Yes we can.






And thank you Ashley.

Yes we will.

The weather could not have been more clement on this beautiful Sunday morning, and perhaps that had something to with the unexpected turnout of Portlanders to the Waterfront Park. But perhaps it was the same feeling that gave me an idiot grin when I turned the corner onto the park blocks and saw that I didn't stand a chance of getting inside the gates for the speech, nevermind that I'd left about three hours early.

The news claims there about 75,000 of us in total, only the first 60,000 of which were allowed in. I arrived at the massive throng of overflow that covered much of Naito Parkway (which I don't think they'd plan to shut down) just in time to hear Barack Obama begin his speech. Obama was great, of course, but it was still all a bit anticlimactic. This didn't seem like the main event. In fact, it really wasn't. The main event was the line. A group of people the size of a city lined up in a path more serpentine than the river they'd arrive at through the blocks so festooned with trees that hardly anyone had to spend much time not in the shade. Our city is unique, and this was a unique group of people. There were line-cutters and profiteers and the occasional bored child, but for the most part, we were all so proud and so happy to see that we weren't alone. It was a good day to be a Portlander.

Yes we can.

Living under a rock and only emerging in crepuscular hours to make lattes for people has its ups and downs. I don't watch a lot of television, and this is pretty great. For instance, I hadn't seen a single Hilary ad until last night. However, I miss some stuff sometimes that I would really benefit from seeing. Deo gratis for YouTube. Yesterday I watched Barack Obama's speech on a more perfect union from March 18, and I feel compelled to admit, like many, many other people, that it had me in tears by the end. It has been called Obama's Gettysburg Address, and that isn't far off at all. I would like to highlight the concluding anecdote as perhaps the most inspiring thing I have heard in my adult life:

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

I am wary of saying too much about this, as the eloquence of its sentiment stands perfectly on its own. All I can say is thanks, to you Ashley Baia, and that I, among many, am here because of you.