On a cold February night Barack Obama paced a hastily constructed stage in midtown Manhattan. His volume
muted. His energy ostensibly lagging. Barack Obama talks to a large audience that slices sharply through racial, generational and social divides. Weeks from now, Obama’s campaign will release their first quarter
fundraising report. Establishment press will be dumbfounded over the news that this local Midwestern
politician with no national fundraising base had raised $25 million hard earned American dollars.

They will spend hours of cable television time debating how he did it without referencing nights like tonight.
There will be no discussion of the repetitive challenge Barack Obama faces when standing in front of crowds with visions of his televised triumphs dancing through their minds, or of the constant pressure on this man to be sharp, focused,witty and seductive. They will not talk about tonight. Especially since on this night Obama doesn't appear to be particularly sharp, focused, witty or seductive. Yet still he is more charismatic, more magnetic, and more eloquent than any politician has the right to be and his words, though muted, clearly
reflect the hyper-intelligent mind from which they spring.

But the audience is hoping for the “King-on-the-steps-of-the-Lincoln Memorial” speech or the “mighty-God-in-
the-Blue-States” Democratic Convention speech or, failing those two, at least an impassioned reading of one
of the more aspirational passages from his best-selling books. Instead they get what their $100 dollars
afforded them: Obama succinctly running through a to-do list of boiler plate Democratic issues - health
care…the socio-economic gap…timetables for withdrawal from Iraq - and the now familiar fawning over wife
and children. His best lines don’t fall flat but one can see where the edges are beginning to fray…

“What’s absent is not the technology but the leadership, the political will”
“Can’t do, won’t do, won’t even try to do style of government”

The resultant applause is more than polite but less than deafening. It is a respectful reaction that
demonstrates that- though every member of the motley gathering of frat boys, Wall Street suits, yuppies, buppies, bohos, upper-east siders, trustafarians, and political dissidents wants to be transformed- there is a
shared understanding that it is a cold night in February and miles to go before the already tired man before
them sleeps. As diverse as his audience is, everyone seems to understand that Obama will have to repeat
this scenario day after day after day after day. Wash. Lather. Repeat.

But it is because so many have invested their hopes for the future in him that this plan has been set before
him. To take advantage of his supernova status Obama must bring his presence to the people. And take his
presence to the people. And then take his presence to the people some more. It is more than simply the task
of several lifetimes, it his lot. This gargantuan load of carrying the divergent dreams of a growing, and in many
cases previously unengaged, constituency to the troth begs the question…

“Can that skinny frame carry all that weight?”

And for all of his gifts, Obama is, as his wife (and secret weapon) Michelle so aptly put it, “but a man.” A man
that has smoked Newports until his lips unnaturally darkened, a man that has the nervous habit of peppering
his speech with “uhs” and a man that looks awkward outside of a suit.

So here on stage is Barack Obama in the opening days of training camp in a season where is he supposed
to at least make it to the conference championship. In a race so deep… so balanced… so long, it is imperative
that the man whose name rhymes with “Osama,” who is somehow “not Black enough” to be President and
has shown no “substance” pace himself. The Obama team, filled with veterans from Chicago’s tumultuous
political theatre, seems perfectly aware of this fact and appears poised to react accordingly. Decisions like
having Michelle Obama, a decidedly reassuring presence, step in and fill in the dead spaces on cold February
nights such as this is a good start. And even on his slowest days, Obama routinely demonstrates how
promissory his unusual mix of cerebralness, charm and common sense is. But as Obama strides off exit left
and deftly maneuvers through the glad-shakers, it is Michelle’s words, fittingly enough, which linger on …

“We are ready for this.” Let the trumpets sound.