Photoblogging Clinton

You might have heard that the race for the Democratic nomination is pretty tight. You also might have heard that both candidates are actually visiting blood-red Wyoming, in the desperate hope that our 18 delegates will make a difference. If course, this is all very last-minute, so when I heard yesterday about Bill Clinton visiting Laramie today (Hillary will be in Cheyenne tomorrow) and Barack Obama coming Friday, I decided to try to make it work, even though it meant double-booking myself with a play and a concert on the respective nights.

It all started out great. My plan was unstoppable. Doors were to open for Clinton at 4:00pm, an hour before the show. I was a little concerned about trying to do two events back-to-back, but it seemed okay because the gym and the theatre are so close together. I parked my car over there at lunch and made the walk back over around 3:30. By 3:45, I was in line, and it looked like only a couple hundred people were in front of me. Cass and Rick joined me not too long afterward.

Look how excited we are! You can't tell from the pictures, but it was crazy cold and windy outside. It's so freaking sunny in Wyoming. I'm incognito in my ski hat. People who know me will realize this is an unusual look for Kaijsa.

Yay! Doors are opening any minute! Actually, not really. We stood outside until after 5:00, freezing our asses (and faces) off while the line inched forward very slowly. Then, miraculously, the line really started moving and we made our way into the building.

See these faces? These are the faces of people who waited for over an hour in the cold, only to have the doors shut on them when they were only 20 people back from the front of the line. The gym is supposed to hold 1200 people, and it's hard to believe that many were in front of us.

We were directed into the field house, where it was alleged that an overflow area with a "data feed" was set up. Does this look set up to you? The data feed was really just audio over the PA.

None of us were impressed, so we bailed. Rick and I went to Fat Burrito for dinner before the play, and subsequently wasted another hour waiting around for the tickets to go on sale before learning there were no actual tickets and no real organization (the theme for the evening). So we ran out and grabbed a quick hot beverage before the show, which turned out to be the highlight of the evening. The beverage, I mean, not the show. The show was uneven, but mercifully short. So there's that.

Turns out that Ok Go requested a later start time tomorrow night because of the Obama rally, so who knows how the evening will turn out. All I know is that I'm not going to stand outside in the cold again when I could be inside getting some actual work done in my office. I'm still planning to caucus on Saturday morning, but I'm a little burned on the campaign rallies.

Check out Rick's version of the evening here.