http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/us/politics/24rally.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=obama%20minnesota&st=cse
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/105608303.html?page=1&c=y
The Dayton rally marks an event that I should have known I was getting myself into but was blinded by the fact that the president of the United States would be in attendance and it made me forget what this really was, a political rally. For some reason in my mind I did not make that connection that the President is the leader of the party and that to protect his own interests he must go out and campaign. I was just mesmerized by the fact the President was going to be speaking so I decided to go. More on my views of the rally later…the sources I have that represent the event of Obama coming to the University of Minnesota on Saturday are The New York Times, The Star Tribune, and myself.
To start out with The New York Times it is important to know where they are coming from. The New York Times is considered to be a major national liberal source of media who endorsed Obama in the 2008 election. So, from what I have learned about media in my 18 years, take it all with a grain of salt. The image that The New York Times portrays glorifies the field house in ways that I did not know possible. The only other time I was in the field house was when I was getting fed my lunch during Welcome Week and the way the picture shows the Field House makes it look nothing like the place where they herded freshman to eat food. So based off of the initial visual image of the rally for lack of a better analogy it makes Obama look like a god. The article itself is short and to the point throwing in facts like: “Unlike many other races across the country where polls show Republicans with an edge, in Minnesota, Mr. Dayton, a former United States senator, is polling ahead of Tom Emmer, a Republican, and Tom Horner of the Independence Party.” And “a capacity crowd of 8,500.” I tried to look for a conservative view from a national level but was unable to find one that was at least close to the same length as The New York Times.
Now to the local paper, the Star Tribune. The Star Tribune covered the event in much more detail giving out information as to what even the other candidates were doing at the time of the rally. They also mentioned that Obama was making a sweep through mostly blue states and that Dayton was the best chance at a candidate of the Democratic Party to take over a governorship previously held by a Republican. Some things they included in their article came down to specific things including my favorite quote of Obama, “Sippin’ on a slurpie.” And also “‘You have a chance to defy the conventional wisdom,’ he said, as the crowd of more than 11,000 broke into chants of ‘Yes, we can!’”
So to me these representations of me for the most part seem fairly accurate. From my perspective much of what was said in these two articles actually happened; it is hard to misinterpret a political rally, everyone knows that their primary goal is to get votes and in this case for Mark Dayton. One of my favorite parts of the rally was seeing Al Franken he joked about how many people were in there stating something along the lines of “7,000 according to fire marshals.” Hold up…What? But I thought…The New York Times said 8,500 people and then the Star Tribune said 11,000, but then Al Franken’s first hand account was 7,000 plus. My first hand account rules that if I can’t extend my arms out completely in a location the first number I think of is just a lot. So we have 7,000+, 8,500, 11,000, and a lot…
The ways these sources have represented history to me for the most part seem very accurate. The poetics of The New York Times is obviously to support Obama and Democrats, which, through the picture represents a way of bringing up the democratic cause. The Star Tribune is much more objective based off of the information they provided about the other candidates and also is given because it is local whereas people reading the New York Times in Texas probably don’t care that Tom Horner was tailgating at the Gopher game. At any rate the most interesting part to me is that even though both sources were present at the rally the simple fact of how many people were in attendance do not match up. So again when reading history, everything must be taken with a grain of salt and maybe a slurpie.
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