Packed like sardines
Today Nirav and I walked around D.C. and gawked like the tourists that we are, at least for now. As both of us are here we seem to be looking at things through the same eyes but with different ends in mind. Coming from the Obama campaign, Nirav is determined to move out to D.C. after he finishes up school, even if he doesn’t have a job lined up. A bunch of his friends and co-workers from Iowa and various places he worked over the past year for the campaign have great jobs involved either in the transition or directly with the president elect’s office. A few people he knows are even driving people around like John McCain, Colin Powell, David Plouffe and David Axelrod. This was a job that Nirav could have been doing if he had come out to D.C. to volunteer for the week of the inauguration.
On the otherhand, I stopped by the office of the group that I worked with (Talk Radio News Service) when I went to the Democratic National Convention in August. My boss and friend, Dawn, explained a little bit about how things were going and what the new interns were working on. They were covering things like protests, rallies, and large events throughout the city. Unfortunately they missed the shoe throwing movement that happened at 11 a.m. which ended with only one person successfully getting a shoe over the White House fence, or so she told me.
It was strange to see the stark differences in the things that the media and the campaign are worrying about at this hectic time. Both a working towards an end goal but both in their own strange ways handle things very differently. Nirav noticed this when we went to the TRNS office and I noticed it at the President Inauguration Commission (PIC) office.
The city right now is packed like sardines. Everywhere you walk there are people and everywhere you look there are more people/vendors. There is so much stuff that is being sold it is giving a stimulus package to D.C. as they work on reinvigorating the economy. The selling is like what I have seen in Denver and New York times 20.
I will add more later (plus some pictures) but we have to go back out on the town for the evening before the big day.
Tags: Axelrod, D.C., Denver, DNC, McCain, New York, Obama, Plouffe, Powell, Presidential Inauguration Commission, Talk Radio News Service, White House
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