Looking to inspire voters to show up at the polls in about three weeks, President Barack Obama had a message for the large crowd gathered in the Germantown area of Philadelphia on Sunday: “Our job is not done.”
Featuring a number of state Democratic leaders and candidates as well as Philadelphia-based hip hop band The Roots, the “Moving America Forward” rally in North Philadelphia was the second stop in a series of events the President is making across the country before Election Day.
The rally, organized by the Democratic National Committee and Obama’s political arm, Organizing for America, marks the third time the President has visited the city in approximately a month.
Jazelle Jones, Deputy Managing Director and Director of Operations for the event, listed the official crowd estimate at 18,500. According to an Associate Press article, the President’s previous stop in Madison, Wis., on Sept. 28 drew a crowd of approximately 26,000 people — a mix of students and residents of the Madison area.
Standing at a podium in between two twenty-five foot flags, nearly every statewide and major local Democratic leader continued to hammer home a common theme, a way many Democrats want to frame the election: as a choice between progression and regression.
Speaking to the crowd, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato exclaimed, “I don’t want to go back; do you want to go back?”
“I need to you be as fired up as you were in 2008,” Obama said. Comparing election victories and governing to car keys, Obama also said two years later, Republicans now “want the keys back. Philadelphia, they can’t have the keys back. They don’t know how to drive.”
Governor Ed Rendell; Senator Bob Casey Jr.; three local Congressman — U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah and U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak; Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and Vice President Joe Biden all spoke at event, presenting points of contrast between Democrats and Republicans and emphasizing the importance of the Nov. 2 election, particularly in Pennsylvania.
“As the city [of Philadelphia] goes, the state goes; as the state goes, the country goes,” Brady said.
Followed by an outpouring of “vote, vote, vote” chants, Rendell called the 17 percent turnout rate in the Democratic primary as “lousy” and explained that the number that needs to triple in the general election in three weeks.
Political pundits remain skeptical about Democrats’ ability to bring voters out to the polls this year, pointing to the gap in enthusiasm between the two parties and the absence of Obama's name on the ballot this year.
Some Democratic student activists, however, do not believe this conventional notion applies to students.
Georgetown University sophomore Jake Sticka, Vice President of the D.C. Federation of College Democrats, said an enthusiasm gap “doesn’t exist” among students, noting that the President has fulfilled his promises to students on the issues of healthcare and Pell Grants.
Sticka was one amongst approximately 120 other students in city this weekend from Washington, D.C., knocking on doors for Joe Sestak’s campaign, a weekend culminating at the rally in Germantown.
The President will also host a rally in Ohio on Oct. 17 and in Las Vegas, Nev., on Oct. 22.
