The Obama Phenomenon
The New York Times | January 05, 2008
By Bob Herbert
The historians can put aside their reference material. This is new. America has never seen anything like the Barack Obama phenomenon.
I was surprised all day Thursday, before the results of the Iowa caucuses were in, by the apparent serenity of the Obama forces here in New Hampshire. The stakes were enormous, but the campaign staff members and volunteers seemed as cool as the candidate.
The students, veterans, middle-aged moms, retirees and others working steadily to make Barack Obama president seemed to accept as fact that the country is ready for profound change and that their job is to help make it happen.
"We've been busy knocking on doors, making phone calls, inputting data and basically just spreading hope," said Kathryn Teague, a 19-year-old who has taken a year off from Keene State College to work in the campaign.
There is no longer any doubt that the Obama phenomenon is real. Mr. Obama's message of hope, healing and change, discounted as fanciful and naïve by skeptics, drew Iowans into the frigid night air by the tens of thousands on Thursday to stand with a man who is not just running for president, but trying to build a new type of political movement.
