75,000 peeps! obama's preaching to the choir. hallelujah!all kinds of footage, stories on obama's stay at oregonlive
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — In this famously liberal city, under skies that obligingly turned from habitual gray to clear blue, Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama on Sunday drew the largest crowd of his 15-month marathon campaign for the presidency.
Sixty-thousand people packed into a park alongside the banks of the Willamette River to listen to Obama, with another 15,000 left standing outside the gates, according to city fire officials. Hundreds more anchored their motorboats, or floated in kayaks and canoes.
That's far more than the 35,000 people who showed up to hear Obama in Philadelphia last month, at his previous biggest rally.
Even after months on the trail, Obama seemed slightly stunned by the size of the crowd.
"Wow, wow, wow," he said as he surveyed the audience.
"We have had a lot of rallies," he added. "This is the most spectacular setting, the most spectacular crowd we have had this entire campaign."
Portland is a Democratic stronghold, known for its bike paths and green ethos. It was one of the few cities in the country to briefly allow gay marriage, frowns on plastic bags and chain restaurants alike and was christened "Little Beirut" by no less than President George H.W. Bush.
In August of 2004, then-Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry held a large rally in the same location, drawing about 45,000 people.
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