I had dinner with Barack Obama saturday night

[underpants]

okay me and about 4,000 other people :bounce:

What a great event! The 2007 Jefferson/Jackson dinner at the Richmond Convention Center. The biggest dinner party in the history of the state of Virginia.

The menu
Filet medallion with mushroom & shallot sauce, crab cake with margarita sauce, cheddar mashed potatoes, green beans with red pepper. Triple chocolate cake. Vegetarian entree available (Napoleon Mushroom Tower).

Yum!

My wife and I shared a table with an extended family from Charles City County and a co-worker and her husband. Very nice conversation. We were "in the room" in that we didn't have to walk aaaaaaaaalllll the way up to the front. We were in the back of a huge room of people, Something like 330 10-top tables.

After awards for grassroots organization, party service, and committees of the year were given out and the Democratic caucuses from both the house of the General assembly were introduced (Benjamin Lambert III, who endorsed George Allen, was roundly booed)Mayor Wilder gave a short speech then Rep. Jim Moran gave a short speech and he introduced

Sen.Webb-he told the story of the first all Senate meeting that Harry Reid called to talk about bipartisanship when a "Very senior" Republican Senator stood up and said "This isn't about the war or corruption or anything but 3,000 voters in Virginia!" Webb said that he wanted to interdict that it was 3,000 voters in Montana it was 10,000 in Virginia :bounce: he then introduced

Mark Warner-He told a groaner of a bad pun and then talked about how Barack had been president of the Harvard Law review and how HE had been president of the Harvard BAR review he then introduced

Governor Tim Kaine- he said that he and Barack's mothers both came from the same small Kansas town (didn't know that) he then ENDORSED and introduced

Barack Obama

I was told by someone at our table that this was a longer version of the stump speech he gave at Va. Union for Jim Webb during his campaign.

He started off telling about how his wife kept saying to him about huge rallies in Iowa "Really? Who was there?"
:bounce:

Obama then thanked Gov.Kaine for his endorsement (the first non home state gubernatorial endorsement) and Kaine did so because
-they shared the same core values
-they shared the same commitment to service
-Mark Warner wasn't running

:bounce:

He then said that he knew a lot of people were still heartbroken about that but that maybe he could make it all better if only for a while (funny)

The rest of the speech was about what "the audacity of hope" meant. How he had stolen it from a preacher (since he was working as an organizer for a bunch of churches he thought he ought to start going to church) and so forth. He spoke about how some people hadn't accepted things as they were and how they had set out to end slavery, bring about women's suffrage ("why does HE get to vote I'm smarter than he is!"), and the civil rights movement.

He included what I took as a dig at the DLC ~"sometimes we get too focused on day-to-day strategy and don't just focus on doing what needs to be done and doing it in the right way.... I don't beleive in eeking out victories I believe in building a consensus majority of the left the middle and the right if they so choose" (loose quote)

He closed with a story about a woman driving all night just to see him. She was born in 1899 and was 105 but she wanted to come and shake his hand. A great closing story.

I found the speech to be much more conversational than rah rah like some of the other speeches were. I have to say that he was VERY "Presidential" (whatever that means) if only from 100 yards away and on a big screen TV.

A great night and a great speech.

[blue neen]

1. What a great experience for you!

It sounds like the speeches were wonderful, interesting, and inspiring. :)

[Leilani]

2. What a terrific experience for you!

Wish I could have been there.

[flpoljunkie]

3. Thanks for the first hand report! K&R!

[demnan]

4. I enjoyed reading your article far more

than I would have one from the newspapers. Thanks for that.

So, what do you think? Kind of a surprise that Kaine endorsed Obama. I would have thought Edwards, but its interesting the "Obamamentum" that is building.

[underpants]

5. Well Obama came here in the closing of Kaine's race and spoke at several events

tit-for-tat? Part of a plan with his old friend Mark Warner? or maybe he just agrees with him ??????

[Graybeard]

6. Lucky you! I received Obama's mailing last week....

...it is a very slick, well done solicitation. This guy is class all the way.

[underpants]

7. Yeah it really conveyed during the speech

Edwards Hillary and Obama all had several tables of sign up stuff yardsigns and buttons. There was a Wes Clark table too.

I already committed to Edwards but apparently our house isn't all that deadset anymore- the apology is nice but it is hard to get over that vote. Barack, of course, was against it the whole time "a war that should have never been waged" he said Saturday night.

I really really like the guy. I really could FEEL it with him. I see him with much more of a respectful eye. In person, even from 100 yards, he appeared to be complete and real and as advertised and then some.

Very impressive.

[Adelante]

8. That's a great report

I'm happy for you :)

[papau]

9. Fantastic night - and great menu and "the audacity of hope" fellow

Barack is more to the right than Hillary - IMHO - but both are nearer the center than the average on DU.

His position papers are a non-specific as the speech he always gives - except he has an energy plan out and Hillary is still doing a 100 word key word paragraph (they both put out similar specifics on Iraq on Friday with Hillary's all the way to an actual bill being submitted on 2/16 to the Senate). But his energy plan pushes coal - which is an environmental disaster. Neither has bit the bullet on my number one issue - single payer universal health (but Edwards has a universal plan that has within it a backdoor that could end up as Medicare for all in 20 years).

In any case getting into a Jefferson/Jackson dinner is neat - and having a major speaker is a wow - congratulations.

Are you in the Barack camp for the duration or are you still evaluating folks?

[underpants]

10. *

I had committed to Edwards (from your post it is clear that I need to take a closer look at all their policies) but I am more open now. I really don't want Hillary to be the nominee but if she is I will probably still volunteer.

Basically I haven't completely committed.

[yellerpup]

11. What a wonderful report.

I'm jealous, but I'm kickin'! :kick:

[flpoljunkie]

12. Politico's Mike Allen was also there...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2806.html

Obama Tests His Strength in the South
By: Mike Allen
February 19, 2007 08:44 AM EST

RICHMOND, Va. – At the annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner of the Democratic Party of Virginia on Saturday, the Hillary Clinton signs and bumper stickers were free, as were “I’m in to Win” buttons featuring the New York senator. But “Obama ’08 Gear” was for sale – T-shirt, $20; button, $10; sign, $5. And he had a lot more takers than she did, suggesting he might be making early inroads in a tough region that once was Confederate soil.

Party officials say their previous record for the dinner was 1,400 seats. But after Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois was announced as the keynote speaker, sales ballooned and the party kept expanding the dinner until it had space for 3,200 at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.

<>Two experts on Southern politics were quite bullish on Barack. Hastings Wyman, founder of the Southern Political Report, said that while Clinton retains her hold on the African-American establishment, which is crucial in Southern primaries, Obama has the most appeal among younger African-Americans. “If public opinion in the black community swings sharply toward him, the establishment will follow,” Wyman said. “He has not done that so far, however.”

Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, says his students “are nuts about” Obama and that among Democratic students, “He’s the only one they’re interested in. He’s like Reagan or Kennedy, with an ability to connect with people individually in a large group. Hillary? Get real. She doesn’t have that. Whatever ‘it’ is, he has it.”

So can we expect to see “Rebels for Obama” bumper stickers on pickup trucks? Don’t count on it, but Obama told the press gathered not far from Monument Avenue, which is lined with tributes to Confederate generals: “Part of my campaign, I hope, is to remind people of the capacity for this nation to change, and to evolve.”

[mnhtnbb]

13. I started reading Obama's book, "The Audacity of Hope" last night

Two things jumped out at me:

1. He told of two personal interactions with Bush and says,
"Both times I had found the President to be a likable man, shrewd and disciplined but with the same straightforward manner that had helped him win two elections";

and where he "witnessed a different side of the man" talking about his second term agenda:

"when suddenly it felt as if somebody in a back room had flipped a switch.
The President's eyes became fixed; his voice took on the agitated, rapid tone of someone neither accustomed to nor welcoming interruption; his easy affability was replaced by an almost messianic certainty. As I watched my mostly Republican Senate colleagues hang on his every word, I was reminded of the dangerous isolation that power can bring, and appreciated the Founders' wisdom in designing a system to keep power in check."

He didn't elaborate any further on what we all know is true, that Bush is an unempathic pathological liar and perhaps the most dangerous man in the world.
He never challenged the lie that Bush "won" two elections.

2. He talks about learning empathy from his mother and grandfather, and goes on to say, "as a country, we seem to be suffering from an empathy deficit".


The book is very well written. If he hasn't used a ghost writer, it's a clear indication that he's a thoughtful and intelligent man. He does miss the boat on his historical analysis in at least one place when he claims, "We did not have to go through any of the violent upheavals that Europe was forced to endure as it shed its feudal past. Our passage from an agricultural to an industrial society was eased by the sheer size of the continent, vast tracts of land and abundant resources that allowed new immigrants to continually remake themselves." Uh, Obama, what about that little thing called the Civil War?

[Graybeard]

14. That final quote is astonishing...

...and certainly has me begging to ask him the same question. Er...what about slavery Senator?