I attended the much ballyhooed Barack Obama campaign rally in Grand Rapids, MI today. It was an interesting experience, having only been at one before: Bob Dole for President ’96. I was 16 then and only attended as part of my high school’s marching band.

This was pretty cool, seeing as that Obama and Sen. John Edwards picked Grand Rapids to announce their new alliance. Edwards endorsed Obama in an encouraging speech that praised Hillary Clinton and called for “One America.”

The crowd absolutely ate everything up, which was expected. We were pretty far away, but I kind of liked that as I was able to survey the crowd. I’m more interested in people’s reactions to things thatn the people themselves a lot of the time.

Obama himself hit us with his standard stump speech. This was only interrupted once when someone in front of him fainted in the crowd, and he had to call the EMTs over. He even tossed them a bottle of water as the crowd applauded the hero of America and collapsed Obamans everywhere.

It’s pretty exciting to see people of all shapes and colors so adamant about showing their support and being so passionate about politics. Granted this is all a little more sensational than your standard, run-of-the-mill politics, but that’s probably a good thing.

This is not an endorsement of Barack Obama. Have I already done that? I can’t remember. Anyways, I’m saving my endorsement of whichever candidate (not McCain, that’s for sure) for later. Maybe they’ll call me up and have me fly into Atlanta to announce it or something.