God was in the building

Last Friday, Barack Obama held a "women's rally for the change we need" at the University of Miami. Despite being neither a woman nor an American voter, I managed to secure a ticket, by virtue of responding to am email quickly. Can you imagine 8000 tickets, even free ones, to go and hear any British politician speak being snapped up in a few hours by the student body at any UK institution? That's what happens here, and several people I know who were far more clearly within the target audience than me missed out.

So with their imprecations in mind, I refused to be daunted when I arrived at the venue, 15 minutes before the doors opened, to find a queue snaking along several roads. I had completely failed to meet the two friends I was supposed to meeting, but luckily, ran into another couple in the queue. Luckily, because once we'd got past the airport-style security, we found we had a while to wait until the main event. Without someone else to trade cynical comments with, I'd have been forced to listen to the warm up acts attentively.

We were seated by about 10:15am. The man himself was due on at 11:45 (though in true rock star style, he was late on stage). In the meantime, we were treated to a selection of local dignitaries, legislators, and the like - all women - indulging in an array of McCain-mashing, Barack-bigging, and rabble-rousing. It looked like all my preconceptions about American politics were going to be confirmed. The speeches were punctuated by rapturous applause, chants, and cheers. The name 'McCain' was greeted in the style of a pantomime villain. We were asked, amongst other things, to join in prayer for something or other, stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and shout slogans in unison. In between speakers, we were treated to a soundtrack of U2 and Stevie Wonder. It was loud, manic, rhetorical, and almost entirely vacuous.

Then, at last, Obama took to the platform, pausing on the way to shake hands, hugging his support acts, grinning broadly, looking energetic. He had to appeal several times for enough quiet to begin speaking, and throughout his speech, was interrupted by (and occasionally responded to) shouts of 'Barack, I love you!' and the like. It really is about personalities here, and people attach themselves strongly to their politicians. Again, can you see Cameron, Brown, or Clegg having to deal with such interjections?

Since it's about personalities, it was no surprise that the first portion of Obama's speech was based around personal anecdotes. The theme was women's issues, and each one he discussed was set up by a story about his mother, or someone he knew, or his wife, or his children. At this point, I was smugly ticking off my list of expectations. Anecdotes, vague promises, rhetoric, issues addressed in general terms... but no policy, content, or the like.

The second half, though, changed this. Obama went on to talk about actual policy, about what he might do to address the issues he was discussing. Or at least, that was the impression one got. But, thinking back, there was a curious disconnect between the two halves. Although he mentioned a fair pay act, and pledged to support Roe vs Wade (and thus abortion rights), most of the policy stuff was about the economy, the tax system, a bit about renewable energy... all quite laudable, but nothing really to do with the issues he had previously brought up. The neat trick was that it was hard to notice this, the speech flowed so smoothly.

On the other hand, I was surprised at how often he stumbled, hesitated, lost his place, and so on. This wasn't the practised orator I was expecting. He seemed far less polished, far less certain, then I imagined American politicians had to be. He was, it seemed, genuinely put off by a brief interruption from some crackpot protestors who were escorted from the building by some fearsome looking security types. You'd have thought he'd have learnt to take such things in his stride.

I don't know that I can I say my prejudices about politics here were dispelled by seeing all this. The whole thing was so much more managed, so much less about conversation and more about conversion, than any encounter I've had with British politicians (and I think they're generally awful too). But as Obama left the stage to the strains of "Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours" (?!), I was somewhat reassured. The guy seems credible, intelligent, a person genuinely concerned with the right problems and somewhere in the ballpark of the right solutions. And, given how so many people here react to his campaign, it's impossible not to get caught up in it all slightly, and hope that his election may bring some significant changes for the better in both America and in the wider world.

He's going to lose, isn't he?