Posted on 10/25/2008 1:29:16 PM PDT by john in springfield
Yesterday my daughter and I attended a massive Sarah Palin rally in Springfield, Missouri.
Springfield is Missouri's third-largest city. Officially, it has a population of 150,000. When you include outlying communities, it's probably more like 200,000 people in the area.
Local news has estimated the crowd that turned out at 20,000! This is good news in this battleground state. Every election, it seems to be basically us in Springfield and the entire rest of the state against the big-city liberals in Kansas City and St. Louis. And in St. Louis, they bring out the dead.
Heck, they've even been known to ELECT a dead guy!
People didn't just come from Springfield, of course. We stood in line for an hour and a half with a family of 7 who got up at 5 o'clock in the morning to drive up from Little Rock, Arkansas. Someone else mentioned having spoken to somebody who came from Kansas.
It was clear that the organizers were not well prepared for the size of the crowd that turned up. The event was originally planned for McDonald Arena on the Missouri State Campus, which was capable of holding around 4,000 people. Several days ago, when 4,000 tickets vanished in the first 90 minutes of ticket distribution at the local Republican headquarters (my daughter arrived 30 minutes after the doors opened and were unable to get a ticket), it was decided to move the rally to a larger venue - the parking lot of the headquarters Bass Pro Shop.
Even though we got there three hours before Sarah Palin was to speak, there were so many people it was very unclear whether everyone was going to be able to get in. After standing in line for an hour and a half, I estimated the progress that was being made and realized that if it continued at this rate, it would be late afternoon at least before we ever reached the security checkpoint. And there were a lot more people behind us than in front of us.
At around 1030, I made a long hike up to the security checkpoint and spoke to the TSA people who were processing entrants through 4 or 5 security gates. Did the organizers have any idea what they were dealing with in terms of logistics? I asked.
From where I was standing, it was looking like 10,000 people were going to be turned away. The TSA man that I spoke to was not sympathetic. We might very well turn 10,000 people away, he said. Happens all the time. It was like, so what? He seemed to want to treat me as a nuisance, a rabble-rouser. I asked him to get a message through to whoever was in charge that things were not looking good for about 10,000 people out here.
Whether coincidence or not, five minutes later the line began to move forward FAR more quickly.
I'd like to take credit for that, but it looks possible that what *may* have happened was that they filled up the area that they had intended to fully secure. If that was the case, the TSA man I'd talked to must not have had a clue what the actual plan was.
Tight security was maintained in an area of the parking lot close to the podium, but in the end the majority of the crowd was allowed to simply flood around in the further reaches of the parking lot. The outer area was still a semi-secured area, as it was blockaded with 18-wheel trailers from the local Prime Trucking company.
In any event, the security was adequate as there were Secret Service, spotters on the roof, and who knows what else. And the crowd in the outer circle (which was probably 80% of those who showed up) was so far away from the podium that it was hard for most of us to actually see Sarah Palin. One had to keep jockeying for position in order to keep her somewhat in view, a speck in the distance. Hearing was difficult in the outer reaches as well. Behind us, several people climbed up onto the bumper of a news van to try and get a better view.
The crowd, generally, was friendly and enthusiastic. Although the great majority of the crowd that turned up would have had difficulties seeing or hearing, I didn't hear anyone complain about being so far away - everyone simply seemed to be glad that such a large crowd had turned out, and that they had gotten to be there.
After we left the rally, I turned on the radio and the first words I heard were something like, "...Sarah Palin's speech here in Springfield, and everybody that we've talked to so far seems to agree: Sarah Palin hit a massive home run."
Great report, thanks for posting it!
How many did Obama have there last week?
That can’t be possible. Gov. Palin is a drag on the GOP ticket. Most of America hates her. /s
Further proof that the slowly rotting soon-to-be corpse known as the media is engaging in a deliberate campaign to demoralize the GOP base.
Very nice!
ping for photos!
Awesome pictures, john! Gov Palin draws huge crowds every where she goes!
Here are a lot more photos from the News-Leader. They have close to 100, including many that are a lot better than my photos because they show things like close-up views of Sarah Palin, which I couldn't possibly get. However, they also contain photos of the few protesters who turned up. It's annoying that the protesters get so much coverage in the News-Leader photos, as I estimate there were nearly 1,000 Palin supporters there for every one protestor.
An anecdote regarding the protestors: While we were standing in line just in front of the security checkpoint, we heard kind of an engine roar and I turned to see a truck on the nearby street letting off this great big huge enormous cloud of black smoke. When I and the rest of the people saw that this enormous black cloud of diesel smoke was enveloping the tiny crowd of protestors across the street, everybody laughed.
It wasn't terribly nice of the passing truck to douse the little cloud of protestors in black smoke but I must confess... it was pretty darn funny.
My DBF and I wanted to attend, but we’re in Sedalia , so we couldn’t make it. We heard that people had to show up hours early (like, 4 AM early) just to make sure they’d get in! In contrast, when GWB was here in Sedalia, we showed up maybe an hour early to get in to the rally on the state fairgrounds, with no problem. Sure wish we could have made the Springfield rally.
Sarah Palin will be here in Asheville tomorrow afternoon in the Civic Center. It holds about 7500. I think we’re in trouble.
Awesome. 4,000 tickets selling out in 90 minutes? Wow! Incredible.
My daughter and I decided that with events like these, it’s worth getting their an extra hour or two early in order to get as close to the action as possible. We’ll do things differently next time. :-)
their=there, lol.
Welcome to Free Republic! Thank you for the wonderful first hand account of the rally and the pictures! That last picture of the three babies was too precious.:)
And by “an extra hour or two early,” I mean EARLIER than whatever time you THINK you might need to get there!! Lol.
What is really neat is the young people like Sarah so much. The young ladies must like her as a role model. The guys think she is cute but also like her. :-)
I think the secret the MSM is not mentioning is Sarah is probably attracting more young people now that Obama. She is also younger than Obambi. I bet it really drives the MSM nuts. I know Sarah is driving Obama’s internal pollsters nuts.
She is really connecting with people especially in the Midwest and SE where she has been having most of her rallies.
I lump PA in with the Midwest because the people are simliar. I know a PA lady who disagrees and says central & western PA people can be mean. LOL! Well Eagles fans did boo Santa.
Donate, volunteer and GOTV.
She is scheduled to speak at 7:00. Doors open at 4:00. I am hoping to be there by a little after 3:00. Would get there earlier but my daughter has to work. She will get off and go back after the rally. She is 22 and very excited to see her. I wish she was going to be at a larger venue but we’ll just do the best we can. I am really looking forward to it. I believe she will be the first woman president.
> What is really neat is the young people like Sarah so
> much. The young ladies must like her as a role model.
Absolutely. I’d say that’s definitely the case with my daughter. :-)
My advice based on our experience here in Springfield: get there by 2 o’clock, if not earlier. If not earlier. Maybe you could go earlier than your daughter if need be, carry a cell phone, and reserve a slot in line. Then you two can make contact by cell phone and you can get her in too.
It might not be necessary, but based on our experience here I’d consider it a good idea.
Sorry, I think I got an extra “if not earlier” in there. Lol.
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