"20,000 turn out for Obama"

Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

At what may have been his largest campaign event this year, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama drew on a hometown hero's words at an Atlanta rally Saturday to voice his opposition to the war in Iraq.

Recalling the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s words that the Vietnam War had become "morally and politically untenable," Obama said the war in Iraq has come to be about "an administration that is trying to preserve its own political viability."

"It is about stubbornness and obstinacy. And we have to keep ratcheting up the pressure every day and every week to tell the president that it is time to change course, that it is time for us to start bringing our combat troops home from Iraq," the Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate told an enthusiastic midday crowd at Yellow Jacket Park on the Georgia Tech campus.

Officials estimated the crowd size at 20,000, making it one of Obama's largest rallies. His turnout also would make it one of the biggest presidential political rallies in Atlanta's history, and easily the largest this early in the race — 18 months before the election.

Obama drew more metro Atlantans than then-President Bill Clinton did when he stumped here in 1996 and attracted an estimated 10,000 people. George W. Bush drew about 2,200 people when he made a campaign stop in Duluth in March 2000, nine months before his first election to the White House.

Among those who came to see Obama was Sheila Sumpter, who completed her overnight shift as a nurse anesthetist at Grady Memorial Hospital at 7 a.m., slept for two hours and drove to the rally, clutching a copy of Obama's second book, "The Audacity of Hope."

"I've never felt this connection with a candidate before," said Sumpter, 46, of Austell. "When he talks about what he wants to achieve, I don't think he's just talking. I feel he's speaking from his heart, and I believe him."

Jay Frasier, a 31-year-old attorney, was on crutches after breaking his leg at a soccer game.

"This is the first time I have gotten goose bumps from any politician in a long, long time," he said.

The crowd was both multi-racial and multi-generational. But it drew an especially large turnout of students from all the major colleges and universities in the area.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, a venerable symbol of the civil rights generation, gave the invocation, calling Obama "a voice crying in the political wilderness." Alexandria Jackson, the youngest daughter of the late Mayor Maynard Jackson, sang the "National Anthem."

Obama, who has been called the "rock star" of this presidential campaign, walked some 70 feet up a runway to an open stage to speak, as threatening rain clouds held their distance.

"What I know is this campaign can be a vehicle for your hopes and your dreams. It can be a vehicle in which Americans take their country back and regain control over their government," Obama said.

He ran through a litany of the nation's problems, promising that the country could "make sure that every single American has health care in this country in the next six years, by the end of then next president's first term — by the end of my first term."

He pledged to work toward a goal in which every car in the nation gets 40 miles to the gallon, and to revitalize the U.S. educational system.

"But we're not going to be able to even get started on some of these problems unless we bring an end to this senseless war in Iraq," Obama said.

The presidential hopeful spoke for nearly 40 minutes and was interrupted by applause more than a hundred times.

Before the rally, Obama met with some 75 elected Democratic officials from around Georgia at the law offices of a supporter, state Sen. David Adelman (D-Decatur), and with a group of about 60 ministers and clergy.

Obama's campaign began laying plans for a big public rally in Atlanta after a March 26 fund-raiser here drew pledges of more than $570,000. He'll speak today at a rally in Tampa .

The '08 hopeful drew praise from each ends of the age spectrum on the Atlanta City Council.

"I'm going to work my heart out for him. This may be my last campaign," said Councilman C.T. Martin, 70, who called Obama "a candidate for the whole world."

Councilman Caesar Mitchell, 38, said his own generation "is turned off by ideologues" and that he had been impressed by what he called Obama's "everyday quality" in discussing issues.

"I think that's what people are drawn to — to be able to understand someone talking without a whole bunch of stilted language, but with simple analogies — thinking about your mama, your brother or your sister, or your co-worker. Talking about it like that," he said.