Photos after the jump.

Though I was unable to attend Obama's Lebanon speech yesterday, I more than made up for it in Hanover this morning. Obama spoke to what looked to be around 600 Dartmouth students and a handful of locals at 9am in the College gym. (I am, by the way, horrendous at estimating numbers, so don't hold me to that estimate.) That may seem like a low turnout for an Obama event, but remember that this is a college of 4,000 students, we hate to do anything before 10AM, and that class started yesterday. The gym was a new venue for the College's primary events - only Bill Clinton had used it before, just last night. I showed up at 6:30 to volunteer, and by a happy series of events wound up standing directly behind the Senator on stage, wearing both an Obama button and a Biden button. This was Obama's final planned event until tonight's watch party, so will likely get frequent television play throughout the day. Larry Davis was apparently in the back, though I couldn't see him from the stage under the glare.

Several dozen students had already gathered to volunteer when I arrived, with several more waiting outside to get in - I was happily amazed, given students' aversion to waking up. Things went much more smoothly than the last time I helped with a campus Obama event, in May. An independent Dartmouth student introduced Michelle Obama, who introduced her husband. He gave his typical stump speech, tweaked only in that he's added a section about the Iowa turnout and results. His voice wasn't quite as hoarse as it has been over the last few days, an encouraging sign. He asked who was still undecided, and a couple dozen folks raised their hands. He also made a real push for Republicans and Independents. Though the Upper Valley is an Edwards stronghold, I would imagine Obama will take Hanover pretty handily. He pointed out that in Iowa, as many young voters showed up as senior citizens, and I predict that happening here, too. Obama aside, isn't that wonderful for democracy? And it only took MTV 16 years to get it done.

Unfortunately, one audience member fainted in the middle of the speech. Obama stopped the speech, told the crowd to move back and give her space, and passed his water bottle down. An EMT showed up, and ten minutes later she was taken out on a stretcher. Obama stood on the corner of the stage, mostly silent except for the occasional, "It's ok, everybody; she looks alright." I am told that this speech aired live - I didn't catch what channel - and that it continued whilst Obama just stood there. I put my camera away, but of course the press photographers clicked away harder than ever at the woman on the floor. Hotline has a story on the faint. Apparently Larry Davis yelled a joke about Sinatra to lighten the mood as they wheeled her out - I do recall hearing something, but I assumed it was a shouting EMT. My own thought was, "Wow, maybe the RFK comparisons are appropriate after all."

Many students headed straight from the event to the polling place - more on that in my next post. `Twas my third election, including an Idaho school bond and the NH midterm, and I checked Obama for President and wrote in Joe Biden for Vice President (an item actually on the ballot with two names I'd never heard of.) After leaving the polling place, I was approached by a cameraman for BarackTV, so who knows, maybe I'll wind up in their GOTV video.

Here's a brief interview with sophomore Shaun Stewart, the head of Dartmouth for Obama and Communications Director for the College Democrats of New Hampshire. I wanted to post it later today along with an interview with one of the campus Edwards leaders, but they are both campaigning in Claremont - more on that in my next post. To balance things out, I will interview one of them tomorrow about the NH results and where Edwards goes from here and post it as one of my final NH entries. Also, I had initially planned to go to Obama's Nashua watch party, but given that I haven't eaten much lately (I'm fixing that right now!) and have gotten 8 hours of sleep in three days, I might scratch that and watch with Dartmouth for Obama, which of course is nothing worse posting about.