Craddick escapes

craddick escapes, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

I've been doing a little shooting for the Texas Observer as part of my blogging duties. Last night I finally got a picture that I think stands out from the usual head-and-shoulders stuff common in covering politics.

Aesthetically, this picture may not be out of the ordinary, but, situationally, it came through in the clutch and captures succinctly the end of the drama in the Texas House last night.. It would take hours to explain what happened, but some specifics are in the blog post where the photo appears.

The topper is that I know I'm the only one who got this shot, since I was the lone photographer camped in this corner anticipating this moment. Luckily, one of my coworkers, Patrick Michels, who's a much better shooter than I am, was covering the general action on the floor, which freed me up to lie in wait.

Evidence of a Barack star

obama through the signs, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Some numbers on the Cowboy Barack photo below: Uploaded on Feb. 23 around 11 p.m., within 72 hours it had 1,096 views, 26 favs, 21 comments, and was, according to Flickr's algorithm, the third-most interesting picture I've taken. A good shot, yes, but I think the subject had more to do with it. The guy's mojo is really amazing. I'm not sure where it comes from, except that people our age (in Austin) are damn sick of Bush and want nothing much to do with The Hillary.

I was going to try to maybe sell the below image to a news service or to the campaign, but I see similar ones found their way to the wire. If you click on this Time story — which is pretty crappy, giving over an entire lengthy paragraph of unfavorable quotes to an admitted Hillary minion — you can actually see me in the very background of the picture (taken by a former Daily Texan coworker), upper-left-hand corner, all blurred out, wearing a brown shirt. Now that's blanket media coverage.

Barack Storms Texas

barack the cowboy, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Something like 20,000 people showed up for a rally today in Austin. Wild stuff. I was incredibly lucky to get this shot. He was only wearing the cowboy hat for like 10 seconds while wading through a throng of volunteers backstage after the speech.

Obamamania!

barack obama 5, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

As posted all over my Flickr stream and on Austinist, Barack Obama spoke last weekend at the Texas Book Festival to a crowd that packed the state Capitol's House of Reps chamber. The sense of excitement in the room was palpable, hundreds of people lined up for hours early for the chance to get their copy of The Audacity of Hope signed, and I see no reason to doubt that Obama will take a shot at the presidency in '08.

My impression: Even though he was obviously tired from his travels, he projected an air of calm confidence without arrogance that is both seemingly genuine and extremely magnetic. But he is no revolutionary. He is an anti-demagogue. And given people's growing dissatisfaction with today's political climate, he may be perfectly primed to ascend. As a guy sitting next to me said, "When he's in the room, you just get a sense of this big soul." The grandness of the term, applied to a man who's political persona revolves around modesty, reinforced that Obama has done something very smart, with this book and his political career. He has somehow come to represent hope.

There were, of course, many other good writers there, too. I'll try to get something up on the other panels I saw. Then again, listening to how both the flooding of Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 could have been prevented are decidely less fun to write about.

Mean Green Howard Dean, the Fundraising Machine

howard dean at scholz, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Shot at a fundraiser at a beergarten here in Austin. Quick observations:

– It was easy to see, even as he dished out base-catering boilerplate, how his charisma could have attracted so many supporters.
– He didn't take himself too seriously, even once jokingly imitating the few seconds before his "Yeeaaarrr!" moment.
– It was, however, a starstruck candidacy even before that sound bite: he's pretty short. Like, maybe 5'6". I vaguely remember reading somewhere that taller presidential candidates usually do better against shorter ones. I guess no one wants to describe their president as "impish."

On a personal note, even though I was shooting for Austinist, I wore my WaPo press badge so no one would give me any gruff. Then I had to check myself several times from offering polite applause whenever he said something I agreed with. It's a weird profession I've chosen.