For an hour Friday afternoon, every student on Kirkwood Avenue stopped
drinking. In the heat of Little 500 festivities, on a gorgeous sunny
day, students left Kilroy’s, emptied the Upstairs Pub and poured out
onto the sidewalks and into the street, all looking for one man:
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama. He came, after all.
The
Illinois senator crashed the Little 500 women’s race with a surprise
appearance on campus and then traveled in his motorcade to Nick’s
English Hut, where he shook hands with some of the patrons inside and
added his John Hancock to a wall.
Obama was greeted at both
places by throngs of screaming and cheering students who crowded in,
trying to catch at least a glimpse of the political phenom. The lucky
ones got a handshake, a smile or a nod from the senator.
Sophomore
Coco Goldenberg did one better. When she held out her pink Alpha Chi
Omega trucker hat and asked Obama to sign it, he took out a pen and
scribbled his signature across the brim.
Goldenberg, breathlessly excited, posed for photos with her friends, proudly sporting the hat.
“I’m a big, big Obama supporter,” she said. “He’s so tight.”
His
visit came with little warning. The campaign did not officially
announce the stop until the senator’s motorcade began pulling into the
driveway of Bill Armstrong Stadium.
Obama was in Indiana for a
three-day bus tour of the state. His Bloomington stop off came in
between two scheduled speeches – one Friday morning in Columbus, Ind.,
and one Friday evening in Terre Haute.
Obama and his rival,
New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, have been campaigning hard in Indiana
since the middle of March. The protracted and fierce primary battle
between the two candidates has given the Hoosier state’s May 6 primary,
and its 84 delegates, a prominence Indiana Democrats have not seen for
40 years.
As Obama moved through central Indiana, Clinton hit
the northern part of the state, speaking in Indianapolis, then
Mishawaka, Ind., and Valparaiso, Ind.
On April 6, Obama’s
campaign sponsored a free Dave Matthews concert at Assembly Hall. The
campaign started giving away tickets for the performance as former
President Bill Clinton spoke on campus about his wife’s candidacy. “The
Daily Show with John Stewart” labeled what it called the Obama
campaign’s attempt to steal Clinton’s thunder the “Dick Move of the
Week.”
When Obama showed up at Little 500, he walked out to the
infield of the stadium, shaking hands with everyone in arms’ length. He
stood for a moment on the podium and greeted each of the members of the
IU Student Foundation Steering Committee. And even though he was only
feet away from a microphone that would have carried his words to the
hundreds of screaming students in the stands, he stayed away. He did
not discuss policy or make any statements of political substance during
the visit. Instead, he opted for pleasantries; he thanked students for
their support, shook hands with Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan, asked
women’s basketball coach Felisha Legette-Jack how her season went and
posed for photos with the players.
After he left the infield,
he walked around the outside of the track – flanked by dark-suited
Secret Service agents, police officers, advisers and a hoard of members
of the media – and shook hands with each Little 500 rider and any
student who reached out to him.
Obama then took a position off the field and watched the start of the race.
Students
who were walking into the stadium to support their friends in the race
stopped, shocked to see the senator at IU’s own Little 500 race.
Freshman
Kyle Katz, who got a chance to shake Obama’s hand, said before the
appearance he was unsure whether he would vote in Indiana’s May 6
primary. But now there’s no doubt.
“This guy’s going all out,” Katz said. “He deserves my vote.”
As
word spread quickly via text message among IU students that Obama’s
next planned stopped was Nick’s, dozens of spectators gathered outside
the beloved Bloomington bar.
His reception at Nick’s was no less
noisy and warm than it was at Bill Armstrong Stadium. When he left
Nick’s and walked down Kirkwood to his waiting tour bus, students
filled the streets.
Only once has Kruzan, an IU alumnus and ardent Obama booster, seen such excitement, revelry and celebration.
“It was the last time we won an NCAA Championship,” he said with a smile.
Barack Obama surprises students at Little 500, Nick's
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