America decides

Shropshire reporter James Holt has spent the past month tracking the Barack Obama roadshow across America. As the country votes for its new leader, he looks back on the campaign.

As I stepped off a crowded train in downtown St Louis last month and jostled for position among hordes of Americans, the noise and animated chaos began to grow.

A seemingly endless line of people stretched out of sight in each direction and the sidewalks were full of T-shirt stands, poster-sellers and campaigners pushing an array of badges and bumper stickers.

In two and a half hours the Democrat senator from Illinois, Presidential hopeful Barack Obama, was due to speak.

He was appearing under the St Louis Arch, an imposing and fantastic metal structure that symbolises the gateway to the Mid West alongside the banks of the Mississippi River.

St Louis is the largest city in one of the key battleground states, Missouri.

Neighbouring Obama’s home state of Illinois, it has voted Republican for the past two elections. This year it’s important and it’s up for grabs.

After about 30 minutes the line started to move and we snaked our way along the bank of the Mississippi and into the heart of the city. We doubled back around car parks and offices and to the edge of a riverside park. We had been moving slowly for almost two hours when in the distance someone got on a microphone.

The line broke.Immediately the police who had been desperately trying to keep the line in order were overpowered. People were running through the streets, through the park, even through ponds. Some people were sprinting, some were desperately dragging children behind them and others were struggling to keep hold of their armfuls of posters,T-shirts and badges. I ran too. At the entrance to the Gateway Arch Park the police had set up airport-style security. Completely powerless, officers could do nothing as thousands charged by. Carried along by the crowd I also ran through the checkpoints and up a grass hill. The view from the top stopped me in my tracks. Looking over towards the arch and the park below I realised I was watching something special. Police say 100,000 people turned out that day to see Obama speak. I stood on the brow of the hill, looking down on his supporters, trying to contemplate what was in front of me. There were more people here than would fit in any of our national stadiums. There were more posters than any pop concert. And this wasn’t pop, or rock, or sport. This was politics. 

The first time I saw Obama speak was in Las Vegas. I went to the arena early to see what time he was due to arrive. I was six hours early and already 3,000 people were in line, baking in the 40 degree desert heat. I doused myself in sunscreen, accepted the free water from an Obama volunteer, and waited. Fourteen thousand people turned out to see him that day – the first time I had realised it was celebrity politics.

I first gained an interest in the US electoral system when I was a student at Shrewsbury Sixth Form. As part of our politics A-Level a year of the course looked across the Atlantic. 

I was also lucky enough to travel to Washington DC with the class. But no matter how much theory I learned and how much I had followed American politics on TV, nothing could prepare me for the grandeur of being among so many Obama supporters. Last week I travelled to Chicago to visit his campaign headquarters.

Posters adorned the walls of the plush Michigan Avenue offices, promising hope and calling for change. The offices were modern and open-plan, colourful and frenzied. I didn’t see anyone over the age of 30. 

The biggest department was without question media relations, confirming that this election is driven by the Press. When I was at Washington University for the debate between the Vice Presidential nominees Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, the campus was over-run. 

Hundreds of TV trucks were in place, helicopters circled endlessly overhead and the football field became a fast-growing garden  of satellite dishes.

I have spent five months travelling around the USA this year and it is very clear that America is a country divided.

Everyone on the Obama trail is enamoured by this young charismatic politician who’s promising change in difficult times. But even though Barack Obama can pull a crowd of 100,000 people with just three days’ notice, the election is not in the bag. 

I’ve only seen this level of fervour in uprisings or civil rights marches, not in Western democracies during a regular election. It seems miles from our own politics. But this, realistically, is not a regular election.

Despite the worldwide financial crisis, the issue raised more than any other among the American people seemed to be race. 

Just 45 years have past since Martin Luther King Jnr gave his “I have a dream” speech in Washington, when equal rights in America did not exist. 

Today, voters in the US have their first ever chance to vote for an African-American for President. 

Regardless of the outcome today, over more than 9,000 miles and 17 states I have seen more people energised and involved in politics than ever before. It will be one for the history books, and I can proudly say, I was there.