Barack Obama at the Charlottesville Pavilion

This evening I had the chance to hear Barack Obama speak at a fundraiser/rally held at the Charlottesville Pavilion. My regret for this post is that I do not have similar media with which to offer for that other presidential campaign that trailed through Charlottesville last month, the fund raiser for Hillary Clinton. Why no pictures or videos? Because I left my camera at home assuming it would not have been allowed. Quite on the contrary, this was the first thing that struck me about how different these two events actually were. The security and grandeur for Barack was surprising. Hillary's event at the Paramount was quiet, calm and given the Q&A with John Grisham, played out as close to an evening conversation as possible, if say, you had several hundred people in you living room. Obama's rally, on the other hand, had gates, police tape, lights and took place outside with Gnarles Barkley, U2, Dave Matthews Band and Lifehouse piped through massive speakers. In their own rights, neither event was bad in the ways in which they were very carefully put together, but I don't for one second believe that Barack listens to Lifehouse during his free time. Anyway, as far as comparisons go, this is completely one-sided and I'm a little sad about that. Instead, I have the following 5 snippets of Obama's speech, in chronological order. To note, the video quality is *terrible* -- I'm 5'2", was behind some taller folks and my arms got tired. These are really just glorified audio links to reference his speech. 1. On dignity, decency, respect, etc. 2. On experience; character. 3. On health care (Barack is discussing his mother's battle with cancer at the start of this clip.) 4. On education, jobs; investing in America, not Iraq. (The end line is, ". . . let's take those tax breaks for companies that are [keeping jobs/investing in the American economy].") 5. On diplomacy; America is not afraid. Barack ended the evening by relaying a tale of a small town in South Carolina where a city council woman got him "fired-up" and "ready to go". He encouraged everyone at the Pavilion to get fired-up and that this would be the first step in affecting change: a voice changes a room, a room changes a town, a town changes a city, a city changes a state, a state changes a nation, then that nation changes the world. Then, he very quickly exited the pavilion; I expected more of a meet-and-greet; but the list of towns to get fired-up and ready to go are never ending, no doubt. I certainly appreciated his enthusiasm, though I can't say he seemed any more passionate about his platform than most of his rivals are about their own. His call for a courageous America (beginning of clip 5) kind of scared me a bit as I feel it negates that diplomacy he strongly insisted we need. While it must certainly take courage to sit down and have a discussion with a dictator, his insistence on suppressing all fear is what got us into this mess. I wish somebody would just own up to the fact that fear is actually a great check, as long as you can be steadfast. I suppose that kinda talk doesn't win elections. Anyway, I'm glad that I'm finally getting to see presidential candidates speak live, right here in Charlottesville.