Published: August 29, 2008 12:09 am         

Valley Obama supporters rally outside

TERRE HAUTE — “I’ve been all around the world and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Darrell Shouse remarked.

Standing in the parking lot at Fifth Street and Wabash Avenue Thursday night, with a crowd that swelled from 80 at 9:30 p.m. to more than 150 by 10:20 p.m., the Terre Haute native and others watched Illinois Sen. Barack Obama accept the Democratic nomination as its candidate for the American presidency.

Hoosiers gathered at more than 180 convention watch parties across Indiana to watch the week-long Democratic National Convention wrap up with Obama’s acceptance speech Thursday night.

Terre Haute City Council President Todd Nation (D-4th) ran laptop computer connections to a video projector, live streaming the acceptance speech up onto the wall of Obama’s local office at 509 Wabash Avenue.

“I think it’s going great,” Nation said just prior to the speech, noting his hope that Obama’s speech got under way before the light thunderclaps heard in the distance brought rain to the event.

But the sparse sprinkles felt were hardly noticed as the participants, ranging from college students to young children to senior citizens, spread out in lawn chairs with bags of popcorn in hand, cheering as Obama spoke live from Denver.

“What does it say about your judgment,” Obama asked the nationwide crowd of his Republican opponent, Arizona Sen. John McCain, “when you think [U.S. President] George Bush was right 90 percent of the time?”

The local crowd cheered with applause loudly – as did the several young people wearing Indiana State University shirts – when Obama said “college tuition is out of reach.”

For Shouse, a Vigo County business owner, the economic screeching of the past several years has been problematic at work and at home.

“For the last eight years, Bush hasn’t had the best interests of America,” he said, noting his hope that Obama would bring the needs of the working class to the forefront of national debates.

Nation encouraged participants to sign up at the campaign office to help make phone calls and register voters, introducing the Obama’s local staff to the crowd and thanking ISU’s Democrat Club.

“It’s so important for all of us to find a way to help in this final stretch of the campaign,” he said.

Brian Boyce can be reached at (812) 231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.