Bob mentioned seeing Kenny Hulshoff, who in turn mentioned the Sarah Palin rally here in Springfield Friday. (I started to write Governor Hulshoff - is that Freudian Prophecy?)
The Palin rally was held in the parking lot at the Bass Pro Shop's headquarters at Sunshine and Campbell. I didn't get to go, but our local paper, the News-Leader, hosted a live feed and I was able to keep up with the speech while at my desk at work.
It was pretty standard campaign fodder that Palin has been using for a while, with the customary local references that make everyone cheer. By no means am I being critical, but rather saying it was a typical campaign stop. She did well and the crowd ate it up.
We heard she was coming about a week ago and at the time the event was planned for the McDonald Arena on the campus of Missouri State. Now I love McDonald Arena. It's an old, Great Depression Era arena that was the long time home of Bears basketball and hosted many concerts. It's seen many legendary games and talent over the years. That being said, it's small. When I heard McDonald was the venue I thought, what are they doing? They'll fill it and there will be hundreds or thousands trying to get in. I heard 4,000 tickets would be available and that sounds about right. I thought, well, maybe they just don't want to have an event somewhere that doesn't fill because that would look bad.
Well, the day after all the tickets were snapped up they announced the appearance would be moved to Bass Pro's parking lot. The ones with tickets would have seating close to the platform and everyone else could come and stand, first come, first served.
I saw the local news before work, around 6:30 am or so, and there was already a long line for a noon appearance! I did not see any photos of the whole scene, but it was huge. The Springfield Fire Department estimates the crowd at 15,000 and Springfield Police estimates a more conservative 10,000.
Anyway you slice it, it was a big deal.
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