Last week I had the incredible fortune to attend a rally in Golden, CO for Barack Obama.  Not only did I get to attend, but I got to go with my friend Erin and together we got to skip the line filled with thousands of people and walk right up front into the third row of the VIP section.

It was flipping awesome.

Before the main attraction made his debut, we enjoyed several speakers who got the crowd all riled up.  The highlight for me was seeing Ken Salazar (even though he turned out to be a tragically bad public speaker).  Regardless of his speaking skills, he’s a fifth generation Coloradan and an important part of the President’s Cabinet so it was fun to see him up close and personal.

Ken was followed by a few lucky locals who got a chance to speak, pray, and ask for our votes.If you’re wondering at this point how close we were?  We were really really close.  We could not have been any closer unless we were sitting on the stage next to the podium.  I had my zoom lens with me but barely had to use it.  It was pretty epic.  

The openers wrapped up, the crowd basked in the beautiful Colorado sunshine for a few more minutes, and then just like that…there he was.

It was electric.
Our President, standing 15 feet in front of us, with the beautiful Colorado mountains behind him.  It kind of knocked my socks off for a minute.

It’s easy to think of him as just a candidate running for office, asking for your vote, campaigning away just like Romney…

…but reality hits you, and you realize that he’s not just a candidate.  He is the President of the United states and you’re getting a chance to stand in front of him and listen to him speak.

Pretty cool.

THEN, as if things weren’t amazing already, he looks directly at me and I snag maybe my favorite photo of my whole life (even though he looks kinda pissed at me).I was like a squealing girl at a rock show exclaiming to Erin “he just looked right at me, he just looked RIGHT at me!”

He covered a lot of the same topics he spoke about at the DNC, but as usual, he was effortlessly inspiring and uplifting.  I’ve told Jon several times that it’s almost unfair how much better he is at public speaking than any opponent ever could be.

Once he was done speaking, he walked the length of the front gate and spoke to the crowd, gave hugs, shook hands and was overall the most charming man of all time.At this point he was so close that I could have punched him in the face (in case any government spies are reading this…I would never punch him anywhere).  It was really fun to watch him interact with the crowd, and even more fun to see people’s reactions to him. Cheering, fist bumping, high fiving, hugging, crying etc.  That boy got a high five right after this, but someone got in my way and I missed it!  You should have seen the grin on his face afterwards.Leaving us all with an enthusiastic wave and that incredible smile the event was over and the President was gone.  It took awhile for the rush to go away, so while we waited, Erin and I posed for some patriotic photo’s of our own.It felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity and I’m really glad we went…thanks Erin!

I walked away from that day even more confident in which way I’ll be voting this November.  I’m not going to get too political on this blog, but I will say that policies, money, successes and failures aside, I just simply trust Barack Obama more than Mitt Romney.  I truly believe that deep down Obama is a good man and that he wants to do what is best for this country.  I hope he gets the chance.