The Last Rally: Obama's Final Call To the Crowd to Vote

It was a thrill getting to see President Barack Obama, even if it was from a distance. It was great to hear him live, with the response and cheers of the crowd.

The rest of the rally, though, let me just note that getting into the baseball stadium at Kissimmee was a headache and getting out when the rally was over a complete damn nightmare. I swear to the Old Gods and the New that the Osceola County law enforcement don't know a damn thing about traffic control. Look, I know traffic in Florida sucks, but it's something about the Orlando drivers that are freaking psychotic sons of... grrrrrrr, I'm still in a mood.

Anyway. I documented the atrocities.

Told you. Traffic getting into the Osceola Heritage Park = headache

 They had us parked a fur piece away that required walking. I think I got my calorie burnoff for the week taken care of.

 And this was just the line to get in. It looped around outside the main gate about ten times.

The rally organizer who planned this: "Hey, let's have an outdoor rally in Florida where it's rainy weather like 750 days out of the year or so. Oh, it's only early November, surely the bad weather would have passed by now..."

The main gates into the ballpark. Secret Service checking everybody going in for any dangerous items like paper signs. Oh, wait, it's not a Trump rally, so those posters we were carrying in were likely not gonna scare anybody...

The was the crowd about 30 minutes into the rally, well before the main guests had showed. Unlike Hillary's rally last week, there were no lineups of guest speakers to keep the crowd stoked. We were all pretty much waiting for Stevie Wonder (wait, what?) and Obama himself...

I wondered why they were holding this rally at a baseball field that could only hold 20,000 or so instead of the larger football stadiums within Orlando's city limits. But then a familiar plane flew across the horizon a few miles away, and I understood that the baseball field was within range of the airport so that everybody can see Air Force One fly by...

Oh man, here's the video of it:

My smartphone camera isn't all that great with zoom and stuff, so it's too grainy to get a good view. But everybody else saw it and that's why you're hearing the cheers.

In the meantime, here's Stevie Wonder!

Stevie wrapped up his concert after a few songs - "Higher Ground" and "Superstition" were highlights - and then we waited for Obama to show. While it was a bit annoying that I was part of the late crowd that were forced to stand in the upper deck area for the entire rally, I was in an incredible spot to see the Presidential detail ride in from the airport:

At which point it was just a matter of waiting for the main man to show. In the meantime, Senator Bill Nelson - oh, hey, I seen that guy before! - made the introduction alongside candidate Pat Murphy to get the crowd pumped up. 

They talked about getting Murphy elected this Tuesday so that he could be part of the Democrats' attempt to knock Republicans out of control of the Senate. They made a solid case about how they'll actually do work - unlike being a no-show like Rubio - and vote on nominations for office rather than obstruct as the GOP promises.

And then it was time... to welcome... to the stage...

And then the rally ended to Bruce Springsteen music, and the parking lot filled with people refusing to stick to proper exit routes causing massive traffic jams to where it took more than an hour to get onto the main road. I swear, a place where there's just one gateway in or out is a bad place to host a rally. Rage rage rage.

(Edit: I originally thought Sunday was the last day to campaign. Obama is still campaigning this Monday)

Tuesday is it, folks. On the most election of our lives to stop Trump from destroying everything good and decent about our nation, and to stop Trump from wrecking the global economy and our strong standing among our allies.

Get the vote out, Florida. Vote for Hillary, vote for Murphy, vote for every Democrat on every ballot seat.

Get the vote out, America. Vote for Hillary. Vote for Democrats to the Senate and to the House and to your state legislatures and governorships. We need to break that obstruction and put into office people who will do their elected duties to serve the public trust.

VOTE THIS TUESDAY. Stay in line once you get to your precinct. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Don't get discouraged if you're there for hours. You can stand up against any suppression effort, you can make your voice known.

VOTE.