How the Portland Rally Grew So Big

the organizers didn't plan for such a large event, but word got out--fast:

nytimes: The event‘s elated organizers say, however, that they did not deliberately set out to shatter records. It was only on Wednesday night, less than 100 hours before the start of the rally, that they decided to risk holding it outdoors, and after that choice was made, they had trust that word would spread quick enough, through media traditional and new, to justify their decision to eschew a smaller indoor arena.
“People in Portland are very wired, in both the Internet sense and otherwise,” Nick Shapiro, the Oregon communications director for the Obama campaign, said in an interview after the rally. “On Thursday, we sent e-mails to key supporters who we knew would spread the news, but we also relied on television and the newspapers and radio to get word out.” Flyers were also posted at restaurants and stores around town.
Mr. Obama was making his fourth appearance in the state, but his first at a large venue in Portland since a rally in March at the local coliseum, where Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico endorsed him. His campaign had announced Saturday that he would watch the primary results come in Tuesday night in Iowa, not Oregon, so for both the faithful and the merely curious, it was their last opportunity to see and hear the candidate before the vote.

This is Our Time

that was inspiring. now here are the facts, a one one one interview with blogher.com:

The First Family in Portland Oregon Video

Giant Crowds at Obama Portland Rally

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.

view from a helicopter



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local tv coverage, history in the making