Photos: The audacity of staging

[Tigermike 3,055]

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

The Obama Rally, from Two Angles

Posted by: Mary Katharine Ham at 11:00 PM

Reynolds Coliseum on N.C. State's campus seats 12,400 people. It did not seat that many tonight. Behold, the power of political staging:

The Obama rally, as seen on TV:

The Obama rally as seen from the other end of Reynolds:

Those tables in between my position and the rally you saw on TV are about a quarter full of milling, bored, tired reporters. The rally took up maybe a quarter of the floor space in the arena. Part of running a decent campaign is knowing how big a crowd you might have and planning accordingly so as not to embarrass yourselves with a woefully understuffed venue.

I realize it's standard practice to rope off an area of a venue for crowd-wrangling and appearances, but this is a little drastic. McCain's event at the Wait Chapel at Wake Forest today was nicely filled if not overflowing, but I imagine if he had held it at Groves Stadium and filled only the endzone seats, someone in the media might have said something about it. Obama doesn't have such worries, I guess.

I really didn't expect Obama's margin of victory tonight, even being from Durham, where I'm subject to the a high population of the ultimate in latte liberals. The urban turn-out must have been truly remarkable and a lot of it likely showed up in early voting. I would have thought the rural vote would counteract Obama's strengths much better than this.

Update: Another lovely bumper sticker, at the Obama rally:

Don't question their patriotism!

Townhall

[WinCrimson 61]

You're exactly right. Obama had no support in North Carolina.

[Tigermike 3,055]

You're exactly right. Obama had no support in North Carolina.

I don't think that was what was being said, do you?

[RunInRed 16,493]

Are you really trying to compare the size of Obama's rallies with McCain's?

[Tigermike 3,055]

Are you really trying to compare the size of Obama's rallies with McCain's?

You never get tired of jumping to ill founded, stupid conclusions and making asinine statements do you?

[WinCrimson 61]

You're exactly right. Obama had no support in North Carolina.

I don't think that was what was being said, do you?

That's the way I interpreted it.

The ropes and curtains are Beard Eaves-esque.

[autiger4life 3]

Sorry, what is this article trying to say?

That Obama is an idiot for booking a larger place? That McCain is more qualified because he booked a more appropriate size building? or that THIS GUY IS JUST LOOKING FOR A STORY ON A SLOW DAY.

See, the other side of it is that after each primary, and before, and during, Clinton could drop out, and if that happens the audience would be huge, so planning for the unexpected is actually a pretty smart thing, just in case.