Obama at Seattle rally
Posted: Friday, February 08, 2008 5:32 PM by Mark Murray
From NBC/NJ's Aswini Anburajan
SEATTLE -- Flanked by Seattle's mayor along with Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, who just endorsed him, Obama greeted a crowd of 21,000 at Key Arena here.
The energy was high with voters exuberant by the attention -- all three major presidential candidates (Obama, Clinton, and McCain) were in the state today on a hunt for delegates in the state's caucuses tomorrow.
Climate change, the Iraq war and Obama tossing a bottle of water to a woman about to faint all received big cheers. As Obama told the crowd to part so that the woman in question could leave and called for help, a young girl in the crowd shouted out, "What a man!"
The audience roared with laughter (although the press that has seen this happen before rolled its eyes). And Obama picked up his stump speech where he's left off and spared the audience any jokes about being "sleepless." But he did say that after thousands of "frequent flier miles" his bet that the American people wanted change had paid off.
Obama also spoke to an overflow crowd of about 3,000 people, per campaign estimates. Obama chided a young man who was trying to climb a barrier to see better.
“No man, I don’t want you falling, get down there.”
He also made a GOTV pitch. “Show of hands, how many people are planning on caucusing tomorrow? How many people are going to caucus for Obama tomorrow? I love you guys, I appreciate you guys, and I’m looking forward to being back in Washington campaigning in the general election.”
