Lots of stories and pics this morning:
Register:
The campaign of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chet Culver got an almost picture-perfect rally Sunday night.
"I think I heard the sheriff say something like 5,000 people are here," said Taylor West, Culver's press secretary. "I think it's indicative of the huge momentum build we've seen over the last few weeks."
I'll take Lonny Pulkrabek's word for it; it was beyond my capacity but perhaps they teach you crowd estimating at sheriff school.
Gazette covers the other team too, and zooms in on some of the same things I did on the fly:
``It requires audacity to believe in things not seen,'' he said, adding that ``to hope is not to ignore the challenges we face, but to say we can do something about it.''
From the birth of the nation to the abolition of slavery to women's suffrage, unionization and the influx of immigrants, he said, ``this country was built on the audacity of hope.''
Tuesday's election will reaffirm that Americans, ``at their core, are decent people,'' Obama said.
``When American people pay attention, good things happen,'' he said, and they are paying attention in this election cycle.
PC has a photo gallery (you can spot me if you look close) and article:
"Our party is about hope and opportunity," said Culver, who spoke at the end of rally. "But we're also the party of dreams."
Some of those "dreams" include raising teachers' salaries, providing health care and early education to all children, giving women the right to choose what to do with their bodies, and lifting the ban for stem-cell research, Culver said.
Iowa City is the second to last stop in the last minute campaign to rally votes by Democrats. The rally will end in Des Moines, at Hoover High School where Culver was a teacher and coach.
Mike Glover has two pieces - the "well, there's gonna be an election" angle:
Both had their party's biggest names in tow, and they were getting plenty of help from national figures as well.
Nussle was fresh from a swing last week by President Bush seeking support in overwhelmingly Republican western Iowa.
Culver was taking a page from that playbook on Sunday, bringing Illinois Sen. Barack Obama into overwhelmingly Democratic Iowa City on Sunday night for a rally with other big-name Democrats such as Gov. Tom Vilsack and Sen. Tom Harkin. Like Nussle's western Iowa effort, Culver was looking to boost turnout in a region he's certain to carry.
And the 2008 angle:
Obama was making his third swing this year through Iowa, where precinct caucuses traditionally launch the presidential nominating season.
Though he's only in his first term in the Senate, Obama has risen fast inside the Democratic Party. He energized many with a keynote speech at the last Democratic National Convention, and he's widely sought as a fundraiser for Democrats across the country.
That role may soon change as he mulls a run at the White House.
"After the election, I'm going to sit down and give the possibility the serious consideration it deserves," said Obama.
Forgot to mention I ran into Dien Judge last night. Smoky Hollow should be back sometime soon...
This kind of big rally is almost anachronistic - a century or more ago, before electronic media, political speeches were a major form of mass entertainment, and voter turnout was much higher than it is now (at least among the white males who were allowed to vote back then). It's nice to know people can still get fired up by in person politics. There's a lot more drudgery to activism than hoopla, but hoopla is a nice reward.
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