Illinois DUers: Barack Obama pic from 6/21 fundraiser

[AbbeyRoad]

Barack Obama had a fundraiser tonight on the campus of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Max Cleland was a speaker at the dinner. I didn't get to go, but my mother did. I made her take a couple pics, and I thought I'd share this one of Obama that turned out pretty well.




An amusing tidbit from Cleland's speech that my mother related to me was that he said in the South there's a polite way to phrase an impolite thought. This is as related to me and what is in quotes is not his exact words but an approximation. When you see a homely child in the grocery store you say, "that may be the ugliest child I've ever seen, bless his heart, and that keeps it from being an insult, so whenever I speak about the President I always add bless his heart." He repeated saying "bless his heart" during his speech when he mentioned Bush.

[Guaranteed]

1. LOL nt

[iconoclastic cat]

2. Hey, hey, SIU-C! I had some lost weekends there, oh, yeah...

Some damn good punk rock.

[AbbeyRoad]

3. As a visitor...

or were you a student at SIU?

[iconoclastic cat]

4. Um, well---I was there for two years, but I dropped all but 2 classes.

I totally squandered my education. For a little while.

[AbbeyRoad]

5. So you were a Saluki too

I got my bachelor's at SIU. :toast:

[iconoclastic cat]

7. Yep! Hey, were you there in the early '90's?

In my defense, I did finish two master's degrees with a 3.9 GPA. But not at SIU.

[AbbeyRoad]

9. Wow. Two master's degrees.

The squandering didn't last long. ;-)

Yeah, my first semester was the fall of '93 straight out of high school.

[iconoclastic cat]

10. Really?

Didja ever go to 607 W. Freeman? Or hear BabyFishMouth?

[AbbeyRoad]

11. Not that I can recall

I was a bit of a nerd

[iconoclastic cat]

12. LOL ----- You would've fit right in!

Freaks, all. That was us.

[AbbeyRoad]

13. That's cool

When I started college, I should have got out of my dorm room more often and had fun. I took things way too seriously, like my whole future depended on whether I got an A in Intro. to Anthropology. :)

[Norquist Nemesis]

6. How's Obama doing down there?

Haven't heard too much about the downstate and central areas.

BTW, I remember SIU-C Halloween Parade. Marched in it when I was in JRH, then by college it was really rockin'! (I went to EIU).

[AbbeyRoad]

8. He's doing alright if the turnout at the fundraiser was any indication

He said something about Southern Illinois teaching Chicago how to hold a fundraiser, but I bet he says that to all his fundraisers. :) I'm not really up on how he's doing at large in the area, but I know he'll do well in Jackson county. He took the county in the Dem. primary. On the map, Jackson county was like an Obama island surrounded by Hynes majority counties.

Yeah, the Halloween parade (translation: drunken street party) really got out of hand there for a few years. Cars got turned over. Businesses got windows knocked out, etc. They decided it wasn't doing a lot for the school's image so they started shutting down the Strip on Halloween weekend and closing the dorms.