Report: Obama in Richmond

I think Willie Nelson is a talented musician. He wrote the Patsy Cline hit “Crazy,” among other songs. Given the opportunity to see him in concert, I eagerly obtained tickets a few years ago. He appeared at the NorVA, a local hotspot. If you’ve never been to the NorVA, let me just say that the pictures on the website don’t do it justice. It’s basically an open room with a stage up front. You have to get there early, stake out a space, and hope that folks bigger than you don’t jostle you out of position or stand in front of you. Otherwise, you won’t be able to see the show.

That Willie Nelson concert was my first – and last – trip to the NorVA.

I was reminded of the NorVA when I entered Planet Zero for the Barack Obama fundraiser Tuesday night. A big, flat room, with a tiny stage up front. The “VIP section,” for which donors paid a minimum of $250, was a small area set up to the right of the stage, cordoned off by from the rest of the area. Unfortunately, the area did not have any amenities any different from the rest of the place. In fact, it had less, since in order to get a drink from the cash bar, you had to wade thru the crowd to the other side of the room. There were a few chairs set up but they were reserved for the elderly or disabled. Just as in the rest of the room, folks in the VIP section had to stand.

And stand we did. I arrived a little before the 7pm start time and there was a line outside of the building. By the time I parked my car about two blocks away, the line wrapped around the building. Fortunately, I ran into Delegate Brian Moran. Sticking close to him, we were whisked thru the line and into the building. Once inside, I headed over to the VIP section (yes, I paid to be there) and ran into several members of the host committee, along with Senators Mamie Locke and Henry Marsh. In short order, the area filled up. And, as I’m sure you can imagine, the jostling for position began.

All those people, standing for well over an hour, in a room with no air conditioning. It wasn’t pretty. I understand that Obama was actually at another fundraiser ($1,000 a plate!) prior to coming to this one. (I’m surprised that the members of the host committee, who each agreed to raise $2,500 for Obama, were not at that fundraiser.) People got restless waiting so long. A few minutes before 8pm, they brought out the press. They got to be inside of the cordoned off area around the stage. And, of course, one had to choose to stand right in front of where I was, blocking my view of the stage. Even more than that, there was a gentlemen in a wheelchair right in front of me, positioned just behind the barrier so that he could see. That photographer stood right in front of him most of the time. At least I was standing and could move a couple of inches.

Around 8:15, the show started. First up: Congressman Bobby Scott. Guess we now know who he’s supporting. Next up was Legislative Black Caucus Chairman Delegate Dwight Jones, who announced his endorsement of Obama. Governor Tim Kaine, who endorsed Obama back in February, came on to do the introduction.

Senator Barack Obama came on and spoke for about 30 minutes. Since seeing him at the J-J Dinner back in February, I wanted to see how his stump speech may have changed. On an issue-by-issue basis, it was pretty much the same speech, just delivered with a bit more enthusiasm. The crowd, of course, loved every minute of it.

Afterwards, the four of them – Obama, Scott, Kaine and Jones – came over to the VIP section to shake a few hands over the barrier that separated us from the stage area. Only those close enough to the front got to do that. They did not come into the VIP section.

The place emptied out quickly afterwards.

I’m still waiting for Obama to give me something more than broad statements. I think Democrats agree that we need to do something about global warming, that we want no child left behind, that we want our incomes to rise, that we need to do something to reduce our dependency on foreign oil (OK, I’ll give him that one – he did say to Detroit that they need to increase gas mileage), but the question remains what to do and how to do it. That’s what I want to hear from Obama. I haven’t heard it yet.

Oh and Planet Zero? Won’t catch me going there again.