Obama-palooza!

The lucky 80,000 or so gathered in Grant Park’s Hutchinson Field to see Obama in person, but hundreds of thousands more lined the lakefront and the Magnificent Mile, watching on tvs or listening through loudspeakers. The bars were packed with people glued to television sets, the streets with people checking results on their phones.

Many of them added buttons that said simply, “I was there.”

The windy city went wild for democracy last night. A downtown skyscraper, the Blue Cross building, spelled out USA in white lights. The grand hotels of Michigan Avenue, 40 years ago the site of riots during the Democratic Convention, were festooned with red-white-and-blue bunting, while in Grant Park, named for the Civil War general, many waved American flags in the air.

"It’s the front row of history, literally, today,’’ said Tom Krieglstein, 28, of Chicago, who arrived at Grant Park at 7:30 p.m. Monday, spending a night outdoors to be first in line to get a seat managed to be first in line by showing up at 7:30 last night – he slept for a bit in a bus station and a hotel lobby, while his brother held his place.

Archie Garomondeh, a 27-year-old Liberian-American, flew to Chicago from Louisville yesterday morning, hoping to see Obama.
“I wanted to be here to be a part of making history, and I want to be on the ground where the history will be made,’’ he said

And Teri McClain, 41, flew in from Seattle and spent the afternoon wandering through the crowds wearing a white sandwich board reading “Please take me as your guest to the rally.” She had at least 7 Obama buttons along her neckline, an Obama T-shirt, an Obama doll in her front pocket, and an American flag in her back pocket. McClain, who fretted that her name too closely resembles McCain, is a bit of an Obama groupie – she works for Alaska Airlines, so she travels for free, and she said she has been to 18 Obama rallies, has hugged him three times, and has 17 autographs.
“I got hooked when he went to Key Arena (in Seattle) in February,’’ she said. “He has brought so many people together.’’