{"id":48,"date":"2007-07-21T00:39:48","date_gmt":"2007-07-21T04:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/2007\/07\/21\/obama-2\/"},"modified":"2007-07-21T00:39:48","modified_gmt":"2007-07-21T04:39:48","slug":"obama-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/2007\/07\/21\/obama-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I guess I&#8217;m supporting Obama. He was pretty high up on my list, but I hadn&#8217;t <em>necessarily<\/em> made up my mind yet. But between marching in the parade with his campaign and attending a session with him today, I guess the choice is made. But boy, it&#8217;s the right one.<\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t <em>ask<\/em> any questions, but he answered some of mine anyway. He wants, for example, to get out of Iraq. He&#8217;s not a pacifist: he suggests that we should have some troops in places where the Taliban is. I went in with my big worry being that he really doesn&#8217;t have the experience to lead the country. I left convinced, beyond any doubt, that he&#8217;s the right man for the job. You <em>have<\/em> to hear him speak: in addition to concluding that he&#8217;s the right <strike>man<\/strike> person (wouldn&#8217;t want to exclude Hillary) for the job, I left today with a sense of <strong>hope<\/strong>. It&#8217;s really hard to describe. You&#8217;ve just <em>got<\/em> to hear him.<\/p>\n<p>We ended up in a nearly-perfect spot for photos. (For a little bit I was literally rubbing elbows with a newspaper photographer. It was neat to see how he worked; two cameras with different lenses [one is one of the newer Canon DSLRs with the huge screens]. The cameras have a nice high frame rate, so he was snapping several photos a second. At one point, he wanted some photos from above, so he just held the camera above his head, held down the shutter, and moved it around. In a few seconds&#8217; time, he probably ended up with about 30 pictures, at least one of which, by sheer chance, had to have been good.)<\/p>\n<p>Anyway! I&#8217;ve put many of them up on Flickr, but I&#8217;ll go over some highlights here.<\/p>\n<p>To start with, on the way in, we drove by WMUR&#8217;s studios. They need to send a gardener up onto their roof. Is that thing an antenna overgrown with vines?<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_mmd_0\" class=\"wp-block-image alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/n1zyy\/859617115\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> title=&#8221;Photo Sharing&#8221;><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1044\/859617115_198c4f0a26.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"353\" alt=\"DSCF7173\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>We also passed this creepy building:\n<figure id=\"attachment_mmd_1\" class=\"wp-block-image alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/n1zyy\/859617903\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> title=&#8221;Photo Sharing&#8221;><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1083\/859617903_64901fc826.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Spooky Building\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>When he was first walking out, everyone was clamoring for a view, and all the photographers, casual or pro, were desperate to get a shot. I snagged this one, and was pretty proud of myself:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_mmd_2\" class=\"wp-block-image alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/n1zyy\/859619945\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> title=&#8221;Photo Sharing&#8221;><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1147\/859619945_6afe910937.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Obama in Crowd\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>After everyone took their seats, though, I think we all realized that everyone could see fine. We were standing <em>right<\/em> behind the last seats, so I had a great view:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_mmd_3\" class=\"wp-block-image alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/n1zyy\/860481140\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> title=&#8221;Photo Sharing&#8221;><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1249\/860481140_a3d6c2af37.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"The Beginning\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>The crowd was much bigger than that photo suggests. Here&#8217;s a better one:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_mmd_4\" class=\"wp-block-image alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/n1zyy\/860484174\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> title=&#8221;Photo Sharing&#8221;><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1384\/860484174_7e1407f7fc.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Speaking\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>He&#8217;s so happy! I think that&#8217;s one of the things that people like about him so much, even if no one mentions it. While other politicians talk about how we&#8217;re all going to die in the upcoming terrorist attacks, Obama, as one of the parade chants went, spreads hope and cheer:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_mmd_5\" class=\"wp-block-image alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/n1zyy\/860486442\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> title=&#8221;Photo Sharing&#8221;><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1130\/860486442_c429a4a573.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Speaking with a Grin\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>He had several security people sitting in the front row. I wonder who they were with. Are they a private firm? Secret Service? State Police?<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_mmd_6\" class=\"wp-block-image alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/n1zyy\/860487568\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> title=&#8221;Photo Sharing&#8221;><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1049\/860487568_755f605e14.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"DSCF7232\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>He took a lot of time\u2014probably at least half the total time\u2014for questions. One guy didn&#8217;t really ask anything, as much as mention that America shouldn&#8217;t be about dynasties, and talked about the Bush dynasty and the threat of a Clinton dynasty. The guy then sang a song, which was actually really good, and got a great response from the crowd. And Obama:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_mmd_7\" class=\"wp-block-image alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/n1zyy\/860497080\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> title=&#8221;Photo Sharing&#8221;><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1043\/860497080_52a14619c2.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Laughing\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>The questions were good. One woman, probably in her mid 20s, talked about how she&#8217;d been forced into bankruptcy after a slew of medical bills for surgery. And Senator Obama <em>listened<\/em> to her, and seemed to even <em>care<\/em>, something that truly seems unusual in politicians.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_mmd_8\" class=\"wp-block-image alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/n1zyy\/860498230\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> title=&#8221;Photo Sharing&#8221;><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1311\/860498230_610432bad9.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Listening\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t that great a photo, but here&#8217;s another significant question-asker:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_mmd_9\" class=\"wp-block-image alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/n1zyy\/860475250\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> title=&#8221;Photo Sharing&#8221;><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/farm2.static.flickr.com\/1230\/860475250_5060651030.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"DSCF7340\"><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>He introduced himself as a Vietnam vet, which drew applause. He then explained all the trouble he&#8217;s had with health care and hospital bills; I don&#8217;t want to put words in his mouth, but I think it&#8217;s fair to say that he felt that the nation he&#8217;d defended didn&#8217;t really care about him anymore. Senator Obama mentioned that he was troubled because he was hearing that throughout the country.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I guess I&#8217;m supporting Obama. He was pretty high up on my list, but I hadn&#8217;t necessarily made up my mind yet. But between marching in the parade with his campaign and attending a session with him today, I guess &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/2007\/07\/21\/obama-2\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,21,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-obama","category-politics","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.n1zyy.com\/n1zyy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}