By Shailagh Murray|Washington PostELKHART, Ind. -- The event was billed as "door knocking," but that was just the tip of the iceberg.
Early Sunday afternoon, the Barack Obama motorcade pulled to a stop at the corner of Bank St. and Superior St. in a tidy, working-class neighborhood near downtown here. Several neighbors had already gathered on the sidewalk, and they cheered when Obama stepped off the bus with wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha. "Hey guys, how are you?" Obama called out.
He approached Rose Bias, 44, who lives two blocks away and had heard from another neighbor about a Secret Service sighting. Obama commented on the harness her son Trenton was wearing. (Bias said she had him on a leash because the toddler was apt to run off.) "Be on the lookout, you might be on the news," Obama warned her. He greeted David Romberger, 44, who is unemployed. "I'm voting for you sir," Romberger told Obama, citing the senator's "principled" opposition to the gas-tax holiday that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has proposed.
By now a few neighbors had become a small crowd. Word that Obama had arrived in Elkhart was traveling from pew to pew in local churches (more on this later), and people had begun streaming down the sidewalks. Obama joked to an aspiring dental hygeinist, "Let's see your teeth." Jarrett Himebaugh, 9, introduced himself to Obama and stated "I know why John Edwards dropped out. He got less votes than you and Hillary."
"A political scientist," Obama laughed, making his way across the intersection.
The Obamas finally made it to a few front porches. At 241 Bank St., Jody Coleman, a 33-year-old factory worker, had come outside to investigate the commotion. "I was sitting at home, online, trying to deal with a new pet, and I was like, I think Barack Obama is on my street corner," he said. Coleman told Obama that the cost of filling up his GMC Sonoma truck had jumped from $25 to $65. He isn't buying the gas-tax holiday either. "What's it going to do for one day?" he said. "That's all it would help me."
Mike and Kim Konecny greeted the Obamas at 233 Bank St. and talked about the local economy. Both are in the recreational vehicles business, a major local industry and are worried about layoffs. Obama pitched his $1,000 middle-class tax cut as a better deal. Mike, wearing a Notre Dame cap and t-shirt, said he had been undecided, "but I'm not now," he asserted.
After Michelle and the girls broke off, heading to a local park, Obama finally made it halfway down the block. The swarm had grown to around 200 people. They lined the sidewalk, creating an informal rope line, waving pens and snapping camera phones. "I don't get this response when I canvas," deadpanned Stacy McColly, a local volunteer who doorknocks for Obama almost every day. One girl, trembling, handed her phone to Obama to say hello to her friend "Hillary."
"Hi Hillary!" Obama said with a big grin. "And she supports me," he relayed to reporters standing nearby. "Oh, this isn't Hillary Clinton? Oh, Hillary Van Dyke. Nice to meet you! Thanks for your support."
Another woman handed him a phone and Obama said hello to "Grandpa Dick." At this point an hour had passed, and the candidate still had a mob waiting to greet him. "Yes! He's right here by Simpson Street! For real!" one woman yelled into her phone. "Mama, calm down. Hurry up and get down here!"
It was nearly 40 years to the day - May 2, 1968 - when the last presidential candidate came through Elkhart. That was Bobby Kennedy, of course, and he drew 3,000 people. Judging from the response on Bank St., one wonders what size crowd Obama could have gathered, had the campaign provided more than 15 minutes notice of his arrival.
Finally, Obama boarded the bus, and the motorcade traveled a mile or so to Riverview School, where Michelle and the girls were hanging out at the playground. A small mob had already gathered to see the Obama women, but when the senator showed up, it grew some more. Obama posed with babies and signed autographs. "I think we can carry Elkhart with your help," he announced. Then he agreed to shoot a few baskets.
A few baskets turned into another game of P-I-G, and this time Obama's opponents were Anthony Nowacyk, a local 14-year-old, and Rod Roberson, another neighbor, who happens to be president of the Elkhart City Council and a former Northwestern University basketball player. Roberson also knows Michelle's brother, Craig Robinson, from his Northwestern coaching days. He's the one who heard about the Obama visit while he was in church.
Obama and Roberson chatted and talked a little trash, but the candidate held his own, sinking a few impressive three-point shots (and only one air ball). "Under pressure!" Obama said, as one shot sailed through the basket. "I'm a pressure player." Soon the score was P-I for each, but then Obama missed. "I was robbed on that last one," he said, after losing the game. Nowacyk, who doesn't play on a team but was an impressive, if quiet, opponent, offered this assessment of Obama's playing abilities: "He's alright."
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