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A thousand rally for Obama at Eisenhower Park

BY WILLIAM MURPHY | william.murphy@newsday.com

6:36 PM EDT, October 15, 2008

About 1,000 union and political activists whooped and shouted their way through a late afternoon rally Wednesday in Eisenhower Park, less than two miles from the site of the presidential debate.

"I don't think they can hear you at Hofstra. Is labor in the house?" Joseph Durso, president of the Long Island Federation of Labor, shouted to the crowd.

His comment drew a rolling roar from the crowd at the Harry Chapin Lakeside Theater. "We're here to show Barack Obama and Joe Biden that we're going to lead the party in New York to victory," Durso said.

Musical acts were scheduled to include Bruce Hornsby, David Crosby, Graham Nash and a string of lesser-known performers. Local singer Arlon Bennett kicked of the musical portion with his own politically-tinged composition, "Be the Change."

Rally organizers who helped to stage the event said they hoped to use it as a tool that would energize Democrats who are not politically active and get them involved in the Obama campaign in the state.

The latest Siena Poll, taken in the last week of September, shows Obama ahead by 22 points in the state.

Speakers urged members of the audience to stop at blue tents to make telephone calls to voters in the swing states of Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Eleanor Goldstein, 71, a retired school teacher from East Meadow, stood under the shade of a small tree as she punched in telephone numbers on her personal cell phone.

"In 2004, Bush won Ohio by nine votes in every precinct," she said, reading off a script she had picked up from the Obama campaign at one of the blue tents.

The emcees for the event were Jon Cooper, majority leader of the Suffolk County Legislature and Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi.

"We weren't always all together, but we're together now," said Suozzi, who had at first supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) in the Democratic primary.

The sponsors of the event included the Long Island Federation of Labor and many local unions, the New York State, Nassau and Suffolk County Democratic Parties, the local chapter of the National Jewish Democratic Council and the Pakistani-American Democratic Club of New York.

The rally site was in a bipartisan setting - in an inadvertent way. Eisenhower Park is named for the late Republican president; the Harry Chapin Lakeside Theater is named for the late singer/activist and Huntington resident who was a delegate to the 1976 Democratic National Convention, and was on the Hofstra board.