Knoxville? No, I'm not talking Tennessee, but Knoxville, Iowa, a county seat, as well as home to 3M and Hormel plants and a VA hospital suffering from cutbacks. Barack Obama spoke Sunday to a room of 300 at Knoxville Middle School, where he tried to convince the many undecideds to caucus for him. The speech was classic Barack. Undoubtedly sensing that he had not closed the deal, Obama kept on, long past what sounded like a point of closure: "Bill Clinton was right then, and I'm right now."
Finally, Obama began to take questions. Out in the hall, his aides, now wearing Masonic-looking gold loyalty pins, talked on cellphones, flicked Blackberries or leaned against the concrete block wall for a few ZZZZs. Young white guys, hip in skinny jeans and pin-striped suit jackets, pushed in and out of the auditorium. As Obama took a question from a woman leaning towards Romney, an old woman out in the hall with the overflow crowd, with tears in her eyes, turned away, saying to her son, "I wanted to ask him my question." She is discouraged because she can no longer stand, and there is no room in the auditorium--although several of the press seats, in fact, are empty. There is something about this woman. I look around for Obama staff. All talking. I hurry after the woman and her son, tapping her on the shoulder. She turns to me, her bright blue eyes full. "I met FDR," she said. "I'm 85 years old, and I haven't seen anybody who measures up to FDR since then. Obama is our new FDR. He can be that. I just know it."
Turning the woman around, I hustle her back to the hall and approach Jen, an Obama aide from national headquarters. We had been talking minutes earlier. "Jen, here is woman who knew FDR and sees Obama as the new FDR. She has a great question for Obama. Can't you get her in to ask it?"
After some commotion, the old woman finally gets a seat, but she never gets a chance to ask her question. I know that because I see her later in McDonald's and ask.
This missed opportunity to hear from this woman, and to see how the exchange might influence people still on the fence about Obama, might not seem like such a big deal. But how many other people are showing up and not being inspired by these gatherings? Obama is in the race of his life. The Democrats are locked in a three-way race here in Iowa. Every caucuser counts.
It's not just the old woman who moves me. For the first time, here in Iowa, I begin to see the drawbacks for Obama of his superstardom. In the Knoxville Middle School auditorium, at least a quarter of the seats are press. So when Obama asks his audience, if they are undecided to raise their hands, and 40% of the room complies, that's a hefty number, even by my shaky math.
Later I ask Obama staff how many people the auditorium holds. Nobody knows. Finally, I get the information from a local woman. Seems like staff would want to be able to figure out how many undecideds are in the room, wouldn't you think?
So Obama has the mojo, with the cool young staffers and the CNN and CSPAN mobile trucks parked out front. But how many of these folk are going forth on a frosty night less than a week from now to help decide who is the next president of the United States?