This is really wonderful! I sent it to a dear friend and loyal Obama supporter in Houston to show him Portland's support for "OUR" Candidate. He is African American and terminally ill with cancer. My hope is he lives to see this man be our next President. Susan Gates

This is really wonderful! I sent it to a dear friend and loyal Obama supporter in Houston to show him Portland's support for "OUR" Candidate. He is African American and terminally ill with cancer. My hope is he lives to see this man be our next President. Susan Gates

My hope would be that the United States would know the truth and realize that the crowd in Oregon wasn't about Obama. It was a free concert that he capitolized on and that the media once again distorted the truth.

Take a look for yourself and read the truth.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/robert-knight/2008/05/20/free-concert-popular-band-preceded-obama-s-big-rally

HILLARY CLINTON OUR NEXT PRESIDENT - SHE STANDS UP AND FIGHTS FOR ALL PEOPLE!

Have a great day! The truth will prevail.

Obviously Valerie is unfamiliar with the concept of a support act.

First Fox, now Newsbusters... this temporary love affair between between the Clinton campaign and the conservative media is oh so sweet.

Dearest Valerie, Please go away and crawl back into your hole troll.

Spoken like a true follower of Obama...

Blessings to you too! GO Dem's

Obviously Valerie is unfamiliar with the fact that 99% of Portlanders have never heard of The Decemeberists.

Actually, Valerie is onto something. Obama was just used as a shill to sell CDs for the Decemberists, who after all are named after a Russian revolutionary group--talk about unpatriotic. Clearly this so-called rally at Waterfront Park was just part of the Zionist One World Conspiracy.

Hey Valerie, now I'm talking to you: get a life. If Hillary Clinton can get 75K people to turn out to hear her on a spectacularly sunny day, instead of going off to play somewhere, I say more power to her. If you want to MAKE A CASE for Hillary Clinton, then by all means do so. Just spare us by laying off the screwball concert-conspiracy nonsense. If I want to read that, I'll go to Taylor Marsh, not Blue Oregon.

Kristin sez: Let me just say these two things unequivocally:

1) I have never been so proud to be an Oregonian; 2) I have never been so proud to be a Democrat.

Kristin, why do you hate America?

Valerie...please cut your daily dosage of that extra sweet Clinton Kool-Aid you have been enthusiastically guzzling. It's distorting the common sense areas of your brain.

The vote is over now here in Oregon. Live with it and go bother the waiting sheep in Montana.

Wow, the secret's out now! Valerie spilled the beans. Once the band (what was their name?) finished playing, they locked the gates and woudldn't let us leave. They forced us to stand around in the hot sun listening to bad canned music, until Barack showed up. Then they made us applaud on cue!

Clinton supporters get more and more desperate and ridiculous as time goes on. On January 21 she's still going to be arguing she's entitled to be President.

Kristin,

Thanks very much for posting this, it's fantastic!

Ignore the negativity from some folks here....anyone who was actually at the rally can't deny that powerful, positive energy that every single person there possessed in support of Obama. To believe anything different is simply laughable! :)

The simple fact is the Decemberists are big enough to sell out the Crystal Ballroom which fits roughly 1,200 people. Maybe they could sell out something a little bigger now and in their hometown. They played to a crowd of roughly 11,000 max in Chicago which was also free and featured the symphony. Unless we're operating on the assumption that the symphony has no friends, family or fans then the Decemberists drew roughly 11,000 in a much bigger city at a free concert. Oh and did I mention that in Chicago they didn't have to wait in a line for 2 1/2 hours to get in?

So Valerie,

This may sound "elitist" of me but I'm going say it. I've been going to Decemberists shows since they played the Rabbit Hole. I'm fairly certain I know WAY more about the subject of concert draws and how that works than you do. This article you linked to is complete bunk. You are so out of touch that you don't know how popular the Decemberists really even are. They're popular...but not 75K popular.

Kristin....that clip was absolutely delightful. Swells my heart, gives me hope, and make me proud of Oregon. JUST the type of unifying material we need.

Ignore the sour grapes here....that's all it is.

Die-hards and spoilers.....ya gotta know when to fold 'em.

So Valerie, you are using the wretched excuses of a brain-dead radical ideologue to support your views? Do you not realize how pathetic this looks? Seriously, if you want to promote HRC's strengths, do it, but your link just makes you look like you've lost touch with reality.

The ire of the Clinton supporters probably has something to do with their not producing any nifty little videos like this themselves. But there is hope: they can engage that dynamics trio that produced the goofy "Raising McCain" video (or whatever it was called).

italics off

Umm.. I don't like the Decemberists and I was there. And there were no ads claiming they were even going to be there so the trolls saying this must be totally out of touch with the music scene. These guys are good from what I have been told but not for 75,000. They came for Obama the real rocker!

I can't wait for an Obama presidency. No more 72 degree homes, no more SUV's, visit's with the President of Canada, tours of all 57 states of America, disenfranching Dem voters from Michigan and Florida...

Obama can't win unless Florida voter don't count!

Go Obama!

P.S. I agree the 75k was legit. No concert needed. Obama on a Sunday in Portland is like Easter Sunday in the bible belt when one's religion is the DNC.

Ron Wyden needs to step up to the plate and put an end to this farce. Oregon went for Obama in a big way. Each day the remaining superdelegates don't fall in behind Obama helps McGramps & the GOP big-time in November.

disenfranching Dem voters from Michigan and Florida...

While I feel really bad for the voters in these states their party leaders and state congresses tried to move their elections up to make their states mean more than a state like Oregon. Screw em. The party told them not to do it and they did it anyway. Clinton agreed to that back when she thought she was going to win. Now that she isn't she really "cares" about recognizing the voters in Florida and Michigan. She only cares because she's going to use them to take this whole nomination process to the convention where she's going to try and get the delegates to switch their votes to her. It's the last shot she has.

I can't wait for an Obama presidency. No more 72 degree homes, no more SUV's, visit's with the President of Canada

Yo troll, in case you hadn't realized, there is no such thing as a "President of Canada".

Joel Dan Walls - Don't tell me, tell Obama. He's the one that said it....

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/08/07/obama-slip-on-canada/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp9KpbWjT-o

Garrett - screw 'em? Really? Is that what you said about the voters in 2000? Ever hear of the Voter's Right Act? I didn't realize there was a provision in the Act that said the DNC can at will, remove votes because the DNC "doesn't like" the dates the votes are cast.

Obama will be Selected (by Super Delegates) not Elected.

Should make for a fun summer with both a young man and a really old man running for President who continually makes gaffes.

At least Obama's & McCain's misstatements are more eloquent than Bush's....

Here's a list of Obama's gaffes - and we are still in the primary season!

Last May, he claimed that tornadoes in Kansas killed a whopping 10,000 people: “In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed.” The actual death toll: 12.

Earlier this month in Oregon, he redrew the map of the United States: “Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.”

Last week, in front of a roaring Sioux Falls, S.D., audience, Obama exulted: “Thank you, Sioux City. ... I said it wrong. I’ve been in Iowa for too long. I’m sorry.”

Explaining last week why he was trailing Hillary Clinton in Kentucky, Obama again botched basic geography: “Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it’s not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle.” On what map is Arkansas closer to Kentucky than Illinois?

Obama has as much trouble with numbers as he has with maps. Last March, on the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Ala., he claimed his parents united as a direct result of the civil rights movement: “There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Ala., because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born.”

Obama was born in 1961. The Selma march took place in 1965. His spokesman, Bill Burton, later explained that Obama was “speaking metaphorically about the civil-rights movement as a whole.”

Earlier this month in Cape Girardeau, Mo., Obama showed off his knowledge of the war in Afghanistan by homing in on a lack of translators: “We only have a certain number of them, and if they are all in Iraq, then it’s harder for us to use them in Afghanistan.” The real reason it’s “harder for us to use them” in Afghanistan: Iraqis speak Arabic or Kurdish. The Afghanis speak Pashto, Farsi, or other non-Arabic languages.

Over the weekend in Oregon, Obama pleaded ignorance of the decades-old, multibillion-dollar massive Hanford nuclear-waste cleanup: “Here’s something that you will rarely hear from a politician, and that is that I’m not familiar with the Hanford, uuuuhh, site, so I don’t know exactly what’s going on there. (Applause.) Now, having said that, I promise you I’ll learn about it by the time I leave here on the ride back to the airport.”

I assume on that ride, a staffer reminded him that he’s voted on at least one defense-authorization bill that addressed the “costs, schedules, and technical issues” dealing with the nation’s most contaminated nuclear-waste site.

Last March, the Chicago Tribune reported this little-noticed nugget about a fake autobiographical detail in Obama’s Dreams from My Father: “Then, there’s the copy of Life magazine that Obama presents as his racial awakening at age 9. In it, he wrote, was an article and two accompanying photographs of an African-American man physically and mentally scarred by his efforts to lighten his skin. In fact, the Life article and the photographs don’t exist, say the magazine’s own historians.”

And in perhaps the most seriously troubling set of gaffes of them all, Obama told a Portland crowd over the weekend that Iran doesn’t “pose a serious threat to us” — cluelessly arguing that “tiny countries” with small defense budgets can’t do us harm — and then promptly flip-flopped the next day, claiming, “I’ve made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave.”

Barack Obama — promoted by the Left and the media as an all-knowing, articulate, transcendent Messiah — is a walking, talking gaffe machine.

__

I always wondered how so many American's can do so poorly in geography. Not to worry - you can still be President. Do you think he has been made aware by now that Kentucky touches his home state and Arkansas doesn't? If so, do you think he believes it?

He's beginning to make Danny Quayle look like a genius!

Garrett - screw 'em? Really? Is that what you said about the voters in 2000? Ever hear of the Voter's Right Act? I didn't realize there was a provision in the Act that said the DNC can at will, remove votes because the DNC "doesn't like" the dates the votes are cast.

Yeah screw em. We are taught from day one that there are rules we have to follow. Don't lie, cheat, steal, etc... It's not hard to follow rules. Terry McAuliffe (yeah the Clinton guy) said he would ban Michigan's delegates from the convention if they moved their primary in 2004. Where were all the people worried about "disenfranchising" those voters then? By the way...the primary is a party vote. It's not a national election vote. The party makes the rules not the state. If the Republican party wants to say that only elected officials can vote for who runs for the Republican nomination for President they can do that. It's a party election not a national election. Did you miss civics?

Also, living in Oregon I don't really appreciate Floridians and Michegonians thinking their vote is so much more important than Ohio's that they need to move their primary up that much so that the people that live in Florida and Michigan have more influence on national politics than Oregon.

Garrett - All the more reason for national primary election day. Actually it's the opposite. The State makes the rules for their primary for all Parties, initiatives, positions, down to the duly elected Dog Catcher. State primaries are all about the DNC you know. If the Party made the rules the DNC would have been successful in not having the State move up their election day. As such, the only recourse the DNC has is to complain loudly and to not allow the delegation from FL or Michigan from entering the convention floor. (See I was paying attention in Civic).

At least the votes of the other FL & Mich. issues/politicians were counted that day....

Living in Oregon, do you think it's appropriate for Iowa, a State that is federally subsidized to produce the form of higher pollution / carbon footprint corn based ethanol influence national politics more so than Oregon? There is so much subsidized corn being produced in Iowa they have to truck all of their food in from other States. No such thing as locally grown in Iowa.

GO, I'm all for a national primary day. Until then when states start trying to upset the tradional nomination process then they have to deal with the consequences of their actions. The party sets the conditions in which they will accept a state's primary vote. Michigan and Florida have violated those conditions and the party has no obligation to seat their delegates if they deem that proper. I'd almost let Florida slide because all candidates were at least on that ballot. Since Hillary never removed her name from the ballot in Michigan in violation of her own pledge I have no problems not seating Michigan's delegates. If these states are seated in the end it should be at only half their traditional numbers and should remain there until they either move back to their original primary dates of Feb 7th and March 9th or to Super Tuesday.

Iowa is the traditional start of the campaign and has been since 1972. Until a national primary is brought around then there shouldn't be a massive shift in the primary season. If we allow Michigan and Florida to jump up what will prevent every stinking state in the country from trying to leapfrog the other?

Go Obama--If I weren't pinned down by sniper fire at the Tuzla airstrip, I would take you out for coffee to tell you how glad I am that you know how to use cut and paste. When you discover a politician, or any other human for that matter, who has NOT been guilty of gaffes, please let me know.

joel dan walls, Are you kidding? Hillary Clinton has never made a gaffe. Oh wait, someone is whispering in my ear. Oh I forgot about when Senator Clinton, Chelsea and Sinbad were dodging sniper fire. My bad... :)

JDW - there are a lot of humans that don't make these types of gaffe, bravado, exaggerations. They just aren't politicians. My beef with all of this is that people tend to (a) put to much of thier liberties, faith and HOPE into politicians and (b) people tend to be less inclined to point out or make a big deal of Obama's mistakes than other politicians. Heck, MSNBC sponsored the debate about Obama wanting to meet with the President of Canada and then admitted on their online blog they "missed the gaffe" themseleves in their political commentary. It's likely Hillary, McCain, Bush, or whomever would have said that MSNBC wouldn't have "missed" it. Tending to cut polticians slack on gaffes who are their favorite seem to be human nature. It's seems to be morphed into an extreme with every "news" organization out their. A local case in point is look what the Oregonian did with the Goldschmidt scandal.

And, I never said that HRC, nor any politician never made a gaffe. I was merely pointing out the Obama Image being pushed doesn't match reality.

Garrett - why not allow every state to 'jump ahead'. If they all jump ahead to the earliest date possible - we'll have a national primary day - which will be good for Democracy.

JDW - let me know when the sniper fire quells down and I'll take you up on that coffee....

Hey "Go Obama," was her proposed gas tax holiday a gaffe too, or was it as calculated as her beer and guns fest?

On the bigger question of the Demberists, I got there while lots of people were coming in, while Blumenauer was speaking. I didn't find out until afterward that I missed the Decemberists, which really pissed me off.

JR- I think she and McCain are trying to cling to their guns and bitterness with that crazy proposal. While it's true the Government makes more profit on Oil each quarter than the Oil Companies, that proposal is wierd and really lacks thought.

You gotta laugh at the media with regard to the concert "excuse". People don't get Portland. Do they really think that Obama wouldn't draw more people than Kerry did in '04?