o-drama

I understand that rallies have to be held in stadiums because they are the only venues big enough to hold an audience of 20,000 w/ overflow, but it made it difficult to tell last night's Obama speech apart from a sporting event. A good 70% of the audience were red-shirts who demonstrated a mastery of wave mechanics. I only know this from the number of variations on the wave that we did: the slow wave, the even slower wave, the quick wave, the regular wave, the standing wave, the sitting wave, the lackluster wave, the big wave, the itty-bitty wave, and one that I can only describe as the "hand-jive wave."

I was also amused by the failed meticulousness of the stage-hands. After about ten rounds of checking every cable, mike, and camera, turning the main-stage into something of a crime scene, Governor Doyle stepped up and started speaking into a microphone that hadn't been switched on. Someone must be kicking himself for not going in for that eleventh look.

As for Obama, well, he did a lot with the little time he had. Between the clapping and the "I love you Obamas," total speech time clocked in somewhere around 15 minutes or so. I think I even picked out an "I want to have your baby obama," which has a kind of poetry to it. My favorite part was the resounding applause for the simple statement of fact: "George W. Bush will not be on the ballot in November."