Obama in Oregon

So my birthday is over and I need to stop with all the pink poofy party talk...sorry for all the self indulgence over the last few weeks! Now it's on to more important worldly matters...like the Presidential Election!
I woke up Sunday morning not wanting to do much of anything but felt that the rally for Barack Obama was going to be a monumental event that I shouldn't miss. The whole family made the pilgrimage down to Portland's waterfront and slowly wound our way into the rally area about half an hour before he was set to talk. We were pretty far back but could still hear the speech and had a nice patch of grass to sit on.

It was an amazing Portland day, both in terms of weather and the turnout of supporters - reports were that about 75,000 people came out to support Mr. Obama - the largest turnout of any event so far in this campaign. Yeah Portland! Here is a little video I took of Obama's reaction to the scene right after he came out onto the stage...

He spoke for almost an hour, talking about his plans for everything from universal health care to alternative fuels to providing college funding for students who do community service. You could tell that he really believed what he was saying and was passionate about changing the nation and the world. I was seriously brought to the edge of tears several times while listening to him. For the first time in my life as a voting American, there is a candidate who I feel passionate about and am excited to vote for. In the past it was always a case of voting AGAINST the bad candidate...not voting FOR someone I really felt strongly about.


Mr. Obama talked about how when he decided to run for President people told him he should wait - that he was still a young man and should take more time to prepare. But he said that he felt that there wasn't time - that there was an urgency because of the state of the our government. I have felt for some time that we were in the midst of a dark time in our history - that future generations would look back and see things more clearly than we are able to see them now. I really hope that Barack Obama is the man who will bring us out of this darkness.

Oregon had it's primary this past Tuesday and Barack Obama took 59% of the vote and 31 delegates - bringing him within reach of the Democratic nomination! Go Obama!