Local Democrat Nelson awash in sea of humanity at Inaugural

January 20th, 2009 at 12:15pm Chuck Sweeny

The mood on around the nation’s Capitol building was electric, exciting and every other kind of superlative, said Rockford attorney John Nelson, who was lucky enough to have one of the “orange” tickets to the Inaugural ceremony where Barack Obama was sworn in as the nation’s 44th president. “It’s a pretty good view, actually,” said Nelson.

“You talk about a mass of humanity, well this is it,” Nelson said as he found his seat.  He’s kind of a VIP because he’s the 16th Congressional District’s Democratic central committeeman, and an elector who cast one of Illinois’ electoral votes for Obama in December.

“This is unbelievable, there’s a light-hearted mood and I’m meeting people from all over the country,” Nelson said.

Rich Carter, U.S. Rep. Don Manzullo’s press secretary, didn’t have as good luck getting to the big show. “We were stuck in a security line so long that when it got to be 30 minutes before the ceremony was to start, we realized that we weren’t going to get in.”
So , Carter retreated to an indoor location to watch. The Republican congressman had better luck — as a House member he had a VIP ticket.

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