whites, young and old, even some really young children who were there to witness history.

As I left the event, all I could think was "YES WE CAN!"