Video by Chris Dudley

ALBUQUERQUE — A sea of humanity greeted Barack Obama like a victor Saturday night.

But the Democratic presidential nominee was quick to try to dispel any sense of overconfidence in the large crowd that effectively turned Johnson Field on the campus of University of New Mexico into a large megaphone.

“Change never comes without a fight,” Obama told the crowd that had turned out to see him 10 days before the Nov. 4 election.

Obama added that the “Say-anything, do-anything politics” had taken over. “The ugly phone calls. The careless, outrageous comments.”

The crowd booed.

“You don’t have to boo. You just have to vote,” the Democratic presidential nominee said.

And with that Obama hit on the central theme of the night: Vote. More specifically, vote early.

Obama followed in the steps of preceding speakers when he spoke about the importance of early voting, especially among Latinos.

“You hold this election in your hands,” Obama declared, speaking to the Latino voters in the crowd. Obama said theirs will be the swing vote “all across the country.”

The crowd, variously estimated between 25,000 and 45,000 in what may have been one of the largest political rallies in New Mexico history, alternated between giddy enthusiasm and earnest attentiveness as Obama moved back and forth from the problems of today to things as they could be.

He spoke of investing $15 billion a year in alternative energy technologies, of putting 2 million more Americans to work rebuilding roads and laying broadband, of tackling problems in the country’s health care system and of paying teachers higher salaries — all lines in his standard stump speech.

“This is not going to be easy. George Bush has dug a deep hole for us,” Obama said.

The crowd clearly had turned out to see the man leading in the presidential polls who if elected, would become the first non-white elected president. And it apparently liked the man they saw. On several occasions Saturday night the crowd’s roars reverberated several blocks away.

Besides voting early, Obama hit on other typical talking points, at one moment asking those in the crowd to demonstrate by a show of hands how many made less than $250,000 per year. Thousands of hands — representing the vast majority of the crowd — shot up. Obama has said on numerous occasions that his tax plan would not raise taxes on anyone who made less than $250,000 a year.

Obama also went after the economic policies of his Republican opponent John McCain, who stumped in Albuquerque earlier on Saturday morning and who visited Mesilla near Las Cruces on Saturday afternoon.

“John McCain hasn’t been a maverick, he’s been a sidekick when it comes to President Bush’s economic policies,” Obama said to an approving roar from the crowd.

Warming to the subject, Obama noted that McCain had said that he was nothing like George W. Bush on economics, had indeed opposed Bush on several measures and would change the current economic policies. Alluding to his standard stump-speech line that that McCain had voted with Bush 90 percent of the time on economic policies, Obama quipped “John McCain is so angry, so opposed that John McCain decided to stick it to President Bush 10 percent of the time.”

Roars again.

Obama also noted that McCain had originally criticized President Bush’s tax cuts as irresponsible but now supported them. “He was right then. And I’m right now.”

But it was the importance of voting to which the Illinois senator repeatedly returned. He reminded the crowd that Democratic presidential candidates had come close in recent elections but come up short.

“We cannot fail. Not this time,” he said. “This is our moment.”

Obama currently leads in polling in both New Mexico and nationwide.

The famous Latino comedian George Lopez preceded Obama and roused the crowd into deafening roars with a comedic, yet on-message speech to the crowd. Lopez urged Latinos in the crowd to vote early because, he said, Latinos are always late.

“We’ve got a chance to be something we’ve never been before,” Lopez said, “early.”

Lopez also spoke about his love for New Mexico, about being to the top of the Sandia Mountains, “And not on the Tram,” he said. Instead, he went the “Latino way” — on foot.

Just about every high-profile Democrat attended Saturday’s event, with many speaking. U.S. Senate candidate Tom Udall received a warm welcome, with the large crowd chanting his name while he spoke.

“It’s certainly the right time for the Bush season to come to an end,” he declared.

Gov. Bill Richardson introduced Lopez, and asked the crowd, “Sí se puede?” The crowd answered back in a deafening collective voice, “Sí se puede.”

Congressional candidate Martin Heinrich said people need to vote for Obama because of their children.

“I know he will make the best decisions for my two little boys,” he declared.

But the reason the crowd was there was clearly Obama. People started lining up early in the afternoon for the evening event, and the line stretched for more than a mile from Johnson Field through the University of New Mexico campus and beyond.

Obama also addressed the robocalls and other negative campaign tactics that McCain has been using, saying the “slash and burn” politics of the last three decades have no place in today’s politics.