A month after declaring his entry into the 2008 presidential race, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, the fast-rising phenom of the Democratic Party, appeared in Oakland for a massive campaign rally on St. Patrick’s Day. Well over 10,000 people packed into Frank Ogawa Plaza to hear him make his case for why he should be elected President of the United States. While the first democratic primary isn’t until January 2008 and the general election isn’t until November later that year, the diverse crowd cheered Barack Obama like a rock star. He spoke for about 30 minutes.
Perhaps it was the Obama campaign or the City of Oakland’s organizing, perhaps it was set up for the benefit of the press over the thousands in attendance, or perhaps Frank Ogawa Plaza is simply ill-suited for a rally of this size, but 50-75% of the people there probably could not even see Obama when he spoke. The stage was set up in front of Oakland’s City Hall building, which was aesthically right for the press who were conveniently located straight across from the stage, but for those not in the small ampitheater with the stage, the view was completely obstructed by the features of the park.

 Unfortunately the sound system was not optimized for this location and in a few places within the park the sound was unintelligible, although it was loud enough for everyone within a few blocks to hear. Another peculiar aspect of the organizing was that there were several rings of admission perimeters. Those who preregistered online, or those who received white tickets from volunteers outside of the park just before the event, were only admitted into the outer ring around the park.

Another level of tickets, blue tickets, were offered to people at recent political events in the area, although an event volunteer said that a donation had not been required to receive them. Blue ticket holders could walk the entire center of the park and many found a place to view the stage in the ampitheater. A small number of gold tickets were handed out randomly in the white ticket area just before the speakers began. Gold tickets were for the very few who could sit in the bleachers behind Barack Obama.

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