Barack Obama is speaking today at Key Arena, a stadium-sized venue and (current) home to the Seattle Sonics. The doors were scheduled to open at 11 this morning, and I picked up my wife around 10:30 to head over. All the roads leading to Seattle Center were jammed so we changed strategy and went downtown, thinking we’d take the Monorail. When we got there, the line for tickets was hundreds deep. We also heard that Barack probably wouldn’t be going on until 12:30 or 1pm and realized that, given the crowds, seeing him was going to consume the better part of the afternoon. We retreated.
I dropped Emily off at work and headed home, thinking that I could beat the traffic by riding my bike to the Center. But Emily called just as I was gearing up to say that a friend had called to report that they were already turning people away from Key Arena. The friend had arrived before 10:30 and just barely made it in the door, and there’s now a crowd numbering in the thousands standing outside the stadium.
I’m sad to miss the event, but I’m thrilled at the incredible support for Obama here in my hometown. In the fall I’d assumed that the Washington Democratic Caucus this coming Saturday would be too late to matter. That’s obviously not the case, and if today’s crowd is any indication, Obama is going to have a good day here tomorrow…
Update: added a photo of the crowd outside from otzenphoto’s flickrstream