Liveblogging Obama's Fort Worth Rally

9:30 PM - I think I'll leave the final thoughts retrospective for in the morning. Let it be enough tonight to say that both the Clinton and Obama campaigns are fierce machines that offer fast rides while national politics has cast eyes on Texas. I have started to think that no one really knows how March 4th will turn out, and that we may not know until March 5th (or possibly even March 6th) as it may be very close. But who knows for sure in these days of broken records and shifting worlds? What I do know, both implicitly and explicitly, is that A) we probably won't see the presidentials again after March 4th, and B) the landscape of Texas politics has been changed forever by these two campaigns swinging into town for awhile. What that means in the big picture largely depends on the newly motivated, the devoted supporters, and the devout Democrats both campaigns will leave behind.

9:05 PM - Here at the end, his tone takes on a harder edge than we've heard before, and maybe this is a recent development. "Don't tell me I don't know what hope means," he says, with a note of — consternation? — in his voice. He turns it around, too, telling the gathered crowd that they shouldn't let someone tell them what they can and can't hope for, what they can and can't do.

I said the Dallas rally was like church, and my feeling about this one is that it is less like church and more like a speech by Martin Luther King. It has the rally feel, and the usual motivators are there, but now there's almost a note of rebellion in what he says and implores his supporters to do, like some sort of call to action beyond voting and caucusing. The standing ovation lasts for several minutes and goes through several iterations as he builds the speech to a long climax that doesn't seem like it will end. I think that he leaves the crowd wanting more simply by force of will.

8:57 PM - "I honor and respect John McCain for his service but his policies are wrong." That's about as succinct as you can get. Now Obama is attacking the argument that everyone will get tired by November, and that he's peaked too early or that his support and popularity won't translate to electoral success. He is consolidating himself and his supporters by making a common enemy of the media in a very gentle way, saying that the media is skeptical about him and his supporters. That he fills people with false hope or that, humorously enough, that he's a hope monger.

In Dallas, this was the most powerful part of the speech, and it is because he removes the block that usually exists between politicians and activists even when a politician swears he is just like them. As he explains what hope means to him — not thinking everything is easy, but knowing how hard it is and deciding to do it anyways — it occurs to me that a central part of his argument is not that he is one of them, necessarily, but that they are just like him. It is a subtle difference, and I'm probably not doing a good job of explaining it. The feeling I get is that when Obama tells people that this campaign isn't about him, but rather it is about them, they believe it in a way that 99 out of 100 politicians couldn't sell. It is overpowering charisma and retail political skill that bridges the gap, the same way a slight disparity in hand-eye coordination means the difference between a .250 hitter and a .300 hitter.

8:52 PM - Now we have a return of the change vs. more of the same argument. The dichotomy is really striking, but it also reminds me of just how poorly the last seven years have gone. I honestly don't know what Republicans think they can run on this year. Obama also makes a big deal out of the argument that his supporters are silly somehow, and that Obama isn't ready. The argument he makes works very well with his crowd, but I wonder how it will permeate in the long run to the general public. Although, with early voting numbers like we've been seeing, there may not be a general public that isn't politically involved for very long.

8:48 PM - I admit, I'm halfway waiting to see if he goes after McCain as a new regular part of the speech, or if that bit about al-Qaeda in Iraq was a one-off response. Someone has fainted up front, and Obama calls for an EMT and some water.

8:43 PM - It is apparent that No Child Left Behind is heavily vilified... hang on, I'm sorry. His plan for a $4,000 college tuition credit in return for public service just got a standing ovation.

8:39 PM - There are tons of teachers here, as there were in Dallas last week. The "Problems" part of the speech has begun. The crowd won't settle down now, and small groups shout indecipherable phrases during the breaks in speech. The "Problems" section of the speech makes a very interesting rhetorical turn from the subject that immediately precedes it — that people are ready for something new. The implication there, if you're a fan of semiotics or phenomenology, is that within the associative space in the mind of the listener, a link is established between business as usual and all representatives of old politics and the problems America has. This is more deep-seated than the obvious top-level link: for the listener, it becomes a visceral dichotomy between what Obama offers and what everyone and everything else has done to them. If I hadn't said so before, his stump is not only well-delivered but also well-constructed.

8:30 PM - The biggest applause line thus far is the one about how George Bush won't be on the ballot. It seems that George Bush is slightly unpopular.

8:23 PM - As I listen to the stump for the second time, a fundamental difference between Republican message and Democratic message sticks out. Every Republican candidate ran on red meat, base-satisfying issues like immigration or same-sex marriage or abortion. McCain largely continues to do the same thing, even though he has narrowed that focus to the reddest red meat of terrorism. Conversely, both Democratic candidates are running on everyman issues: health care, debt, college costs, employment. And even more than that, much of Obama's message in his media and on the stump focuses on what I can almost only call anti-politics — an end to divisiveness not only in race and gender, but also in politics and economics. It is a very liberal message that, in delivery, somehow appeals to a big chunk of the spectrum, from liberals to moderates. The accessibility of the message is no doubt part of the resonance.

8:20 PM - Members of Congress Al Green, Lloyd Doggett, Chet Edwards, Eddie Bernice Johnson, and Charlie Gonzales are all here. Obama asks who's already voted, and again, the noise is large. The pressure to vote early and the constant reminders to caucus are, of course, important to both campaigns, and they aren't shy about focusing on it. I get the impression that every time Obama shows up somewhere he has to ask the crowd to sit down. The speech begins the same way the Dallas rally did, with the recall of Martin Luther King's words on the 'fierce urgency of now.'

8:16 PM - Obama's here. I don't know if the place is smaller or the crowd is more serious about this, but the cheers are louder than they were in Dallas.

8:15 PM - The Wave begins again, and a facility camera crew is working the crowd. I'm waiting to hear an estimate on crowdsize and how many turnaways they had. A "Rockstar Precinct Captain" is introduced, and for the second time, the crowd stage left starts chanting 'We Can't Hear You'. I don't know if they actually can't hear or if it is some way for them to delineate themselves from the rest of the crowd.

7:59 PM - I'm also beginning to be of the opinion that the press pit robs you of some of your ability to report on the audience and the vibe of a place. What we've been able to gather at Clinton events has had an intimacy to it that being in the pit — even if it is well-appointed work space, and comfortable — can't really deliver. Obviously tables full of guys and gals clacking away at laptops wouldn't play well on TV, and so it isn't a surprise that the setup is like this, and it isn't that it doesn't work, but at times I feel like we're stuck in the tunnel while the Super Bowl is going on.

7:55 PM - The National Anthem brings the house down, and rightly so. The same guy sang it tonight as sang it at Reunion, I think, and he's killer. Then, as soon as the song was over, the familiar 'O-BA-MA' chant went up, solidly, among the entire crowd. Obama's music video is playing now through the Jumbotrons, and while I'd seen it before, it didn't occur to me that it would be effective in a setting like this.

7:45 PM - The requisite hypeman report begins and he rolls out the popular message from the last few weeks: that what began in Iowa will end in Texas. He also reports that the campaign has opened 25 offices in Texas, with 3 in Tarrant County alone. The response from the crowd when he asks people to raise their hands if they have already early voted would be totally unbelievable if I hadn't seen the early vote numbers.

Also, the "Texas Two Step" moniker for the Texas primary / caucus hybrid has caught on so well, I hear the regular media using it to refer to how Texas apportions its delegates. This name came from the Obama campaign, and it was marketed really well.

7:39 PM - Just spoke with State Representative Marc Veasey in the entry hall, and he says they expect about 10,000 people tonight.

7:33 PM - I'm pretty sure they have a band now, and it wasn't until this moment I realized how terrible the acoustics are in here. The crowd buzz we heard last time has already begun, although this time there are fewer chants and more bouts of boisterous, impromptu screaming, like whole sections are suddenly on roller coasters.

7:23 PM - It didn't take long for the wave to start again. Anna is here, and is by all accounts "Chillin' like a villain." It seems like there will be a larger gap tonight between when the place hits capacity and when Obama arrives. A picture or two after the jump.

We're here at Obama's rally at the Fort Worth Convention Center. The event doesn't officially begin until 8:00 CST and the place is already full up. I'll see if we can't get you a few pictures for in the mean time, as not much is shaking right now, other than a pitched battle over power strips. More soon.