Barack Obama

Presidential Candidate Barack Obama spoke to a crowd estimated by park and campaign officials at 75,000 at Liberty Memorial in Kansas City last night, October 18, 2008. The memorial behind Obama houses the WWI Museum.



A couple hundred people were in the stands behind Obama.



The rest covered virtually the entirety of the rather vast Liberty Memorial grounds.



Obama was scheduled to speak at 6 PM; he was almost on time. For the benefit of those planing their time around future Obama speeches in this tour, I'll note that he began speaking at 6:17 and ended at 6:49 - 32 minutes.



For a transcript of his speech, see myfoxkc.com.



Of course, Obama spent a good amount of the speech contrasting his ideas to those of his opponent, John McCain:

"Senator McCain wants to give the average Fortune 500 CEO a $700,000 tax cut but absolutely nothing at all to over 100 million Americans. I want to cut taxes - cut taxes - for 95 percent of all workers. And under my plan, if you make less than $250,000 a year - which includes 98 percent of small business owners - you won't see your taxes increase one single dime. Not your payroll taxes, not your income taxes, not your capital gains taxes - nothing. It's time to give the middle class a break, and that's what I'll do as President of the United States."



You may be wondering about the uniformity of the Obama Biden - Change We Need signs; they were given away at the rally. Attendees were asked beforehand via press releases not to bring their own signs.



Before the rally began, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius took a photo of the crowd with her phone.





Amid a flourish of applause, Obama left the stage. He shook hands with a few in the crowd on his way back to his bus.



Ace Jackalope was in attendance to observe the ritual of the political rally.



Ace watches Obama deliver.

I couldn't resist shooting a couple short video clips.


Obama takes the stage. There was a lot of echo from the PA system so I didn't continue the recording for long. He launched immediately into a series of thank yous.



The Senator comments on the current financial crisis, the war in Iraq and the federal budget.