Mike Jenson’s reason for fighting the bitter Baltimore cold to see President-elect Barack Obama speak was simple.
“I’ve never seen a living president. This is my first time and may be my last,” said the 60-year-old Baltimore firefighter Saturday.
He was among the more than 35,000 people — some of whom traveled from as far as New York and Ohio — to see Obama on his third stop on the Whistle Stop Tour.
Obama’s supporters sang rounds of “America the Beautiful” and chanted “Change has come,” a signature statement from Obama’s campaign, as they waited for Baltimore police to open the gates to the War Memorial Plaza shortly after 1 p.m. when they were funneled through security checkpoints.
Bomb-detecting dogs from the U.S. military swept the plaza and Maryland Transit Administration buses blocked streets in an estimated quarter-mile radius of the plaza. The Secret Service stationed agents on rooftops around downtown for added security.
The plaza only accommodated about 30,000 people, one of whom was Dr. Judith Thomas, a Baltimore public school teacher, who was perched on one of the flag pole standards at the back of the plaza to get a view of the entire event.
“I’m the granddaughter of slaves and thank God I lived to see this day,” she said.
By 3 p.m., police were diverting thousands of spectators to overflow sites around the Inner Harbor where they watched Obama’s speech on jumbo video screens.
Obama arrived around 4:15 p.m. to a cheering crowd undaunted by the frigid weather whom he thanked for its support in his election and he invoked the 1814 bombardment of Fort Henry that inspired the national anthem.
“The White House was in flames, and the British were advancing on Baltimore. That’s when the fate of our nation fell to the troops at Fort McHenry,” he said.
“They were a varied lot, these troops: Sailors, militiamen, even a runaway slave. But on one long and rainy night, they beat back the greatest navy that the world has ever known. And when that night was over, they raised a flag in triumph, inspiring an onlooker to compose a poem that became the Star-Spangled Banner.”
A replica of the huge 15-star, 15-stripe flag that flew over the fort that night was hanging from a crane over Gay Street to Obama’s left.
“The trials we face are very different now, but severe in their own right,” the president-elect said as the crowd hung on every word of his 10-minute speech that required five weeks of planning by the Secret Service.
“An economy that is faltering. Two wars, one that needs to be ended responsibly, one that needs to be waged wisely. A planet that is warming — although you can’t tell that today — from our unsustainable dependence on oil.”
The line about the Iraq war drew applause from the crowd.
Obama talked about why he ran — to restore a better life for struggling Americans — and talked about a politics of inclusion and diversity, of all parties, all regions, “black, white, Latino, Asian and Native American, gay and straight, disabled and not” that “we might perfect our union in the process.”
“This is what I believed, Baltimore, but you made this belief real,” Obama said. As he goes to Washington, “I’ll be taking you with me.”
