Estd. 2002. Politics, tech, startups, media, law, history, philosophy
Here is the semi chaos that happened the press area at the Grant Park, Chicago, event last night. CNN called the election, and the press corps run to get closer to the crowd:
Update: At the Obama press conference today, Chicago Sun-Times reporter Lynn Sweet said she was injured during the rush to get to see his speech. I’m not sure if it was while this video was taken. Her arm is now in a cast apparently.
I’ve been out and about in Chicago this morning visiting polling stations. Lots of other hacks around, and I took a couple of videos of voter opinions. Sound quality not great, so apologies.
The polling station, in one of the bigger districts in Chicago:
A woman exercises here right to vote on West Ontario street.
We had missed the morning rush so it was reasonably quiet. They are expecting a post work rush.
I’m beside a polling station here:
When Barack Obama came on the stage last night and thanked The Boss for attending and singing, the crowd either shouted “boo” or “Bruce”. I’m not sure which, though being there in person it did sound more like boo. I’m not sure. You decide:
Update: A viewer says it definitely was “Bruce” they were shouting.
A video of The Boss in action:
*** Will be updating this post during the evening ***
LOL. Number 6 on Google for “Obama Cleveland rally”
I’m at the Obama event in Cleveland, and wifi is available, unlike at the Virginia Beach rally. There is a huge crowd here. I tried to take photos of the queues to give some sense of the length… but at ground level you just cannot capture it. One went on for at least 10 blocks, another one went on for another 10. Miles of people waiting to get in.
I see some other journalists from Ireland, one from the Irish Times, and another from Newstalk.
I took these photos a few minutes ago.
Update:
The crowd waits for Obama:
The press wait:
The interval music from the press area:
Obama in his stride despite the rain:
I did a couple of quick videos at the rally, from the press gallery. Here is a sense of the crowd before Obama arrived on stage:
In this one you can see the start of Obama’s speech, with the press looking on. The BBC was doing a live broadcast while I recorded.
After the event we came across this Pentecostal Christian who was demonstrating against the policies of Obama and preaching his beliefs. The crowd did not receive him well, including two young people play acting around him.