A letter from Ben this time... hello from the silent voice.
Anyone who doubts that Barack Obama represents a fundamental shift in the American political landscape has not yet been to one of his rallies. For those who have (as of today, Laura and I now count among this group) it's hard to imagine a sea of women shouting "R.E.S.P.E.C.T." at a Lindsey Graham rally, or declaring a decisive "mmmm hmmm, that's right" while Giuliani declares his support for Arctic drilling.
We were the cattle of the political system today, assiduously following a winding line outside of Miami's Bicentennial park - a park presumably named after the median age of Florida's retirement community. After what felt like a pilgrimage to a holy spot in India - replete with the smell of curry and fainting people - we were ushered through metal detectors under the watch of men with curly wires in their ears. I can't tell anymore if these guys are Secret Service or night-club bouncers picking up an afternoon shift. Either way, I speculate that they're just secretly just discussing their intraoffice sports pool.
Once in, we settled in to a fabulous spot with a view of the backside of a teleprompter and the lower half of the person speaking at the podium behind it. The good news was this: when the speaker got excited, sometimes he would lean forward into the microphone and we could see his face peer out from behind the teleprompter. These are the small joys in life. Warm-up speakers at political rallies are kind of like flight attendants pointing out emergency row exits. No matter how enthusiastic they are about telling you how your seatbelt works, you really just have your mind on the peanuts.
In this case, the peanuts were fantastic and well worth the wait. There's a magnetic quality to Obama, possibly because he looks more like a wire-ear-piece guy than a hearing-aid guy as we've grown accustomed to. I'm not about to turn this into a political discourse, because I don't have any political-discourse energy left. But Obama's energy and talent for speaking is such that Laura accidentally cheered when he announced that 750,000 jobs had been lost so far this year. It was quickly aborted when she realized that noone else was cheering, but most likely not before Fox picked it up. They'll be playing it with the lead-in "Obama supporters hate you and your job - coming up on Fox."
Our lives in Miami may not be as cultural as Laura and I sometimes want, but there are gems that come out of living here. Seeing a ground-breaking, history-making, and inspiring political campaign unfold happens to be another one we've added to our list.
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We just heard that Laura's stepmother has begun her recovery process from some difficult surgery today and we want to send her our love and best wishes. She's a wonderful woman who is undeniably strong enough to recover from things even far greater than this. But that said, she still has a difficult road ahead, and we want to let her know that we are here for her journey on it. Much love, Ben and Laura
I am cracking up like nobody's business b/c I can completely picture Laura cheering when everyone else is somber. So stinkin' funny.
Posted by: Rachie | October 24, 2008 at 04:55 PM