Wow that picture of all the whities is shocking especially when the even is south of Downtown. jeez.

I was at the Pier 66 fund raising event at 6:30pm. I'm black and I was more surprised to see more blacks at that event than what you probably saw at the Showbox. The crowd was probably 150-200 people. I was able to "hug the rope" a few minutes before he came out and get some close up photos, a hand shake, and say a few words to him. If you guys want some photos, I can post them somewhere or e-mail them to you.

@2: Sure, post them in our Stranger Flickr pool and let me know they're there. Or email me some jpegs. My address is easy find. Thanks!

No new ground broken in his speech tonight, but Obama was confident, charming, and sure in his words. The turn-out at Showbox Sodo was impressive, particularly given the high ticket price and relatively late-in-the-game announcement of the event.

I'm always particularly inspired by the conversations that take place after the big speech at events like this. Tonight was no different. It is good to feel optimistic about politics, even if, at the end of the day, it is just a race between the lesser of evils.

And, god damn, there was a lot of security.

Is Obama this generation's FDR? 'Cause that is what we desperately need right now....

Bawwwww...

Why can't Obama be President?

Aside from the obvious "Scandinavians for Obama" vibe those pics provide, I wonder WHY the crowd was so white?

* Poor GOTV among blacks/minorities by Team Obama?
* The venue ("white folks' place")?
* Blacks support Hillary?
* NW White Guilt/Lib Enchantment for the Underdog?

I honestly would be interested to know -- anyone have something remotely fact-based to explain this?

There just aren't a lot of middle-class African-Americans in Seattle? That's pretty well-known. (Almost Live used to do funny bits about that back in the early '90s.)

Also, isn't Iowa next to Illinois, which has a large African-American population? Maybe they came by. I dunno.

According to the State Data Center of Iowa, there are only 67,000 African-Americans in the state, which has about 3 million people. (2007 numbers) In Washington, there are 202,286 out of 4 million. (2005 numbers)

Hmmm....

Also, isn't Iowa next to Illinois, which has a large African-American population? Maybe they came by. I dunno.

If anyone was coming from Illinois, they would've gone to the event in Cedar Rapids.

why is the word "diversity" always used as code for "black people." Does this mean a crowd comprised of whites and asians does not count as diverse?

Maybe the $100 price tag had something to do with it. Maybe the fact that we won't be doing anything for months keeps less insane people anyway from these events. If the room was 80% black what would your comment be then? Why won't white Seattle support a black?

Another Inane Eli Sanders Presidential Politics Post. Ugh.

Figured out who Greg Palast is yet?

Re: percentage of white vs. blacks in the audience.

First, the event in Iowa was free. It was a pep rally, a get out the vote rally, not a fundraiser. And it had Oprah. And although you don't mention it in your article, other press has said that people traveled from as far away as Florida to attend the Oprah/Obama show. A lot of the out-of-staters were black.

The Seattle stop was a fundraiser. The $100 ticket price probably stopped a lot of black people from coming. We may have a higher percentage of blacks in Seattle than in Des Moines, but they aren't necessarily any more able to afford the $100 ticket.

Whitey has $100, film at eleven.

Bareback Osama- I taste VOMIT!!!!

Bleachegh(spewing chunks)!!!

@ 12 (DOUG) -- Why the slam on Eli? Did he pee in your cornflakes?

I take issue with your terms "another" and "inane." Let's take them one at a time, shall we:

ANOTHER -- This bespeaks the fact that Eli has posted regularly on the topic. How is this bad? Personally, I appreciate the fact that someone with Eli's intelligence and wit has elected (pun!!!) to cover the presidential horse race. So the fact that we see regular posts from Eli is no cause for alarm -- please sit back and take a few deep breaths. Which brings us to...

INANE -- Let's see...a link to the speech; insights into context of other Obama events in other locales; a focus on the dynamics of diversity within the Obama movement...what's inane about this? I see more pat cliches and lazy intellectual postulations in the main stream press -- I'm glad to have Eli, Josh and others that give the insights I cannot get anywhere else.

So unless you're able and willing to haul your keyster around the cornfields of Iowa -- let alone the backwaters of our own state -- give Eli a break and offer your views instead of your cheap insults.

Thanks.

I guarentee you that if Bareback O gets the Democrat nomination I'm voting REPUBLICAN- and I am a Democrat. I also predict that if BAREBACK O wins the Democratic nomination it will be another four years of Republicans in the white house... Mark my words Nig-Nog lovers- choose your course wisely.

@ 17 -- I'm telling mom!!!

@17: Thanks for the insight, you racist piece of shit.

Obama aint gonna win because the White South will never vote for him and the Clintons own Cali and NY.

My wife and I went last night and both of us were lucky enough to shake hands with Barack Obama and have a up front spot to watch.

I think the room reflected the Seattle population of folks that are comfortable with the Internet as a political communication tool.

We found out about this event via the Barack Obama web site and have been keeping on top of campaign events that way. The $100 price tag and way it was communicated are what I think contributed to the audience "diversity".

The event at Bell Harbor was not on the web site and, from what I can tell, not open to the public. I am guessing that however invitees were selected/communicated with for that event is what deteremined the makup of the folks attending.

So.....no Ron Sims. No Rev. McKinney. No Eric Pettigrew. No James Kelley. No Norm Rice. No John Lovick. No Dawn Mason. No Richard McGiver. No attempt to communicate through Black churches.

Obama is very upscale and Harvard-y, is he not?

#13 is right. Eli's flip post about photos "lying" seems irresponsible and lazy. The events were different, it's not news that Seattle doesn't have a lot of middle-class blacks, and there's no proof that they would be upset to hear that.

If it makes anyone feel better since we Seattlelites are apparently upset, there was a huge contigent of African-American leadership at Obama's appearance at Benaroya Hall last year. Longtime local African-American leader Tony Orange was inciting the crowd to chant for his presidency, in which the mixed crowd happily complied.

unPC - Norm Rice was there and did the Intro.

#14 for the win

i find all the urban elitist hand-wringing about the alleged lack of "diversity" [apparently the current PC term for "black people"] in the state of iowa extremely entertaining. this has been a hot back burner topic in the comments section for the past couple months. more, please.

These comment threads are almost always so disheartening. Today is no exception to that rule.

Eli, thanks for posting the audio link.

Looked pretty diverse to me. Considering our population and the location of the event.

Who cares what Iowa looks like ... I don't.

You guys are so 20th century in your thining

What the fuck is a "nig-nog"?


Never mind, I think I'd rather remain ignorant of its etymology.

29 - i think it's some sort of holiday-related beverage.

It's racist and stupid. That's all you need to know. And, uh, it should be removed.

Brandon @26, please try to read. The subject of any perceived "handwringing" in this thread is the lack of diversity at the SEATTLE event, not in Iowa. People are saying that the Obama event in Iowa was MORE diverse than the one in Seattle.

The rest of your comment makes no sense except as a contrived excuse to attempt to bait people about "diversity" -- was that you @10, too?

Maybe the lack of diversity also had something to do with the band.

no, david, just me @ 26 and 30.

my point is that there appears to be a few tacit assumptions running through a lot of the comments, in this thread and elsewhere, re: iowa and giving "rural white people" the first crack at deciding the candidates:

1] the political interests of non-rural and/or non-white people are more important
2] the political interests of rural white people are drastically different than anyone else’s
3] the only people in iowa are rural white people
and, implicitly...
4] rural white people are dumb

i grew up in a very rural, very white area, and i can assure you - none of these suppositions are necessarily true.

i was responding more directly to eli's comment about how "seattlites may not want to hear this," and other comments i've read on slog in the past few months that i find rather ignorant. so if it appears i'm coming from left field with this, well, i guess i kinda am.

personally, i find it rather disheartening that in 2007, people still think "diversity" is something you can glean from a photograph. or that the "flyover states" are an oasis of dumb, ambiguously white people, and seeing such photographs could be some sort of watershed moment where everyone's impression of middle america suddenly changes.

sorry, not trying to bait anyone. just calling it as i see it. again, not just from this thread, but a general impression i've gotten over the past few months. when people feel compelled to cite census data, or come up with explanations as to why there weren't as many black people at the seattle event as there could have been, in a word: disheartening. not sure if this is what kerri harrop had in mind, but the word sums up my impression.

it's just the Stranger staff isn't that diverse, brandon, so they're touchy about this.