MELBOURNE — It was the hottest ticket in town on Sunday and about 3,000 South Brevard County residents — plus a few Indian River County residents got a pass into a rally with President Barack Obama at the Clemente Center at the Florida Institute of Technology.
Ticket holders, many of them wearing Obama T-shirts, were lined up around the block on the college campus when doors opened this morning, then they waited another three hours to welcome the President, to snag a photo with their phone and to hear him speak.
During the long wait time, the spirited crowd mingled, exchanged stories and broke into song several times. Two different times, they raised their voices and swayed in unison to Al Green’s classic “Let’s Stay Together,” expressing party unity with fitting lyrics for tough economic times, “Let’s stay together, loving you whether times are good or bad, happy or sad.”
The harmony carried forth to the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner. The local soloist might have started out singing alone, but the audience gradually joined in with nearly everyone at least mouthing the words by the time she reached, “For the land of the free, and the home of the brave.”
Karen Ann French, a campaign volunteer and “Republican for Obama” introduced the President. The crowd didn’t need much pumping up, but she put them over the edge asserting, “We can win Florida again.”
French, a former FBI security analyst who worked on terrorism issues, earned the warm embrace she got from Obama with her introduction.
“Our President cares about you — each and every one of you,” she said. “He cares about the middle class.”
After standing and waiting for hours, their anticipation building and their patience running a little thin as the President was roughly 40 minutes late, the whole gym erupted as Obama took to the stage.
A blend of ages, races, religions, ethnic backgrounds and lifestyles, the sea of Democrats, Independents and a few leftward-leaning Republicans had at least two things in common Sunday — a love of their country and a love of their President.
One woman told the President just that. It’s become a running joke on the stump for an Obama supporter to yell out “I love you!” and for the President to quip back, “I love you, too!”
Sometimes Obama looks a little road-weary on these whistle-stop tours around the country, but on this swing through Florida he seemed bouyed by this week’s Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.
He told supporters to go ahead and have a seat, because he intended to talk awhile, to fill them in, in case they missed his speech Thursday night on the convention floor.
After offering up some partisan red meat by skewering Republicans on their economic and social policies, Obama launched into a review of his plan to get America back on the right track and to get Americans back to work.
“I will not pretend that the path I’m on is quick or easy,” he said, adding that it’s going to take a few more years to finish what he’s started in his first term.
“I’m asking you to rally around concrete, achievable goals.”
The President praised the Space Coast for recent successes in space exploration with the Curiosity rover landing on Mars. Obama said Americcans had “witnessed an incredible achievement that speaks to the sense of wonder.”
He said the United States cannot back off on its commitment to invest in research and development of new technologies, because the products of that research would be made in America. He emphasized exporting manufactured goods instead of jobs and creating jobs in green industry.
Alternative energy and increased energy efficiency working together, Obama said, could be a massive employment engine for American workers. He tossed out the idea of putting people to work retrofitting schools and government buildings to increase energy efficiency, saying that great strides could be made to both cut costs and to make America less dependent on foreign oil. Obama said by doing all these things, the country could “cut oil imports by one half by 2020.”
“Today the USA is less dependent on foreign oil than at any time in nearly two decades,” he said.
Other topics of the speech included education, making the cost of college more affordable, strengthening Medicare and paying down the massive federal deficit.
“Let’s make sure we are reducing our deficit without sticking it to the middle class,” Obama said.
He said increasing the tax on the wealthiest Americans and paying down the debt with money saved from not having to fund wars on multiple foreign fronts is a start.
Finally the President urged his supporters to vote, to volunteer and to ensure that Florida makes the Democratic choice in November.
Several Indian River County residents were in the audience to hear the President’s message. CrossFit owner Lauren Glasco had traveled from Sebastian with a small group of Obama supporters to the event. Mary Scurlock of the Democratic Women’s Club had also ventured up to Brevard for the rally to cheer on the President.
One local man, Justin Bruscino of Sign Language Solutions in Sebastian, interpreted the speech for the hearing impaired people who couldn’t hear the words, the cheers or the singing in the hall.
Upon leaving Florida Tech, the President’s motorcade, with two red-and-white press buses in tow, headed south on Interstate 95, but took an unscheduled detour through Vero Beach. The motorcade stopped traffic on State Road 60 east and then south on U.S. 1 and finally into St. Lucie County where Obama stopped off at a Ft. Pierce pizza parlor to greet a supporter.
While the President was in Indian River County, the helicopter Marine One and its crew was on stand-by at the Vero Beach Municipal Airport.
Later Sunday afternoon, the Obama campaign moved onto another rally in West Palm Beach, before returning to Washington, D.C. so he can attend meetings at the White House on Monday.
