Asheville Bloggers on the Obama Rally in Asheville

Here are the many faces of the Obama Speech at Asheville High from the various blogs, presented in alphabetical order:

Several of us arrived at the Asheville High stadium prepared to confront Barak on the issue: Our banner was large and we held it aloft at the top of the stands in full view of Senator Obama:

"Appalachia Says: Don't Betray Us. 'Clean Coal' Kills."

Obama didn't raise the energy issue as Biden had. He focused instead on health care and relief for the middle class."I know something about the heartbreak caused by our health care system," Obama told Asheville's enthusiastic crowd, many still streaming into the stadium as he spoke.But Obama, Sir. What about the heartbreak and health of the people in the coal fields of Appalachia? Have you not heard about the devastation of mountain-top removal, the ruination of the health of the people in Appalachian communities?Obama, Sir, when you come to Appalachia to tout the value of preventative health care, such as smoking cessation programs, keep in mind that"clean coal" still kills.

Source: Asheville on the Ground

AshVegas posted a photo and linked to his employers coverage.

The Scrutiny Hooligans had live coverage and afterwards, a slide show and the last 20 minutes of the speech, and most of his speech at the Vance Aycock Dinner the night before.

Like what seemed like the rest of the world today, I went to see Barack Obama at Asheville High School today. The first thing that became apparent was the rock star like quality of Obama. This guy is David Bowie or something. There's this almost effortless cool that radiates off of the man. It was palatable in the crowd.There was a smattering of different people to see him: rich, poor, political neophytes, seasoned voters, people who were undecided about who to vote for, die hard supporters, people who hung on every word he said and even some star xxxxxxx who wanted just to be where everyone else was. I've never quite seen anything like it.

The speech was largely focused on health care reform and the economy. These issues matter, but the bigger moment came just before my friends and I got into the event. A campaign worker came by and I asked her what the capacity of the football stadium was, and she told me she had no clue: "I'm just a cog in a bigger wheel" was her response. For the first time, that's what I felt like, and it was a pretty positive feeling. The estimates are anywhere from 15,000-28,000 were there. I was a small cog in a rather large wheel, and I didn't mind not sticking out at all. In fact, I welcome it.

Source: So Much For Tact (I X'ed out his vulgar language. This guy would die if he couldn't curse).

And here is a roundup of others in the blogosphere, a post at MyDD, and a Diary at Daily KKKos.

My coverage is here. My fellow Republicans were supposed to have a McCain-Palin celebration at the Asheville High School entrance. Maybe they will have something on the Internet in the next day or so. From reading some of the emails they send out, I don't think most of them read this blog anyway, as they tend to send stuff I have already blogged about days or weeks earlier.

I can't find any decent video footage of his speech to embed, mostly because the audio quality is really low. I'm guessing the You Tubers don't know how to edit video, and adjust the gain on the audio. I may take the liberty to download some of the footage, and fix the audio myself if they can't.

So, this bitter American will continue to cling to his guns and religion (not in that order) and report on the disintegration of Western Civilization from his perch in the Appalachians.