Just got back from the rally at Grant Park to watch President-Elect Obama delivery his victory speech.

Wow. It was just unreal. I don’t have any pictures, because I made the conscious choice not to bring my camera, but I’ll find some from elsewhere at some point and post or link to ‘em to give you an idea of what it was like.

I got there about 7PM with G and we probably got into the main staging area at about 8PM, after going through two ticket-and-ID check points and one metal detector security check point. The rally was held on the baseball diamonds directly south of Buckingham Fountain, for those of you who want to Google Maps it…the stage was on the east side, probably around a third of the way up all of the fields, facing north-west-ish. We were by the north-west entrance to the fields, on a slight hill.

When we got there the rally area was probably a third full, which meant we could have waded into the thick of things, but chose not to. First, being on a little hill meant we got to see better – from the middle of the crowd we never would have realistically seen Obama on stage well anyway. So, even though it was very far, we could see the stage clearly. It also meant we got to see the crowd, and boy what a crowd it was. I’m eager to hear how many people the police and papers are saying showed up, but I can’t even begin to try and figure it out. I just don’t have a frame of reference. But it was an amazing sight to see. (Note: As of writing this, Chicago Sun Times is saying “more than 100,000,” Chicago Tribune is saying 240,000, and NY Times is also saying 240,000, noting it’s a number from “city officials.”)

We also got to sit down, which was a bonus…As I said, we got there about 8PM and got seated. The jumbotron was playing CNN, which was actually really nice since I didn’t have to try and check things online on my phone or try and tune into NPR on the little radio I brought. (I still did try, but I didn’t have to, and I didn’t try as much as I might have otherwise.) At about 10:15 (based on memory…looking online it seems like it was more like 10PM) CNN called the election for Obama and the crowd just went wild. At that point everyone on the hill stood up and joined the cheering, and it was just a wave of positive energy.

Pretty soon after, we got to watch McCain concede, and I have to admit his concension speech was very well done. I’ve been really disapointed with him over the last eight (and mainly the last four) years, as I think the respectable politician he was in 2000 faded into a continuation of all the ways the Republican party has failed since then. But the speech he gave was a lot nicer than it could have been, and gave credit where credit was due. (Then he started talking about Palin and I remembered why I don’t like him anymore…)

Then, a bishop came to give an invocation, someone else came to lead the Pledge of Allegiance, (which I actually receited, minus “under god,” and felt good doing so! What is Obama doing to me?!), and finally someone sang the national anthem.

And then we waited.

And listened to loud classic rock, to the point my ears started to ring.

And we waited some more.

And a tiny bit more.

At long last, a voice came on asking us to welcome the “next first family of the United States.” And we sure as hell did. Again, Obama and the fam’ were probably no bigger from where I was than this letter ‘i’ is on my screen in front of me, if that, but the energy of the crowd was incredible. And, on the jumbotron, they looked picture-perfect because they are. Michelle and the girls had a nice red/black theme going, and Obama looked so happy about everything.

Objectively, he gave a solid speech, but not mind-boggling. Not anything we haven’t heard before, not blazing any new trails, not announcing any bold new directions.

Being there, it almost brought tears to my eyes.

His ability to go through history and call out moments without being overbearing was poetry.  (He mentioned the New Deal, a “generation’s greatness,” a “preacher from Alabama who took us to the mountain top,” and more.) His refrains of (of course) “Yes we can,” and the call-and-response effect on the audience. Talking about building bridges and forging alliances and working together.

Just incredible.

It made me glad to have donated money and made almost 100 phone calls over the past week. (And even better that the two states I called the most, Indiana and Colorado, both went for Obama.) That I have a Obama bumper sticker on my car, and a button on my jacket. I feel really hokey and more than a little silly saying it, but it made me proud to be an American.

But tonight is still bittersweet. Obama will be the next president and some of the ballot initiatives out there went the way I and many others were hoping: it looks like California defeated the parental notification initiative to restrict abortion access to young people, Colorado defeated redefining a fetus as a person, South Dakota defeated efforts to ban abortion, Michigan voted to allow medical marijuana and stem cell research (didn’t even know those were out there!), and Washington voted to allow doctor-assisted suicide.

But it looks like all of the gay marriage bans passed as well: Arizona, Calirfornia (though, with 50% of precincts reporting, I’m still keeping my fingers crossed), and Florida are all (as of almost 2AM CST) reporting significantly higher returns in favor of the bans. Likewise, Arkansas passed a ban on gay couples adopting children. (Though, since this bans both same-sex and opposite-sex couples from adopting, it’s possible it will be fought by more than just the GLBTA community.) But this particularly sucks in California, as it means cases will immediately be filed ot overturn however many hundreds or thousands of same-sex marriages that have already been performed since the state’s supreme court ruling.

I don’t want to get too down, and I want to retain that charge the rally did give me. I haven’t talked about the oddity of watching the rally on CNN on the jumbotron while at the rally. Or about the people around me at the rally, and what interactions there were. Or stopping as we left to look back at the crowds and crowds and crowds. Or the busdriver on the ride back up to my apartment. I’ll try and get back to all this, but I’ll stop tonight (and get some much needed sleep) with this: even if tonight was two steps forward, one step back, and some hard-fought battles were lost around the country, we can still look forward toward acheiving equality and rights for all citizens, even if it will be an uphill climb.

Yes we can.

-R