Sen. Mark Warner and President Barack Obama waves to the crowd of 11,000 people at the G. Richard Pfitzner Stadium in Woodbridge in September. Photo by: KJ Mushung

By: Sally Little

With the announcement of the dropping unemployment rate, I finally have some tangible hope that this country may yet dig itself out of the rut it’s fallen into.

I’ve heard it said that this election looks more like the split-down-the-middle elections of 2004 than the landslide elections of 2000 and 2008. People have been disappointed in their incumbent, and yet, they aren’t too happy with the competition, either.

I’m in a unique position to see both poles of this election. The social circle I run in is primarily highly conservative. Frequent Facebook posts in my news feed endorse Mitt Romney. One of my cousins frequently reiterates that Romney’s honesty is what the country needs. Dear friends are outraged about Obamacare. It’s all too easy to get caught in the bubble and fear that Romney will win the election.

Yes, fear. The things that Mitt Romney says scare me. The cold, callous way he says them scares me. The famous “47 percent” comment is only the tip of the iceberg.

I read that many of Romney’s claims about what he’s done for Massachusetts are badly distorted. This is hardly surprising. What is surprising is that anyone can tell people to their face, “I didn’t know you had families,” allow a woman to leave in tears, and then call the discussion “pleasant.”

It seemed for a while that my nation was putting its hopes in just such a man, just because the last man they elected wasn’t, as a friend put it, the Second Coming.

Then I went to a rally in my neighborhood. The rally was located in a nearby minor-league stadium, the G. Richard Pfitzner Stadium. We arrived nearly three hours before the president was due to arrive. Security was similar to airport security — turn on your equipment, turn out your pockets, be scanned, wait in the safe area before you can go in. I got an orange press pass to safety pin on my shirt, which reads, “Property of the U.S. Government.” I still don’t know whether they mean me or the badge, since they claimed neither of us.

As press, we were led along a special cordoned-off path to two large risers. I parked myself underneath ABC’s tripod, a handy position from which I could both stay seated and get a nice view of the stage between NBC and BBC. There was no one on the stage yet, so all I had to marvel at was the people.

So many people. The stadium was jam-packed. There was no hope in my mind of spotting any of the several people I knew were attending. Banners unfurled and groundlings covered the diamond until it was invisible. Men, women and children of all ages had turned out to hear the president speak.

Impressive, when you consider that there was no food or water, the blazing sun was beating down, for many it was standing room only, and it would likely be hours until the president showed up.

A U.S. Air Force helicopter, one of several, flies to the president's campaign rally in Woodbridge, Va., on Sept. 21, 2012. Photo by: KJ Mushung

However, that was not the case. Very soon, cheers from the audience alerted me to a low-flying helicopter nearby. Of course, he didn’t come out right away, and I actually got a few chapters of my book in before the preliminaries started — the National Anthem, Take Me Out of the Ball Game, and various speakers.

A young woman stood up to speak about how Obamacare meant that no other woman would be told that her pregnancy was a pre-existing condition as she had. The audience roared with approval. Finally, Sen. Mark Warner appeared to introduce the president. I found myself admiring whoever wrote his speech as he got the audience to chant along to a catchy little phrase: “In 2008, we changed the guard. In 2012, we guard the change!”

Finally, the president arrived, and from the amount of cheering, not a single person resented the wait.

The president was, as I remember from his acceptance speech, extremely eloquent, quite the contrast to Romney’s common faux pas. He began with a note of humor: “Unless your cable has been broken for a while, you may be aware there’s an election going on.”

He iterated successes like General Motors, Osama Bin Laden, Don’t Ask, Don’t tell, and Obamacare. He fought back against Romney’s attacks, outlining where he planned to add jobs and explaining that he didn’t believe everybody had a right to succeed so much as he believed in opportunity.

He played the incumbent card: “[One] thing I’ve learned is that you can’t change Washington just from the inside. You change it from the outside … My opponent … proudly declared, ‘I’ll get the job done from the inside.’”

Finally, he assured any undecided voters that he was a bipartisan candidate. “I’m telling the American people I will be fighting for you no matter what. I will be your president no matter what. I’m not fighting to create Democratic jobs or Republican jobs” he said, “I’m fighting to create American jobs.”
Simply put: We are Americans first, and our duty is to our country, not our party. It’s a somewhat idealist view, but it gets people excited and provided stark contrast to Romney’s policy of, as Obama put it, “[writing] off half the country.”

President Obama greets enthusiastic supporters in Northern Virginia after holding a campaign rally. Photo by: KJ Mushung

As President Obama left the stage, he was engulfed so completely by arms with camera phones hoping to get a picture, that he might as well have been invisible.

I realized then that Obama has a real chance. There are Democrats in this state that are just as fevered as the Republicans I know. I doubt that the rally changed a significant number of minds. But what surely can is the falling of the unemployment rate to 7.8, taking Romney’s best source of ammunition. Combine that with the kind of statements coming from each and the numbers in the polls, and he might actually win.

More than that, if the unemployment rate keeps trending downward and Obama keeps passing laws to make the U.S. a more egalitarian society, this country might actually have a chance.

Sally Little is a copy editor for NOVA Fortnightly.

By: Sally Little

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