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The only appropriate words for my day on Thursday is OMG. It was a long day, following many late nights and early mornings through the convention, but it was well worth it. Especially when I got to see my man, Barack Obama at the Illinois Women's Institute for Leadership and Illinois Democratic Women luncheon. Yes, this is just how I roll. Okay it was really more like luck, but more on that below.
The morning started with the Illinois Delegation breakfast, which was a good cap to the week of the convention. I had missed the breakfast the day before, which was a great shame because Speaker Michael Madigan and Governor Rod Blagojevic hugged it out (if you are from Illinois you would understand why this is such an unbelievable event, along the lines of pigs flying). But I was not disappointed because there was more hugging on Thursday involving Mayor Daley.
Following the breakfast I did some last minute souvenir shopping (you can't have too many Barack to the Future buttons or stuffed donkeys) and then attended the Illinois Women's Institute for Leadership and Illinois Democratic Women luncheon. I am an alumni of the IWIL program (class of 2005!) so I was excited to get to an event being hosted by the organization during the convention. I got to see some old colleagues, and was planning on leaving early to get over to Invesco Stadium. I ate my salad and then my chicken entre (because that is always what we eat at these things) and was getting impatient waiting for my tiramisu to arrive. I was contemplating leaving, but I ended up being really glad that my dessert took a long time to come.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan was doing the introductory remarks to the group, and I thought her speech was pretty interesting. She is well spoken (she IS a lawyer, after all), and she she was talking a lot about party unity and was doing a good job of rallying the troops. in closing, she said something along the lines of "well, I have been talking for a long time, but what I am about to say now will make it worth it. We are very lucky to be from Illinois, the state of the next president of the United States, Barack Obama -- and HE'S HERE!"
Controlled chaos immediately erupted with women (and a few random men) jumping from their seats and looking all around to see where Barack was coming in from. He went to the front podium and addressed the crowd with a few comments. He stressed the importance of women to the Democratic Party and the greatness of IWIL and IDW before stepping down to shake hands and take pictures. Since it was a small group, pretty much everyone got some face time.
When Barack saw me he asked how law school was going. When I told him that I was not the NDLSC president, he smiled and said "so law school is working out then." He seemed very excited about what we are doing with NDLSC, and we were able to take a (very poorly taken) photo. I will see if I can get it up on here so you can see that neither of us apparently knew where the camera was.
The Barack sighting was a good start to a day full of Obamania. More on the acceptance speech later.
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