Obama in Londonderry, NH: Pie Guy

That pie story… wow … that was a great pie story Obama told in New Hampshire today at the rally at Mack’s Apples. I loved that.

So I’m in Londonderry New Hampshire, surrounded by big famous journalists, so I better write a real lead! Here goes:

Where: Londonderry, NH, Mack’s Apple Farm ‘U Pick”, standing in the press corps area in a drizzle, next to Steve Garfield.

What: Obama’s giving a speech to swing voters in the great state of New Hampshire, the day after the final presidential debate.

When: Now it’s 1:32pm, just after lunchtime, the speech is done, I'm in the press tent, the rain is noisy around us. Here's how it went: Noon, Thursday, October 16, 2008, and 19 days until Election Day as several politicians have mentioned in their speeches, the "get the crowd" going speeches, before the “O” appears on stage. The sky is not behaving. The speeches of the back-up folks are done. They introduce him, they crank up U2 playing “It’s A Beautiful Day” and it really is NOT a beautiful day, but everyone’s way excited to see and hear him. He appears around 12:35, the rain starts at 1:00, but tapers off later. A Thursday afternoon with lovely fall foliage and a big happy eager crowd.

Why: Why am I here – I’ve been wanting to see Obama in person and never have and thanks to living in such a liberal state as Massachusetts, the only place I would ever get to see him is in a swing state and the closest swing state is New Hampshire.

How: Well, that’s the problem. I saw Steve Garfield this morning at the Social Media Breakfast in Cambridge and kind of talked him into letting me tag along to this event, even though we hadn’t really planned on it – actually he had, but I had not and we arrived just when the PRESS BUS arrived and we went right in with all of them – and some very famous journos like Suzanne Malvaux and Don Gonyea and … well quite a bunch. They used the security wand on us, figured we looked like safe folks and gave us each a press pass.

Back to the important facts, just the facts mam!

It was a pretty good speech, all the important points about health care, the economy, the war, and he showed his anger more than I’d seen lately, really got the crowd going.

Obama said all the stuff he said last night on the debate, but without someone interrupting him and twisting his words.

And he told a great story about pie.

He was in Ohio with Gov. Strickland and they went into a diner to get a slice of pie. He had Coconut Cream (my favorite) and Strickland ordered Lemon Meringue. As he was waiting for the pie, someone on his staff let him know the diner owner was a staunch Republican. So Obama and his staff posed for a picture with the guy, the kind people put up on the wall, almost as a joke.

Then he asked him, “so how’s business?” Great question.

And the guy had to admit , “Not so good.”

Wait ... here's the video, thanks to Obama08 on YouTube:



And … well … per usual, I forgot part of it, but the bottom line was Obama asking the guy for his vote and telling us we all need a bigger slice of the pie and we need a bigger pie.

Best part of the speech was him saying he has the confidence to get through these hard times and knows that we do too. “Don’t believe in me – Believe in yourselves, because we can do this. We can work together to get through these tough times.”

After the speech I sat in the very wet white vinyl circus tent they had set up for the press. Thank god for journalists. On a damp, fall day, sitting in a wet tent, I witness that being a journalist isn’t all that glamourous all the time. Sometimes it stinks.