TPM Reader JV checks in from Nashua
The Obama rally at Nashua North High School at 10AM this morning is right down the street, so I went to see him.
I didn’t get there until just before 10, and the place was jammed. I had to park in a church lot a half mile away. This is a new High School, with what must be the largest gym in the state. It was full to overflowing. The picture attached was the line waiting to get in a little after 10. The line extends as far back in the other direction too.
Shortly after I took this photo, the line stopped for several minutes. When it started moving again, it was to let us into the “secondary gym” (which is about as large as most high school primary gyms) and they filled that one too. So we didn’t get to see Obama, but we did get to hear him. When he finished, he briefly popped into our room to thank us for coming out. (video below)
I’ve lived in NH for 27 years now. I’ve never seen a candidate pull crowds anything like this. Shortly after Obama started, he asked how many undecideds were in the room, and (from what I was told later by people that we in the main gym) there was a fairly good number that raised their hands. He talked for 30-35 minutes, and he was good. He talked about hope. He took on all the points that Hillary is hitting him on (lack of experience etc). (One of his best lines was something like “they want me to stew for a while until all the hope has boiled off”.) I suspect he convinced a lot of those people that were on the fence.
this is how much we actually saw of him in the room we were in:
