John McCain in Concord, NC

The Cabarrus Arena was packed today for the McCain rally. I was hearing crowd estimate numbers of around 10,000 but that place doesn’t even hold 10K, so my personal estimate is that between 3 and 4 thousand people were there. It was definitely a packed house. Not surprising, as the Concord/Harrisburg area is serious Republican country.

I got to the arena at around 9:15 but wished I would have gotten there sooner to get a better spot to watch/listen to Mc’s speech. As it was, I was standing about 4 rows back from where McCain first came out and was a little closer by the time the speech was over and he made his way back around the ramp he first entered from. I tried to get some good pix but I was at a bad angle so I don’t think my pictures of him are going to turn out very well. I got some pretty good crowd shots, I think, and will try to post some of them tomorrow (I’m houste/catsitting right now and am not at my house).

CNN’s got the text of McCain’s prepared remarks. He sounded off on familiar themes of cutting taxes and keeping us safe, and bringing our troops home with honor, which garnered huge applause and yelling from the crowd. Local network News 14 did a short interview with Mc before he took the stage. You can view that interview here.

There were a lot of “Joe the plumber” signs and tshirts, and a popular hat I saw was one that read “clean coal.” There were several chants of “drill baby drill” to which McCain quipped, “I wonder where that came from?” The crowd went wild everytime Gov. Palin’s name was mentioned. If she visits the area between now and the election, something tells me she’ll be at place that holds more people than the Cabarrus arena.

I’m happy to report that, contrary to what the mediots might conjure up in their minds, no one yelled anything that was out of sorts. The crowd was clearly passionate, very much pro-McCain and fired up to win next month. My brush with fame was a brief encounter with a Secret Service agent who nudged me gently out of the way so he could pass as McCain left the stage. Dude, talk about a brick wall.

All in all, it was a good morning. Definitely much better than attending the Obama and Hillary rallies I went to earlier this year. Much more fun there as I was in my element. Just wish I could have gotten some better pix of Mc.

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