So this past Sunday, Johnny and I headed to downtown Roanoke to meet up with our BFFs Melissa, Jason and their now 5-month old (he’s growing up so fast!) son Skyler at the Rally for Obama featuring Bill Clinton as the rally speaker! We heard about it the week before and were immediately like, yeah, we’ve gotta go to that! So, we got there early and it was so cool to see so many people packed into the downtown market area in support of Obama. We waited for a while before Clinton came out to speak, but we did get to hear from our local Democrat running for Congress, Sam Rasoul. The atmosphere was so alive and it felt awesome to be surrounded by people who want the same things as we do for our future. When Clinton came out, the crowd roared. He made a lot of really good points that support the opinion that Obama will make a great president and bring about the changes that we need. One thing that he said that I’ve thought about before, but never really pondered was the idea that Republicans such as George Bush as well as John McCain believe in the philosophy that if you pump money and support into the upper echelons of society, i.e. the rich, then the wealth will trickle down to stabilize the middle class. Clinton pointed out that this obviously has not worked out for the last eight years of Bush’s presidency, and, given the fact that McCain has sided with Bush so often, it is likely that he would continue implementing the same ideology. Therefore, why should we elect McCain? It hasn’t worked! Everyone at the rally seemed very encouraged by what President Clinton had to say, and even though I had already made up my mind about who I am going to vote for, the fact that he (the president under whom times were good for everyone and the US had a surplus) spoke so highly about Obama made me feel very hopeful for the future. So, with that said, we did manage to get some pictures of our time at the rally:
Looking toward the market downtown about an hour and a half before the rally.
Skyler, a Democrat in training...
Melissa and Skyler gearing up for the rally...
Johnny and Jason...don't know what's captivated their attention.
VA 4 CHANGE!
The Paynes getting pumped up about the rally!
President Clinton being introduced to the enthusiastic crowd.
President Clinton discussing the change we need.
Getting down to business...
A shot of downtown from the parking lot on the way back to the car.
We are looking forward to going to watch Obama speak when he comes here to Roanoke on Friday! So exciting! 20 more days till we vote!
Posted on October 15th, 2008 by Hollie
Filed under: Politics
How exciting!! I wish people actually came to CA but CA is pretty much a gimme-state, so no one really cares :-/