According to various news organizations, the crowd at today's Obama rally reached 22,000. I have no idea how they come up with those numbers, but I'm not going to argue. As pointed out by The Collegian, the line went down College, up Burrowes, and down Curtin past Pattee and Paterno libraries (I think it was even past Palmer Museum at about noon. I've waited in line for over three hours this week to see Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and I'm not even voting in April.

When I got in line at about noon today, it already stretched past the library and, just like at the Clinton event on Thursday, there were plenty of people who were concerned they wouldn't be allowed in. But I overheard one Obama volunteer say the campaign was hoping to break a record set in Texas when over 27,000 people came out to see the presidential nominee. Well, that didn't happen.

As pointed out in a post earlier today, when we finally got to the end of the line, the view toward Old Main was blocked by three massive Obama banners and an gigantic American flag. On two separate occasions the crowd began chanting for the people holding the signs to take them down (here's video of one of the chants, give it about 25 seconds), and when they finally relented the crowd roared. I have to assume that Obama had no clue what the crowd was cheering for at that moment.

What was a little surprising about Obama's speech was who was in attendance. We already knew about Senator Bob Casey showing up, and Jay Paterno was at the campaign headquarters opening two weeks ago, but Obama said that Sue Paterno was also in attendance, which if true is a little shocking.

So, hopefully I'll have more on this tomorrow, and in the meantime visit my Flickr page to see more photos of the event. Including a guy driving a sweet Segway, and an "Obama Mama."