Saturday, February 02, 2008

Obama Draws Some 15,000 in 'Red State' Idaho

Baltimore Sun

Sen. Barack Obama brought his presidential campaign here Saturday morning, drawing what his campaign said was about 15,000 to the Taco Bell Arena on the campus of Boise State University.

That's about three times as many people who participated in the state's Democratic caucuses in 2004, when Idaho was not among early and important contests.

"Wow, look at this," Obama said as he took the stage, triggering a giant roar from the crowd. "What an unbelievable crowd, what and unbelievable reception."

Obama's campaign believes that if it can win its fair share of states and in diverse locations, those maps will be shaded with his color and could help make a case that he is the most able to win a general election.

"They told me there weren't any Democrats in Idaho," Obama told the cheering crowd. "That's what they told me, but I didn't believe them. I did not believe them."

The audience here was almost entirely white and lined up in the cold outside to get in, some starting as early as 7AM.

In his introduction, former Gov. Cecil Andrus, Idaho's most recent Democratic governor, compared his guest to a past president Obama has increasingly been compared to in recent days.

"I have not seen, since John F. Kennedy in 1960, a person that has the ability to bring together, to excite and to inspire the people of America," Andrus said. "He is the custodian of the hopes and dreams of millions and millions of Americans….to bring about change, needed change."..........

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