On the Oregon Campaign Trail
May. 22nd, 2008 08:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saavedra77As planned, I went down to Oregon last weekend to scrounge up a few more primary votes for Barack Obama. I caught a ride there on Friday with a coworker and her friend, who'd been recruited for the same purpose.
It worked out that the campaign needed us in Salem more than in Portland, so we headed over there on Saturday morning. This was the Salem Obama headquaters:
We knocked on doors all day in the 90-degree heat, getting thoroughly sunburned while reminding those last few stragglers to turn in their ballots. People were surprisingly friendly, considering the weather and the fact that we were intruding on their weekends.
Sometime between five and six, we decamped back to Portland, showered, slathered on the aloe.
We'd planned to leave on Sunday. But then we heard that the man himself was coming to Portland that afternoon. So we stayed, and hauled our sunburned, footsore selves to Waterfront Park for what turned out to be the year's largest political rally:
Only, this is what it looked like from where we were standing:
The Fire Department said that there were seventy-five thousand of us, there.
It formed a pretty remarkable contrast with the last time I saw Obama speak, two and a half years ago, in front of a few hundred people in Seattle's Benaroya Hall. He's come an incredibly long way, since then.
On the whole, my first impression of Oregon: fine little state you got there. Some of the highlights we caught during our downtime: ¡Oba! in Portland's Pearl District, Voodoo Doughnut, and ... that restaurant where it's Thanksgiving all the time.
And, yeah, Tuesday's primary results were pretty satisfying, too.
It worked out that the campaign needed us in Salem more than in Portland, so we headed over there on Saturday morning. This was the Salem Obama headquaters:
We knocked on doors all day in the 90-degree heat, getting thoroughly sunburned while reminding those last few stragglers to turn in their ballots. People were surprisingly friendly, considering the weather and the fact that we were intruding on their weekends.
Sometime between five and six, we decamped back to Portland, showered, slathered on the aloe.
We'd planned to leave on Sunday. But then we heard that the man himself was coming to Portland that afternoon. So we stayed, and hauled our sunburned, footsore selves to Waterfront Park for what turned out to be the year's largest political rally:
Only, this is what it looked like from where we were standing:
The Fire Department said that there were seventy-five thousand of us, there.
It formed a pretty remarkable contrast with the last time I saw Obama speak, two and a half years ago, in front of a few hundred people in Seattle's Benaroya Hall. He's come an incredibly long way, since then.
On the whole, my first impression of Oregon: fine little state you got there. Some of the highlights we caught during our downtime: ¡Oba! in Portland's Pearl District, Voodoo Doughnut, and ... that restaurant where it's Thanksgiving all the time.
And, yeah, Tuesday's primary results were pretty satisfying, too.
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Date: 2008-05-23 06:14 am (UTC)I like Oregon, have lived there a few times. It's similar to here, but not the same.