I can report, however, that Oregon is satisfyingly saturated with Obama lawn signs and bumper stickers – clearly there is a tremendous amount of excitement for him there, which I suppose is no shock after the 75,000 person rally there during the primary.
Actually, I got a kick out of talking to some friends of ours – big Obama supporters – who live in downtown Portland, just a few blocks away from the campaign headquarters, and a short bike ride (Portland is a very bike-friendly town) from the rally site, who didn’t even find out about the rally until after it was over. So I guess our communications efforts aren’t 100% just yet!
So of course, while I’ve been away Barack himself has been spending his time on a grand tour of Europe and the Middle East, which I (ironically) haven’t been able to catch much of the coverage of! Check out his speech tonight in Berlin, to an audience of thousands:
To put into perspective the significance of this event, you have to understand that only four years ago it was considered taboo to acknowledge that the Democratic candidate was well liked overseas – there was no active fundraising or official staff dedicated to getting out the expat vote, and the one of the biggest insults thrown at John Kerry was that he “looked French.” Now we have a candidate who is not only wildly popular with the domestic populations across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, but inspires unparalleled donations and excitement from Expat American voters and feels comfortable signalling the importance of our allies here by visiting their leaders directly in Paris, London and Berlin.
A small step for one man – a giant leap for us Americans Abroad.
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