Following Obama door to door

[illinoisprogressive]

DES MOINES, IA -- Before yesterday, the last time I was on a yellow school bus in a high school parking lot was, well, in high school. Yesterday, I was on a yellow school bus in a high school parking lot, sitting within spit-balling distance of news legend Carl Bernstein.

Classic Iowa.

Saturday's assignment: Barack Obama personally knocked on doors in Des Moines to drum up support among Real Iowans. At 10:00 am, Obama addressed the troops at a rally of canvassers in East High School's auditorium. Before the chants of "Fired up!" had even died down, his advance staff started to hustle the press corps outside for a ride to the canvassing site. (Yesterday's middle school safety patrols really do become tomorrow's political minds.)

So onto the bus we climb -- network camera crews, grizzled local print gurus, the posse of young reporters and photographers hoping to launch meteoric news careers from the cornfields of Iowa. And, of course, the occasional household name. For the three-minute bus ride, freshman-year flashbacks and jokes flew around the bus like paper airplanes. And when the bus stopped, we spilled out into the chilly autumn morning to chase The Candidate through the streets of Real Iowa.

What you'll see on television and in print are images of the indefatigably charismatic Obama hitting the pavement to knock on doors, listen to real people, and campaign as nature intended it. And, to his campaign's credit, the event was as almost as organic as it appears on the screen. The Des Moines residents who answered their doors were genuinely surprised to see him, and they were anything but political insiders -- as evidenced by moments like Obama's patient "what's a caucus?" lesson to two wide-eyed residents.

Organic, that is, except for the Secret Service detail stationed on each corner of each front lawn. And except for the crowd of forty or so journalists jostling for position on the sidewalk each time Obama tapped his knuckles on a front door.

The herd of photographers and reporters jogging down a quiet neighborhood street is a comic image well known to those who know how the sausage is made in the world of political image-building. It's also a reality here in Iowa, where retail politics and national newsmaking collide. For better or for worse, one-on-one campaigning is the political bread and butter of Iowa, where a caucus vote must be personally won and publicly defended. All debate about the legitimacy of Iowa's influence aside, it's no stretch to say that the next presidency may well be won or lost in the coffee shops, diners, and front porches of the Hawkeye State.
But precisely because of the national consequences of these tiny local moments, the Fourth Estate dutifully chronicles each one. That means a flashbulb-popping, note-scribbling bubble of traveling press around the candidates even as they seek the intimate hallelujah moment with individual voters that makes the best of America's politicans wake up every morning.

And on the sidewalks of the country, those candidates create the stories that make the best of America's journalists pile on to yellow school buses... as long as they're allowed to go out after they're done with their homework.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/10/14/410512.aspx