Low-Key, High Impact Campaigner

From the International Herald Tribune

"COLO, Iowa: Senator Barack Obama is not big on what he calls red-meat applause lines when he campaigns in small communities like this one, just northeast of Des Moines. He does not tell many jokes. He talks in even, measured tones, and at times is so low-key that he lulls his audiences into long, if respectful, silences.

Obama likes to recount the chapters of his unusual life: growing up in Hawaii, living overseas, community organizing in Chicago, working in the Illinois Legislature, though not his years as a U.S. senator.

He talks - often in broad, general strokes - about an Obama White House that would provide health care to all, attack global warming, improve education, fix Social Security and end the war in Iraq.

His campaign events end almost as an afterthought, surprising voters used to the big finishes typically served up by the presidential candidates seeking their support. "Thank you very much, everybody; have a nice day," Obama said pleasantly in Dakota City, Iowa, one afternoon, with a leisurely wave of a hand. He headed over to a table where copies of his books, brought by audience members, had been neatly laid out, awaiting the slash of his left-handed autograph."