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THE FINAL RALLY.
Manassas, Virginia is in the "real" America. Driving into town, you pass a gun shop, a tractor sale, a McCain/Palin sign, and a tire yard -- all on the same block. The restaurants advertise "Good American Food" and the nice new development is anchored by an Applebees. This was the site of the Battle of Bull Run and, for that matter, Lorena Bobbitt's crime and trial. And yet, it was in Manassas that Barack Obama held his final rally, turning out a crowd estimated, incredibly, at 90,000.
Even so, it was a subdued affair. Earlier that day, Madelyn Dunham, Obama's grandmother, had passed away. Obama eulogized her in North Carolina, but he hardly mentioned his loss in Virginia. The pain was his, not ours. But it settled heavily on the evening. Obama's speech had its traditional lilting cadence, but not its customary oratorical force. He didn't seem tired so much as, on some level, done. Like this was the hundredth time he'd given the speech today, and he didn't have it in him to make it seem like the first. So he did his job. He said what needed to be said. He launched his attacks and unleashed his applause lines and ran through his policies. He told the story of being tired in South Carolina, of wanting to stop, only to have a little lady in a tiny town revive him with her shouts of "Fired up?" "Ready to go!" The message was unmistakable. But the hot coil of emotion that might have elevated his final speech into one of the campaign's Moments was absent. It was just a speech.
That, however, was all that was required. The time for speeches is over. For two years, this election has been about the candidates. What they said and what they thought. What they did and how they looked. But the process has now barreled beyond them. It is now about the voters. What they have heard and what they have concluded. Whether they have formed a preference and whether they care enough to vote. Tonight's rally was not about the spent figure who stood on the stage, but the 90,000 who had left the quiet warmth of their homes to hear him speak. Obama might have been subdued, but their very presence was evidence of their excitement. And at this point, it is their excitement, not his, that matters.
Image used under a CC license from Tracy Russo.
COMMENTS (13)
Sometimes you're a very good writer, Ezra.
Posted by: John | November 4, 2008 3:42 AM
Well said, Ezra. Today is about all of us, not about the candidates. Lets all go out and vote for Obama! We finally get to win today!
Posted by: soullite | November 4, 2008 5:10 AM
Get to bed boy. You've got a long line to stand in tomorrow then some serious partying so sleep now
Posted by: Felipe | November 4, 2008 5:12 AM
ezra
a big thank you.
each day of this journey, your writing opens up the door and invites everyone in to be at the table for discussion.
day and night, your community kitchen table here is a warm and welcoming gathering place , ....there is always someone at this gracious table, and it is always filled with wonderful and interesting things.
no-one leaves here hungry.
you have worked diligently, each day, with a journal of gifted insight and stirring writing, that has brought knowledge, endless conversation, laughter and tears through all of this.
all that you have provided, and the time and effort put in by all of the commenters has made your hard work an even more wonderful endeavour.
thank you for the honesty, heart, intellect and energy you have poured into each day with your wonderful and talented writings.
your vibrant blog has been interwoven into each day of the campaign and your writing has touched many people.
thank you for your wonderful contribution.
best work, ezra klein!
Posted by: a grateful reader | November 4, 2008 6:51 AM
soullite
this has been quite a journey, hasnt it:-)
we have made it to election day!
Posted by: jacqueline | November 4, 2008 7:01 AM
I also gotta say thank you EK. For the last 2 years I havent always agreed with your candidate vetting, but its always been helpful insight.
@jacqueline - your writing is always a joy.
@soullite.. :)
Posted by: david b | November 4, 2008 7:27 AM
thank you, david...
can you pass the coffee...
it is going to be a very long day!
:-)
Posted by: jacqueline | November 4, 2008 7:48 AM
Man, I can't believe it's almost over. Thanks for all the work you've done on this election Ezra. I've been reading you since Pandagon, but this last year you've been at the top of your game. Well done. And now, to vote!
Posted by: MosBen | November 4, 2008 8:17 AM
I grew up in Clifton, a "fake Virginia" suburb that borders Manassas. Clifton is a Civil War relic with nineteenth-century farmhouses, a general store, and a set of railroad tracks. The fact that these places are now Obama nation,filled with families who first came to Washington to work for Ronald Reagan and are now coming around to vote for Barack Obama, is profoundly moving. Yes, even Virginia did. Welcome to the New Dominion.
Posted by: Maureen | November 4, 2008 9:40 AM
Thank you. You've captured the denouement of this epic story just right.
Posted by: Independent | November 4, 2008 10:22 AM
I went to my polling place and the line was out the door. Screw that.
Posted by: jeebus | November 4, 2008 10:40 AM
Spot on, Ezra. That rally was actually moving for this very reason. As you say, BO didn't *have* to shout and yell and whoop.
Posted by: jonnybutter | November 4, 2008 10:48 AM
Manassas is exactly the right place for Obama to finish his campaign. I grew up there, and it's stunning to me that it's now the epicenter of Virginia's swing from red to blue. It always seemed to me to be a very conservative town. Republicans had a lock on the local elected positions when I was growing up (except for one or two fossilized Dixiecrats), and "southern heritage" racism was a commonplace. (My brother's fourth-grade teacher had a Confederate flag on her classroom wall; the local history musuem's plaque on the 1960s says that our local Negroes were always content--well, not exactly those words, but very much that sentiment.)
My parents, who still live there, report that if you walk through the big-house winding-road developments just west & north of downtown, you see lots of McCain-Palin signs, but the small-house middle-class & working-class area just north of downtown is full of Obama-Biden signs. A kind of mild class politics seems to have caught up with the heartland of the Confederacy: Manassas today is what you get when, as the political scientists say, Southern Exceptionalism fades away.
Posted by: GK | November 4, 2008 12:42 PM