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According to my sister, who lives in St. Louis, much was made locally of how the majority of the people at that rally were bussed in from Illinois. What there is no picture of are the hundreds of busses parked about 1/2 mile away. Where did they come from? The guess in from the Chicago area and/or Kansas City. Of course the residents of East St. Louis were also there in force, but even if everyone from ESL showed up, the population there just isn't 100k

All that being said, you are correct that Obama has a great deal of support. Even in my red county in the far exurbs of DC, I see plenty of home made signs for Obama. He does have significant support. Yes, he could win the presidency, and I for one have been working in the Virginia campaing for McCain/Palin, hoping, praying every day that McCain wins. But not every answer to prayer is a yes.

I was there at the rally. To address some of the things that have been brought up:

No, there was no free concert and there was certainly no free beer. There were some people handing out free bottled water.

The reason only people up front had signs is because there was very tight security and nobody was allowed to bring in signs. The campaign gave signs to the people up front.

The "mysterious line" is the shadow of the Arch. Obama came out around noon. The photos are not altered. There is a slight hill going up from the base of the Arch towards I-70, which runs through in a depressed section, which is why you have an unobstructed view of the courthouse. I invite anyone who doubts this to go stand at the base of the Arch: you will be able to see the old courthouse. In the following picture, you can see the hill as people start coming in. They had that part closed off at first. You can also see the shadow of the Arch pretty clearly.

And here is that same view after it filled out:

What may be confusing some is that the picture in the OP was taken from an elevated platform seen here:

I have to admit, when I saw the scissor lift I asked my wife "is Al Gore going to be here?"

I can't address the "busing," but the only buses I saw were at the dome for a high school marching band competition. I've heard no noise about people being bussed in from elsewhere. After the rally a lot of people lined up for the Metrolink line, but a lot disbursed in all directions. Here is a picture of everyone leaving the event:

The picture with all the hands up in the air (the "Hitler salute," I believe some of you called it) was from when Senator Obama was asking questions like "how many of you are voting for the first time" and the like.

The crowd was about 50/50 white and black. The atmosphere was very congenial, everyone was in a good mood.

An interesting note: something you don't see in the official pictures are the large number of sniper teams that were spread around the venue.

Full disclosure: I am a dyed in the wool Democrat, but I ran across this site when I was looking for pictures of the rally and wanted to answer some of the rumors and innuendo I saw posted here. I'm not trying to offend or troll, just trying to set the record straight.