Obama in Santa Barbara
"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood" and Barack Obama is visiting. He's coming to Santa Barbara for a big Hollywood fundraiser at Oprah's estate in Montecito, but there's a rally at noon, which my son and I plan to attend!
I expect a large crowd at the Santa Barbara City College venue, so who knows how close we'll get. I'm planning on getting there about the time the "gates" open at 10:30 so hopefully we'll get a good spot. Might even have some video later to show -- in a few days.
What I'm looking forward to is the opportunity to get a sense of a person live, in a crowd, to get a sense of the person. Should be fun!!!!
Here's the announcement in the local alternative paper -- the Independent.
Comments
Obama's rhetorical power is in "the vision thing," in giving people hope for an alternative future of justice and compassion. I could wish he was better at policy details, however. But people don't come to rallies for policy papers, but for hope. Obama gives that tremendously--harking back to a time when Democrats had such great orators as FDR, JFK, Bobby Kennedy. In fact, I think Obama is, in many ways, the Bobby Kennedy of this generation.
As I report in my report of the rally -- yes he didn't go into policy details, but that's not what we came to hear. But he did stir the crowd. He is a great orator -- which is why he does better when he's the speaker rather than answering sound bite debate questions.
Yes, I do think he can be compared to Bobby Kennedy -- which is probably why the young people were out there in mass today.