Obama To Take Big Pre-Inauguration Railroad Tour
By Eric Kleefeld -
The Presidential Inaugural Committee has hit on a novel way of reducing the pressure that the enormous crowd expected to show up on Inauguration Day will put on Washington: Have Barack Obama take a pre-inaugural railroad tour that will allow people to show up to view him and Joe Biden at multiple locations.
"As part of the most open and accessible Inauguration in history, we hope to include as many Americans as possible who wish to participate, but can't be in Washington," said the committee's executive director Emmett S. Beliveau, in the press release.
Obama will hold an event in Philadelphia the Saturday before the inauguration, then be joined by Joe Biden at an event in Wilmington, Delaware, with the two then proceeding to another rally in Baltimore, Maryland. It seems reasonable to expect that as the train heads to D.C., crowds could very well line the whole railroad to see them go by.
Bear in mind that the inauguration is expected to have millions of people trying to attend. Every person who can show up to the pre-inaugural events, or even catch a glimpse of the train going by, is somebody who won't necessarily feel they have to go to Washington that Tuesday.