On October 19th 2008, THE SARASOTA WOMEN FOR OBAMA-BIDEN, A grassroots group formed three weeks ago drew over 7,500 marchers of all ages, income groups, and ethnicity's to a successful walk across the John Ringling Bridge as an outpouring of support for Obama-Biden. The march began at noon from the north end of Marina Jack's parking area where thousand's of Obama supporters gathered for a rally before the walk across the bridge and back.

 

Bridges seemed the ideal symbol of Barack Obama's candidacy, according to organizers Cynthia Craig, a local massage therapist with a master's degree in international relations and Janet Guttridge, a retired journalist and businesswoman. "Bridges unite opposing sides and get us over troubled waters," Guttridge said.

 

Guttridge and Craig came up with the plan three weeks ago and were delighted to discover through Internet research that bridge rallies for Obama have already taken place on famous or scenic bridges in forty countries spanning five continents. Guttridge contacted Obama Bridge Project founder Meredith Wheeler, an American expatriate living in rural France, who developed the idea to encourage the six million Americans living, working and studying abroad to register to vote.

 

Inspired by the concept, groups have gathered at the Pont Neuf in Paris, the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, the Nelson Mandela bridge in Johannesburg, abomb-damaged bridge in Lebanon and many other bridges - from Istanbul to Tokyo, Buenos Aires to Vancouver.

 

"The enthusiasm of Americans around the world for Barack Obama comes winging through the bridge photos," says Wheeler.  "His election would do so much to restore the tarnished image of the United States," she added.  Wheeler organized three of the nine bridge photos done in France.  "In my area we have everything from the biggest bridge in the world (the Viaduct of Millau) to gemlike
medieval bridges - so we decided to do both extremes."

 

The Ringling Bridge rally organizers are expecting to draw several hundred participants, despite the short amount of time since the idea was formulated. 
There was a "great surge of enthusiasm" to the printed flyers,  informational emails, and word of mouth and Guttridge revealed that "I received a phone call from a woman in Orlando who received an email about our rally from a friend of hers in Norway." Craig spoke to a stranger wearing an Obama T-shirt in a Post Office line and recruited her to deliver 400 flyers door-to-door in the woman's neighborhood.

 

The Obama Bridge Project is a rousing success in Sarasota, FL and the Bridges for Obama-Biden concept has been successfully launched in places like in Minnesota, California, Ohio, New Hampshire, Indiana, and Hawaii.

 

"One of our volunteers secured the donated services of a helicopter pilot who took a photographer up with him to shoot photos of our group on the bridge,"
said Guttridge.  "And as luck would have it, the helicopter also included a TV production crew from Germany's second largest television network who are coincidentally in town to film a documentary about the effects of the current mortgage and financial crisis on the middle class, and how those events may affect
the upcoming election."

 

The rally, originally planned to show the support of women for Obama's and Biden's candidacy was expanded to include men, and represented a wide diversity of Obama-Biden supporters," Guttridge said.

 

On Sunday afternoon we made history in Sarasota, FL. as the largest Bridges for Obama-Biden rally in the world. There is no doubt that this rally broke new ground for successfully gathering so many people together in such a short time to an event in Sarasota. FL.