Hello, all, my report on the Obama rally last night in Springfield, Missouri, as promised!! This was never supposed to happen; this is a very "red" area of the U.S. & pundits always said that a Democrat could never draw in the crowd of 40,000 people that Obama did last night. But it happened! When we 1st got in line, we were lining up in the back of a long 7-block line. I believe that the line was 15 blocks long at its longest. We stood in line for 4 hours before finally arriving at the outdoor stadium. Crowd was a jolly one, full of nice folks for the most part! We were on the field in front of the podium, waiting for another 2 hours until Barack, Michelle, Malia & Sasha Obama arrived. Michelle spoke beautifully & introduced her husband to the cheering crowd. Don & I were unfortunately initially blocked from seeing him by one of the teleprompters (which he did not seem to use at all). We separated & Don went way over to the center just in front of the press grandstand, where he got some awesome photos, like the one you see below! I managed to finally work my way a bit to the right & was only about 15-people deep in the crowd, so got to see Obama pretty well during his 30-minute speech! All the standing & waiting was definitely worth it! Very uplifting. There were older people out in the audience who were helped by us younger folks. I saw one woman turned around facing her male companion as she used sign-language to tell him what Obama was saying. The vast majority of folks were very gracious throughout. It was a highly successful evening, both for the audience & the Obama campaign! Won't relax until Wednesday morning, though!