Obama hours late to a rally in Salem, NH

The students waited more than three hours to hear from Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), but he spoke to an auditorium filled to capacity in Salem High School in Salem, N.H.

The overflow crowd packed into a gym down the hall to hear the audio from the 30-minute stump speech.
Obama was two hours late to the event, which was scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. He began speaking at about 6 p.m.

He apologized for his lateness, saying “it was partially my fault.”

“I’m running because of what Dr. King called ‘the fierce urgency of now,”’ Obama said. “The American people are responding to a call for change.”

Obama’s speech turned a few students in his favor, according to a voice vote taken on the bus after the speech.

But not all students approved of Obama’s performance.

“He was a good speaker. He convinced me that he was passionate and genuine, but there were holes in his speech,” Loretta Jacobs, a freshman special education major said. “I think he did not go into specifics.”

Freshman Jeff Ahking disagreed. “Those people were lacking hope,” he said.