Watching The Crowd

I'm watching the live feed on HD live-stream on my laptop. As the music plays, the cameras are panning through the crowd. Godammit but the Obama peeps have done it again. I get it now. As the regular folk get caught by the camera, you see them go nuts and wave their flags; you see black, white, yellow, young, old, men, women, gays, straights chatting and milling as they would at a concert or sports event. It normalizes an otherwise alienating political event. When you absorb the visuals, it doesn't come off like a political convention; it comes off as a mass gathering of ordinary people.

Somewhere, Saul Alinsky is grinning.

(Photo: Robyn Beck/Getty.)