It was October 15, 2007.
Barack Obama held a rally in Madison, Wisconsin.
THREE people fainted. THREE times Obama interrupted his speech to acknowledge women overcome in the crowd.
I thought it must have been very warm in the room to cause them to drop like flies.
Until today, I had no idea that fainting is so common at Obama events.
An excerpt from my post, "Obama Knocks Them Off Their Feet in Madison," October 15, 2007:
With an enormous American flag as a backdrop, Obama addressed his 4,000 fans. He wore a white shirt, no tie, rolled up sleeves -- no lapel for a flag pin.
He began with a joke: "Never before have this many Packers fans cheered for a Bears fan. Never before in the history of Wisconsin has this ever happened."
Obama said, "We've gotta shout out loud and clear that we expect a new kind of politics."
He said that people in Washington roll their eyes when he talks about hope. They say, "He's a hope-peddler. He's a hope-monger."
Obama said that he was guilty as charged.
Obama interrupted his speech.
"Did somebody drop?"
He called for paramedics.
"We got paramedics on the scene. She looks good."
Obama continued.
He asked, "Where was I?"
"Change."
He addressed the charges of his lack of experience.
He said that a lengthy resume doesn't necessarily guarantee wise decisions.
"[Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld] led us into one of the biggest foreign policy disasters in a generation."
OK. Interesting that he didn't include Bush.
Then another interruption.
"We got another person?"
"I'm just knocking 'em off their feet."
"Paramedics are on their way."
"Everybody stay hydrated."
Back to the speech--
Obama talked about Iraq. He told of how he spoke out against the war during his Illinois Senate campaign in 2002.
"This is a dumb war, ...and we shouldn't fight it."
"Dumb war?"
That's not Obama at his most eloquent.
Obama said that as a candidate and as a president, "You gotta have some impatience. You gotta have some anger."
On the subject of health care, he said his passion on the issue comes from watching his mother worry about insurance when she was dying.
Obama talked about the energy crisis and the environmental crisis.
He ran through a litany of things, shouting "I don't accept (fill in the blank)."
He mentioned JFK and his call to send an American to the moon. Obama equated his own vision for America's future with JFK's vision.
He said that Kennedy didn't know how Americans were going to meet the challenge but that didn't keep him from calling for it.
Then Obama turned back to Iraq.
Obama said, "We've got to start bringing [the troops] home now."
He said that we can't have them in a "civil war."
"We're spending $10 billion a month that could be spent right here in Wisconsin."
Ten billion dollars in Wisconsin?
That would solve our budget issues.
Obama channeled JFK again when he mentioned Hillary Clinton's criticism of his foreign policy naivete. He quoted Kennedy as saying that we should never negotiate out of fear, but we should never fear to negotiate.
At this point, "Kumbaya" almost broke out.
"We're gonna close Guantanamo and restore habeas corpus."
When talking about the American justice system, Obama made reference to different standards being applied to the Jena Six and Scooter Libby.
The crowd was in a frenzy.
Obama said that as president, "I will be honest with you about the challenges that we face. I won't snow job you."
"I will open up the doors of government and ask you to participate."
"I'm asking you to trust in yourselves."
"I need all of you to get involved. "
Hallelujah!
Obama's appearance seemed to be more of a revival meeting than a political rally.
He was concluding his speech, when he was interrupted again.
"Oh, oh. We need one more. Paramedic... "
"We should have had this outside."
"We weren't expecting this much heat. "
"She's the third. "
"She has a really nice smile, so she's OK."
The question: Are these plants?
I doubt it.
So often in large crowds people do pass out. It happens.
But for the most part, when a person keels over, the speaker doesn't call so much attention to the incident.
My take on this fainting thing: The Obama campaign realized how positively the crowd responsed when Obama interrupted his speech by calling attention to someone's fainting episode.
Advisors probably urged Obama to react in that same manner whenever someone attending one of his speeches succumbed.
I don't think they're plants. However, I do think that Obama knows how to make the most of a fainter. That's clear by the way he recycles the same lines each time it happens.
I'm not saying that Obama's not concerned for the people's well-being. I'm just saying he knows how to handle the situations in a fashion that is rather self-serving.
It's also possible that women are now feigning fainting to get a moment of attention from Obama. If that's the case, Obama's happy. They're happy. Everybody's happy.
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