Feature Story

Journey into History

After a grueling two years, it has all come down to this. A crowd of more than 250,000 have gathered together with the hope of “Yes, we can”. The air is thick with anticipation as the returns roll in. With each new projection, the nation comes closer and closer to electing their new president.

It was late July in 2004. An African American man, hardly known to anyone outside of the Chicago political arena, was to give the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. As the country watched, Barack Obama captivated his audience.

Chris Trudeau, a Springfield, Illinois native and political enthusiast, watched in awe as Obama delivered his now famous speech, The Audacity of Hope. “I remember watching him and thinking, ‘Wow, this is incredible. This guy’s gonna be our president some day.’”

After the well-received speech and John Kerry’s general election loss, speculation circulated. In Chicago, as well as around the nation, Obama’s name was being discussed as a possible presidential candidate for 2008. The Democrats had lost two big elections, and everyone was wondering if Obama could be who they needed.

February 10, 2007 was bitter cold. Heavy coats, stocking hats, and gloves were a necessity. Thousands gathered, including Trudeau, to hear Obama announce, after much speculation; that he would, in fact, be running as a presidential candidate. “None of my friends would go with me because it was so cold out, but I didn’t care, I just went by myself.” Trudeau showed up to the announcement about three hours early with a blue ticket in hand. A blue ticket guaranteed a spot near the giant TV screens; red tickets were for those near the stage.

Trudeau got lucky, as he did throughout Obama’s campaign, and happened to meet a group of people from Seattle, Washington. “These three people had come from Seattle with four red tickets, but I guess someone ended up not coming with them. They saw me standing alone and asked if I wanted their extra ticket.”

Once inside the VIP area, Trudeau was able to squeeze his way to the front left side of the stage. He had a perfect view of Obama and CNN had a perfect view of Trudeau. It was not long after that Trudeau was approached by a campaign event coordinator. “He came up to me and said something like ‘Barack’s going to exit here, he’ll come to you and shake your hand first, so be ready.’ I couldn’t believe it. Here I was, getting this red ticket on a fluke, and now I’m being told Obama’s going to be shaking my hand.”

This announcement was the starting point of a 21 month long presidential race. Obama, the supposed underdog of the primaries, fought long and hard through the primary season and Trudeau watched every debate, followed the polls, and got more and more excited with every primary.

For part of the election season, Trudeau was attending Emily Carr University in Vancouver, Canada. “It was great being in Canada for that time because they follow our elections really closely and everyone loved Obama. That was also when I saw what a difference he could make world-wide if we elected him.”

The primary season came to a close and in an incredible chain of events Obama beat the Clinton machine and became the Democrat’s candidate of choice. As the Democratic Convention drew near, rumors were flying as to who the Vice Presidential pick would be. Only days before the pick was revealed, it was made known that the announcement would take place, again, in Springfield.

Trudeau called his girlfriend and told her he couldn’t make it to her brother’s engagement party. “This is a once in a lifetime event. I can’t miss it. I just can’t miss it.” He made it downtown to camp out at 8:30 at night, roughly 17 hours before Obama was scheduled to speak.

As he sat on his coat in the middle of the sidewalk, eating a pizza an area resident had cooked him; he received a text message, “Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee…” Trudeau said he had “known it all along.”

While waiting first in line, Trudeau was asked by the Chicago Tribune why he supported Obama, “Eventually we come around and do the right thing, and Obama’s a big step in coming around and doing the right thing.”

Sunset turned to dark, and dark to light. A line finally started to form behind Trudeau, a line that would later reach upwards of 30,000 people. Trudeau made friends with many people that night; a couple of rappers from Chicago wearing Obama and McCain costumes, a kid from Georgia, and few hippies from Indiana. They sat for hours talking about Obama and his policies and how they thought the general election was going to go. “I thought it would be really hard to stay awake the whole night, but time flew by. The people around me were all really aware of what was going on in the campaign.”

Trudeau made it front and center in the crowd, up against a barricade directly in front of the podium. The crowd roared through the entire speech and nearly broke the metal barrier when Obama came down to greet his cheering fans. Trudeau managed to get his bright green T-shirt signed by Michelle, Barack, and Joe Biden… something that had become a rarity at campaign events. “Each of them grabbed the marker when they passed by and signed the shoulder of my shirt. The signatures from the markers were so close to my nose that the fumes made me sick and a secret service officer had to make the crowd clear a path for me to get out.”

Being such an avid supporter of the democratic candidate, Trudeau wanted to find a way to help Obama’s campaign. “Everyone knows Illinois is going to Obama; and being from Illinois, I wanted to find a way to help out that would actually matter… something that goes beyond just donating money.” Trudeau did just that. “I got a text saying they needed help this one weekend canvassing in Missouri. I knew that was my chance.” Missouri was an important swing state that ended up having one of the closest outcomes of the entire election.

His weekend was spent in St. Louis going door to door giving out information to undecided voters about Obama and his policies. “The people were really inviting. A few of them asked for yard signs, but the campaign wasn’t giving those out.” Fortunately for the neighborhood residents, Trudeau had some extras in his truck he had purchased the night before.

Obama’s campaign was gaining ground, and lots of it, but back in Illinois restlessness was starting to set in. Trudeau wanted to get the election over with and have Obama as his next president, but November 4th was still a month away. “I was on my way to St. Louis for a David Byrne concert and I just happened to get on Obama’s website the night before to see what was up. I couldn’t believe it. He was having a rally that next morning under the Arch.”

At six in the morning, Trudeau was on his way. He made it to St. Louis just seconds before the metro dropped off the first of many enormous loads of rally-goers. “I got so lucky again. I just happened to find out about the rally, just happened to get there at the right time, and ended up making it about ten people away from the stage.” The St. Louis rally drew an estimated crowd of 100,000 people.

November 2nd, Trudeau received an e-mail alert on his I-phone. At this point Obama e-mails had become an everyday event, but this e-mail was special. The subject line read, “Update: Election Night Tickets”. Inside the e-mail, “Your ticket will be e-mailed to you on Monday, November 3rd…” Trudeau was one of 65,000 people to receive a ticket to Obama’s election night rally in Grant Park.

The next evening Trudeau arrived in Chicago, a nearly two year journey was about to reach its climax and Trudeau planned to be front and center again. “I had watched so many of the rallies on TV and I had started to see the patterns of what you had to wear to be noticed in the crowd. I bought a bright yellow baseball hat and matching long-sleeved shirt.”

Trudeau made it to the entrance of Grant Park in the afternoon of November 4th; he had already early voted. He quickly sought out a security worker to ask a question about ticket identification rules. “Out of no where, Star Wars music started blaring, news cameras kicked on, the line went crazy and security opened the first checkpoint.” Once again, Trudeau was in the right place at the right time.

“Getting through the first checkpoint was cool, but there were four of them in all so I still had to wait awhile.” While waiting, Trudeau spotted a couple people from some of the other Obama events he had attended. While the crowd waited, one lady turned on a baby monitor she had tuned in to a local radio station frequency. “She was picking up this weird signal through a baby monitor she had brought and every now and then she’d scream an update to everyone.”

It was a mad dash to the front row once the fourth and final checkpoint was passed. On CSPAN, a bright yellow dot could be seen sprinting to its place against the metal barricade. That yellow dot was Chris Trudeau.

Reporters and camera men quickly caught glimpse of the banana-esc figure. It was a matter of moments before Trudeau was approached by a reporter wanting an interview. “Now what’s your name? Where are you from? Oh, you volunteered for the campaign? Great! I’d like to interview you when we get a chance if that’s alright?”

The crowd stretched further back than anyone in the front row could see and American flags painted the human landscape. The crowd was a perfect depiction of Obama’s 2004 keynote address orated four years earlier. There was not “a liberal America and a conservative America… a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America” it was the United States of America.

With each new CNN projection declared across the JumboTrons, the mass of Obama supporters danced with excitement. Pennsylvania sent the multitudes into an all out frenzy. “We were all looking at each other screaming, ‘That’s it. That’s it. Obama won. It’s over. It’s him.’ there was just no way, at that point, McCain could win and we all knew it but we were in disbelief.”

Everything over the course of the last two years had led up to this moment. Obama was leading the popular and electoral votes, Pennsylvania had been projected for Obama, and the west coast was closing in a matter of seconds.

The deafening roars of the crowd drowned out Wolf Blitzer’s voice. “We couldn’t hear anything. We didn’t hear when Blitzer said they may be making a big projection right when the [west coast] polls closed. We just knew all those states were Obama’s.”

A quarter million people counted down the final poll’s closing. Five… Four… Three… Two… “Projected Winner: Barack Obama” flashed across the screen as a confirmation to what everyone already knew. Euphoria swept through Grant Park and continued across the country going on to every corner of the world. As Kenyan’s celebrated 8,000 miles away, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s church exploded with excitement, and tears poured out in nearly every living room across America, Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States of America.

Trudeau was as close as you could be, the reporter had his story, America had their president, and all the crowd could manage to cheer was, “Yes, we DID!"