On Sunday afternoon in Newton, on the second of four rallies of the day, Barack Obama is looser than he was in Knoxville, where he just couldn't end his appeal to Iowans, speaking longer than usual, perhaps sensing, rightly I think, that he wasn't closing the deal with the uncommited in the school auditorium. Newton is another school--Cardinals instead of Panthers--with about the same crowd, a couple of hundred, mostly married, mostly middle-class, mostly white people. As usual, there are babies, more than you might expect. Since it's later in the day, there are more press, at least 30 cameramen and 60 reporters, staring at laptops, scrolling PDA screens, and chatting among themselves while Senator Obama speaks. AP, The Washington Post, the foreign press and the major TV networks are here. Two gentlemen of the fourth estate, whose venue shall remain nameless, talk so loudly that it's hard to hear Obama. This is why I usually eschew the press corral. To be fair, we all know the current Obama stump speech by heart and could, in a pinch, recite it.
Tim Russert, in a shabby old barn jacket and specs, moves around the corral. The immediate reason for Russert becomes clear when Obama, toward the end of his speech, mentions Russert's presence and says that Russert has just interviewed him for Meet the Press . Perhaps Obama is chipper this afternoon because he senses that the interview has gone well. Or perhaps the reason is that his wife Michelle, after the Meet the Press interview, laid down the law. "We're not doing this again," she tells her husband. No more runs for the presidency. Exactly what prompted this ultimatum? Undoubtedly, we will know eventually (a reason in itself for such an ultimatum). Obama is happy to pass on this bit of conjugal chitchat to the crowd gathered in Newton Senior High School. Maybe it's a weight off his mind, for at this point, five days out from caucus, there's only so much he can do that he hasn't already done to win. It either happens, or it doesn't. It's this hint of fatalism that makes him so relaxed in Newton.
In her snatched moment of conversation with Barack, even as she is saying this is it, Michelle Obama makes the best case yet for an Obama presidency. She tells her husband, referring to the two of them, "We're not that far away from being normal. This is why you'd make a good president now."
Deftly, Obama uses the conversation with his wife, framed by the Russert bit, to answer a question from a woman who says that although her family is middle class, they don't have enough money and are falling behind. Obama talks to her at some length, balancing a recital of specific tax breaks he would institute for the middle class with a typically Barack outlook. "It's [the tax breaks] not going to solve all your problems, but it restores some balance, so that we [in this country] respect not just wealth but work." Now Obama repeats his wife's remarks and goes on to say, "Just six years ago, we were still struggling with student loans." He says they had credit card debt and no retirement fund. They lived in a small condo. He did the grocery shopping. Michelle shopped at Target. "She still loves Target," he says. "But let's face it," he goes on to say, "now I'm a senator and I've written a book." He lets the implications hang--including an implicit comparison with the Clintons as no longer "normal."
Since this is politics, Obama may be making the whole thing up. Maybe Michelle didn't say any such thing, or not quite so well. Maybe she didn't say it today but last February, and her husband has been telling the story ever since, but it's still good because the Newton folk haven't heard it. In ordinary people, it's the imperviousness to argument that's so hard for candidates to pierce. In the press, it's skepticism. Obama has made a good case in Newton. As I'm leaving, I listen to the retired couple ahead of me. The wife says, "I'm still for Hillary." Her husband, under his breath, gives her a low and gutteral harrumph.