INDIANOLA, Iowa -- Most people would not choose to spend a Sunday afternoon at a damp county fairgrounds to hear the words of a politician who was not likely to say what a lot of them wanted to hear.
Yet thousands of the most hardened political junkies Iowa has to offer turned out to hear Sen. Barack Obama, who is being urged by some Democrats to say yes to a presidential bid, altogether ignore those pleadings.
And they loved it.
"The sooner he runs, the better" is how Sheila Pottebaum, a psychologist from Des Moines, described her feelings about the calls for the first-term Illinois Democrat to jump into the presidential race. "He has the personality and the moral convictions."
Obama, who was the featured speaker at Sen. Tom Harkin's annual steak fry, has repeatedly said that he is not a presidential candidate in 2008 and that he has no interest in running. Yet the invitation to speak at Harkin's showcase event has only elevated Obama's profile. Previous speakers have included a number of Democrats who have run for president, including Bill Clinton (three times as speaker), current Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.
Obama's appearance has also fanned the debate as to whether the charismatic 45-year-old -- not two years into his first term in the Senate -- should answer the call.
That question is of particular interest in Iowa, which holds the first of the presidential nominating sweepstakes in January 2008. Nearly a dozen unannounced Democratic candidates have been crisscrossing the state, some since last year. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts was in Iowa yesterday. So was former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, who spoke briefly at the Harkin fundraiser, calling Obama "one of the great shining new stars in the Democratic Party."
In his 38-minute speech in front of a large American flag and a small stack of hay bales, Obama talked eloquently of opportunity, fairness and hope for the future. In one of the few moments of tossing partisan red meat to the Democratic crowd, Obama took direct aim at President Bush and congressional Republicans, charging that they have politicized the Sept. 11 attacks.
Pointing to allegations "pretending that some people are appeasers ... creating false dichotomies about cut and run, and stay the course," Obama said, "I've had enough of using terrorism as a wedge issue in politics."
