Obama table in Madison: May 10 Edition (fourth one in 2008) Lots of photos...

zulchzulu

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Sun May-11-08 01:17 PM
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Obama table in Madison: May 10 Edition (fourth one in 2008) Lots of photos...

It was the fourth Farmers Market Obama table for this year and was a sunny spring day with lots of people from all over the globe walking along and choosing from all kinds of locally grown, baked, crafted and political flavors. The Obama table is one feature to many at what the New York Times mentioned "The Dane County Farmers' Market in Wisconsin is now recognized as the largest in the nation, and is still growing."

The night before the tabling, I made sure the weekly war scorecard was updated and visible.

Here's this week's ever growing sad news:

Weekly War Scorecard

Cost of Iraq Occupation:
(running total):
$518,705,841,388
- $4,681 per household.
- $1,721 per person.
- $341.4 million per day

American Deaths:
4,075

American Wounded:
30,007

Iraqi Body Count:
1,202,137

As of May 10, 2007 at 12:00AM

Sources:
www.iraqbodycount.net
www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths....
www.defenselink.mil
www.antiwar.com/casualties
www.costofwar.com

Finally we had some decent weather. Still coats and sweaters on most people, but spring is scratching away at Old Man Winter here. Soon it will be June and hot summer weather. The weather was great because it was going to be a very busy day with the hundreds of people stopping by for Obama buttons, bumper stickers, rally signs and to sign up for emails.

The Obama table was set up by 8AM and there was just incredible support from people who were very enthused by how Obama was very much going to be the nominee. We went through 150+ bumper stickers and even more buttons and stickers. There were quite a few people who stopped by who said they had been making road trips to states like North Carolina, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Texas and were heading to states that still were to vote to help out. I continue to be absolutely amazed and proud of people that are that inspired and enthusiastic to really follow the grassroots path and do what they can.

Quite a few people took photos of the booth this week with the tulips in full bloom and a few people looked shocked that the Weekly War Scorecard, which is posted to remind people of the war and its costliness on many levels. It's always amazing how little people know of how much it costs as well as how many people have died.

There was an additional official Obama event nearby us getting people mobilized to be able to register people to vote. It was a fantastic effort that was very successful and made it really feel like the Obama message was fully in motion. From an email report this morning: "We had over 100 people attend the rally, 50+ new registered voter deputies, 45 newly registered voters". I had some people helping with the Obama table, so I headed over to take photos and videotape the event (which will be on YouTube shortly) as well just see how the event, which was organized this past week, was going along.

Someone had constructed wooden signs that said "Yes We Can" and put them out. I didn't get to find out who made those signs, but heard that those signs were used in Iowa and other states for various rallies.

As the rally was gathering, a lot of people were showing up to see about how they could register people to vote as well as find out what they could do to help out the Obama campaign. There will probably be an official Obama office later this summer that people will be able to get more involved.

Right now, people can go to the Obama table or go online and find out what to do... lots of summer festivals are coming up where visibility is essential for the large crowds.

There was a good crowd that was watching the speakers at the rally, which included Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz (otherwise known just as Mayor Dave), Zach Brandon and Vicky Selkove, an Obama staffer.

You can see the Mayor addressing the crowd, who were very happy to see him out there supporting Obama as well as spreading the message to get as many people registered to vote as possible.

The crowd was really a great bunch of people of all stripes and backgrounds, as is the case with every Obama rally I have ever been to.

After the rally ended, I headed back to the Obama table, which now was down to a few buttons and stickers and a dozen pages of new names to add to the email list.

The enthusiasm continued even after we were calling it a day with people so happy to see fellow Obama fans out there in the streets. There were quite a few Hillary Clinton supporters who were warming up to having Obama as the nominee and even a few that were going to put an Obama bumper sticker on their car. And as always, a decent number of Republicans stopped by to say they were going to become Democrats and were big Obama fans.

It's looking great for the Obama supporters and campaign as we enter the new phase to take on John McCain and make it to the White House!

Gobama!