The merchandise is overwhelming. Street vendors line themselves along the sidewalks across the capitol city and scream clever rhymes into the crowd, doing their best to convince onlookers to buy their Obama keychains, laminated poster reprints, foam fingers, action figures or clothes for dogs and cats, rather than the same stuff that is sold by the hustler three tables over.

"My daddy was a hustler!" shouts a vendor selling hats and gloves. "I got a hustler's blood!"

From car flags and coffee cups to every variety of Obama buttons, people were dressing themselves from head to toe in Obama swag.

"Ooh, I don't have THAT pin," gawks a woman wearing a ski hat already covered in similar buttons.

On the Metro, Washington D.C's underground transit system, the walls are covered with recognizable product ads alluding to Obama's grassroots campaign slogan, "Change you can believe in."

Pepsi's circular logo suddenly resembles Obama's sunrise "O" symbol and the solid color ads simply bear words like "Change," "Hope," "Joy," "Together" and "Optimism."

An IKEA advertisement featuring a picture of a futon surrounded by a frame of blue stars, depicts the message "Change Begins in the Home."

This shouldn't come as too much of a shock, seeing that 93 percent of D.C.'s population voted for him on Election Day, and even those in opposition have kept their mouths shut.

Then again, perhaps their voices are drowned out by the two or three million inauguration visitors.

It hasn't been uncommon for people riding the Metro to burst out into chants of "Yes we can" or "Si se puede" - the Spanish equivalent and a representation of D.C's heavy Latino community.

A pre-inaugural celebratory concert at the Lincoln Memorial Sunday afternoon entitled "We are One" included acts like Bruce Springsteen, Mary J. Blige, Bon Jovi, U2, Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks and Steve Carell.

Near the concert, Washington D.C. artist Travis Pfeifer sold his own pop art styled screen printed paintings of Obama. One in particular was intended to resemble Argentine Marxist Revolutionary Che Guevara.

"They're both big icons at pivotal moments in their country's history," Pfeifer explained. "This has offended some people, but they were both able to unify a lot of people and that's special regardless of how you look at it."

"People wear a picture of someone's else's face on their shirt and they don't necessarily know the depth of what that stands for," he said. "People simply will carry his image. They are identifying with that person when they don't know what it means."

In the streets, little kids are on leashes, people pay $2 to have their photo taken (with their own cameras) with a life sized cutout of Barack Obama, and preachers hold Bibles and signs, shouting to pedestrians reminders that Obama is not a messiah.

Though they shiver at the freezing temperatures - 35 degrees is freezing by Washington D.C. standards - the people still have fought traffic on foot, setting new all-time records on the metro system. Many have broken down with emotion in the streets of D.C., knowing that this is the closest they will ever get to the new president.

The celebrations are completely over the top, ecstatic and filled with hope.

"Thomas Jefferson said every generation needs a revolution," said Ben Robinson, a vendor from Chicago who sells T-shirts. "And this one just might be it."

studentlife@cm-life.com