Rally sees large crowds, enthusiastic supporters

by ANNE BAKER
News Editor
by JESSIE LOVELACE
News Reporter

Crowds amassed in the thousands Sunday as supporters gathered to listen to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama during a rally in Asheville.

The event, “Change We Need,” was held at the football stadium on the campus of Asheville High School.

“What a spectacular place to be here in Asheville, N.C. I can feel this is God’s country,” Obama said during the opening of his speech. “Look at this day that the Lord has made."

Sen. Barack Obama pauses in his speech amid cheers of support from the crowd. Photo by Adam Dixon

Asheville police said they estimated the crowd inside the stadium to be approximately 22,000, with around 6,000 people listening outside around the perimeter.

Although Obama began speaking to the crowd a little after 2 p.m., thousands awaited his arrival in advance, with lines stretching around the stadium to the nearby Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College campus.

Asheville residents Julia R. Macintosh and Ryan C. Miller said they arrived at the stadium around 9 a.m., and estimated they were somewhere in the middle of the line.

“I think it’s really great that all these people are standing out here to show their support, and I figured I might as well do it too,” Macintosh said.
Miller said he attended the rally because he has enjoyed seeing how Obama has united the country.

“There’s no race issue or ethnicity [issue here], it’s just [we are] all here as America,” he said.

The body of Obama’s speech primarily focused on his healthcare proposals for what he said was a nation in crisis due to an explosion of healthcare costs.

“In order to fix our economic crisis, we need to fix our healthcare, too,” he said. “Half of all personal bankruptcies are caused by medical bills.”

He took stabs at his Republican opponent Sen. John McCain’s proposals.

“Millions will lose healthcare under McCain’s plan,” Obama said. “When I become president we’re going to fix this healthcare plan once and for all.”

Obama’s healthcare plan includes reducing waste and inefficiency by increasing the health industry’s technology, having the government pay for part of the most expensive illnesses and demanding lower prices from drug companies.

He said the $65 billion per year costs of his program would be covered by ending “George Bush’s tax breaks on those making more than a quarter of a million dollars a year.”

Obama said he plans to cut taxes for 95 percent of the nation’s population, or those making less than $250,000 a year.

With less than a month until the presidential election, Obama’s attendance in North Carolina, a traditionally Republican-led state, was a strategy intended to gain support for Democratic candidates in the state.

“Asheville, today I want to say to you…I will never back down, I will never give up,” he said.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (1)

Show/Hide comments