Barack Obama briefly meets and greets the overflow crowd waiting in the University of Charleston gym on Thursday, March 20. | Photos by Douglas Imbrogno. Click all photos to enlarge

By Douglas Imbrogno

They handed out too many tickets, that was for for sure. Barack Obama’s speech at Riggleman Hall at the University of Charleston on Thursday, March 20 was supposed to start at 11 a.m. I knew as I approached the U.C. campus along MacCorkle Avenue about 10:05 a.m. that a zoo awaited. Cars were lined up for a half-mile along MacCorkle and in a scrum around the adjacent Montessori school streets. I semi-illegally parked in front of a road sign, counting on the fact that every lawman and woman for five miles had presidential candidate protection on the mind, rather than traffic offenses.

The line outside Riggleman Hall already snaked and slithered with more than 200 folks awaiting entry. Things weren’t looking good. A young, spike-haired Obama volunteer approached, his black t-shirt adorned with letters that read: ‘Got Hope?‘ And below that, ‘Obama for President in 2008.’ He piped up: “If any of you are NOT here to see Barack Obama, the line for Space Mountain is much shorter…”

Then, the doors to Riggleman swung shut. All line disciple disintegrated. A clutch of students began dashing west across campus, toward the gym. That’s where all of us suddenly annointed “overflow crowd” constituents were told to head. Assurances were made that yes, yes, Obama would stop by after his speech. It was ObamaMania in the Mountain State in action. (Well, except for the student dash, the crowd was well-behaved and no potential voters were trampled in the transfer.)

So, several hundred of us flowed into the gym, passing to volunteers the tickets someone in the Obama camp had not counted so well in advance. Inside, speakers were arranged on posts. A side door had been cordoned off with metal gates and a small stage awaited the promised candidate meet-and-greet. (You’ll find coverage of the speech elsewhere in the Charleston Gazette, including staff photos and video.) The applause was loud in the gym, too, with just the candidate’s stentorian voice to go by emitted from the sound system. Then, Secret Service guys swept in the gym, eyeballs darting like pinballs in all directions. So, here was Barack Obama, up close and personal.

The man is thin, to be sure, although he wears a suit well. He gave a mini-stump speech, lasting a couple minutes, then began to press the flesh. I got a handshake in, although this thatch-haired young Secret Service guy looked like he might blow me into Boone County with his hidden Uzi if I’d made the wrong move. Decent handshake– not too firm, not too weak. (I’ve read that after a bout of intense campaigning and flesh-pressing, presidential candidate end up with chapped hands.)

I suggest keeping an eye out for the next couple issues of Vanity Fair magazine. We may be in it. Amid the plague of media (oh, wait, I’m one of the bacteria, too) was famed photographer Annie Leibovitz, intently peering though a long lens trained on Obama’s every move. She often shoots spreads for that magazine and I assume that’s what her mission was. We’ll see. And then they were all gone.

P.S. Gazz food blogger Brooke A. Brown was there, too, and himself snapped some close-ups (and got the man to autograph Brown’s copy of “The Audacity of Hope”). Click here to view his photos. 

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