Pre-Primary Preparation: National Media Cements Obama’s Role as a Star in 2006 (2006)

is now sliding backwards as the hoops for representative democracy slip away. Coming still tonight an hand tater Fleming essay on what the holiday lights reveal and some perspective on that political light in the sky called Barack Obama. NewsHour correspondent Kwame Holman begins our Obama story at one of several stops Barack Obama made in New Hampshire yesterday governor John Lynch summed up the impact the Illinois senator was having during his first trip to this Mecca for all presidential hopefuls. We originally scheduled the rolling stones for this party but we canceled them when we realized that senator Obama would sell more tickets. Everywhere he went, Obama was mobbed by curious residents who approached him on the street and by a horde of media, 25 television cameras, 150 members of the press. For many at this coffee shop in Portsmouth, it didn't seem to matter that their states

first in the nation primary still is more than a year away or that Obama hasn't even announced he will run for president. Everyone wanted a piece of him. On a Sunday morning book signing event, 900 people jammed a ballroom to hear the senator speak tickets ran out in 30 minutes last week. I think that there's a moment that we are living through in our history right now where we've got a series of very important decisions to make and we have the opportunity to make them not as Democrats and not as Republicans but as Americans. And it's that promise that I'm most excited about. Many waited more than an hour to shake his hand and get him to sign a copy of his book, The Audacity of Hope. Awaiting her turn, Martha Ron echoed what many local residents told us, Obama connects with them. As he's one of us, he's America, he's not rich in the wealthy and special engines, there's one of us, he's awesome.

Another Portsmouth resident, Dennis McKinley said, Obama could help the nation regain some of the stature it's lost around the world in recent years. I'm sick at heart with much of what's happening but if I allow that to prevail and I fail to recover hope, I mean how can I proceed? I think that's what he's saying and he's trying to set the table emotionally and perhaps as he said reached to recover and excavate the values of sort of a spiritual recovery. Not so fast, said Fred Hurwitz of nearby Dover, Obama has served just two years in the US Senate. I think that speaks well and I think that's good to hear for a change and I like to see what a center actually is able to get accomplished. Still, even New Hampshire's most veteran political observer said there is something different about the reception Obama received. Jim Demure's ran statewide operations for Dick Gepphardt and Al Gore. He traveled stop to stop with Obama on Sunday. Everyone we've stopped, people recognize him, he gets out of the car, he's mobbed by people. It has been something that I've never seen.

I've been with a lot of presidential candidates a year before the New Hampshire primary and most people don't even know who they are at this point. In Manchester, Obama headlined an afternoon rally for the State Democratic Party where 1,500 people paying $25 apiece packed to the Renaissance Hotel Ballroom. It is an honor and a privileged introduce our guest of honor this evening, Senator Barack Obama. During his 25 minute speech delivered without notes, Obama addressed the extraordinary attention he's been getting. Obviously it's flattering to get a lot of attention. Although I must say it's baffling particularly to my wife. And he deflected the focus away from his possible presidential run. The reason that I'm getting so much attention right now has less to do with me and more to do with you. I think to some degree I've become a shorthand or a symbol or a stand-in for now of a spirit that the last election in New Hampshire represented.

And it's a spirit that says we are looking for something different. We want something to know. Afterward audience members again were impressed. That's about responsibility. That's important. His own responsibility, the responsibility of politicians and the responsibility of the citizen. We haven't heard that decades, a generation. But some thought Obama's race would be a limiting factor should he decide to run. I think there's still too much racial safety. Others disagree. There might be a few people in America from whom that would be an issue, but I just don't hear it. Obama has said he is weighing all considerations and will make a decision on running after the first of the year.