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photos/Dottie Stover, Sam Stover, Chuck Hamilton

Barack Obama has campaign rally in Nippert Stadium in November 2008

by Deborah Rieselman

With less than 48 hours left in his presidential campaign, Barack Obama spoke words of inspiration to approximately 27,000 of his fans in Nippert Stadium on Sunday night, Nov. 1. Despite waiting hours to get seated, the crowd was energized and outgoing, nearly creating a party atmosphere as people laughed with strangers, waved campaign signs, purchased T-shirts and buttons from vendors, lined up at the concession stands and chanted "yes we can" while doing the "wave."

Obama was making one last campaign swing through the critical state of Ohio when he ended the day with a 9:45 p.m. entrance onto the Bearcat turf, having waited until everyone in line had gotten a seat. The crowd, which showed enormous racially diversity, included our-of-town guests who arrived on tour buses and huge numbers of families with children.

It was 11 p.m. on a school night before the crowd started leaving campus, and many youngsters were snoozing on parents’ shoulders by then. Yet others were still excited to have taken part in what they considered a historic event.

Eleven-year-old Josh Hardin, from Princeton Middle School, insisted that he wasn’t there because his parents had dragged him along. "I want to see the first African American president," he said with a sheepish grin.

Even 4-year-old Blessin Brown considered the event important. In fact, she had already voted for Barack, she said — on the Nickelodeon channel. She was also happy to report that he had won. People started lining up for the event in the afternoon. Not long after the gates had opened at 6 p.m., the line looked so foreboding that some people left.

By that time, the queue started at the Environmental Protection Agency on Martin Luther King Drive, headed toward Langsam Library where it entered campus, then wound past the Alumni Center and the College of Business, and exited campus though the Campus Green back onto MLK. There it headed in the opposite direction of the original line, re-entered campus at Morgan and Scioto residence halls, then snaked back through Campus Green once more, this time winding around Sigma Sigma Commons, past Fifth Third Arena and across Lindner Center Plaza.

Many people who feared they would never get a seat scouted positions to watch from outside the stands. Along the drive near the College-Conservatory of Music, they stood several rows deep to hear Obama’s remarks.

"After 21 months of a campaign that has taken us from the rocky coast of Maine to the sunshine of California, we are two days away from bringing change in America," he began. The message of change was what they had been waiting to hear.

LINKS

• Alumna shares story, video of Obama's '08 street party in Brooklyn
• Alumnus shares photos, story of Obama '08 Chicago street party
• See photo gallery from 2012 campaign stop at Fifth Third Arena
• Read story about the behind-the-scenes security at '12 presidential visit
  

Obama's primary campaign rally at Fifth Third Arena February '08

Presidential candidate Barack Obama first held a rally on campus in February 2008 during the primary campaign. Below are photos of what took place in a packed Fifth Third Arena.

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