Woah woah. The PRESIDENT is coming and we're going to put him in the Fieldhouse AGAIN? Oh good grief. Carver is too big and doesn't offer enough security. I get that but the Fieldhouse is so bleak, so depressing not to mention the hideous wall paintings that you can see in this image:
compliments of Reuters.Look at that hideous motherfucker back there. That thing is absolutely nasty. They cover the walls and I don't think anyone knows what they are. Olympians maybe? Athletes from a Mayan temple? At any rate they're an eyesore and now we have pictures of the president with them.
Anyway- so they released something like 3,000 tickets. 1,500 hundred went to the raffle and 1,500 went to places like the UI Dems and Loebsack's personal raffle. I got mine from being resourceful and having a friend named Megan. Huzzah, luck! Megan showed up a lot earlier than myself and Kelly and Amie. She noted that the line was horrendously long and she had been there since 10:30. We arrived around 11:15. And let's get this straight, the man didn't even speak until 1. But somehow, because the line wasn't even a line, it was snaking around the parking garage, we got shuffled into the first loop of many. We were inside by 1120. Standing in our spots by 11:40 because Kelly had to pee. (Oh that girl will kill me one day.)
So we got our spots and we're quickly surrounded.
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I'll tell you, it didn't feel this crowded... AT ALL. Maybe because I am used to football games... but I had room to breathe. EXCEPT.
OH EXCEPT.
I felt like every freakin' tall person had to stand in front of me. No but seriously there were just groups of them in front of us and nowhere else. I managed to befriend the guys in front of us (much to the chagrin of some bitchy girl) and that helped. I shared my gum. And we made bets on what color tie he'd be wearing. Stripes: 1 Red: 2 Blue: 4
He wore lavender.
That sly son of a bitch.
And then the woman with the kid who didn't want to be there left, so I aced their spots. All in all I could see most of it. Glorious.
His speech was pretty formulaic outside of his awesome one-liners and what not. His taking on the heckler five people over from me was needed. Oh and he pointed out that someone fainted. All in all, a pretty weird thing.
Here's a bulleted list of how his speech went for all y'all who don't watch CNN or whatever the hell.
- Northern Iowa beat Kansas. I had Kansas going all the way.
- I love Iowa because you were the first to believe in me.
- You were the first to believe in change.
- I feel bad about the flood, I'm dedicated to clean up.
- My military aid played football for the University
(He was really buttering us up at this point.)
- It is so great this passed. We showed them.
- It'll take 4 years to fully take effect
- But
- College graduates can stay on their parents' health insurance until they're 26
- Pre-existing complications are covered
- Old people are gonna get $$ for prescriptions
- Here are 3 real life Iowans this affects
- Prairie Lights
- Yell at heckler
- Naysayers be damned
- They can try to repeal but no one wants them too
- Suck it I'm the President let me play with this baby
- Oh this baby has my name
Then he hung out and waved and shook hands. And then we left and he left.
We saw the motorcade which have awesome video footage. It's not well-filmed but its the damned motorcade. I'll post it soon.
Then I went for pizza but he was downtown so I stood on the street and looked for him like any good citizen. He waved after buying books at Prairie Lights. I got yelled at for crossing the street. I ate Mesa pizza. I went to class.
That is all. I guess. I feel lucky that I was 1/3000 people who could go. 16000 applied for tickets. So I am very grateful.
No matter how you feel about healthcare reform... it was still history and I got to be a little part of it.
Amanda
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