Dedicated team racks up hours, miles

ByABC News
October 20, 2008, 6:29 AM

— -- An hour before Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama left home for a workout Saturday in Chicago, Jen Greenfield was in St. Louis, working to build the crowd who would greet the senator several hours later.

"I was on the phone by about 7:30 in the morning," a smiling Greenfield says after a rally that drew 100,000 to the banks of the Mississippi under the St. Louis arch to hear the Democratic presidential nominee.

The crowd was built one volunteer at a time; Greenfield, a 38-year-old Obama volunteer, a candidate for a doctorate in social work at Washington University, called seven people and urged each of them to bring five downtown "because we wanted to have as many people here as possible."

Election Day minus 17, the 616th day since Obama formally declared his quest for the presidency on Feb. 10, 2007, would take the Illinois senator 1,334 miles from Chicago, across Missouri, and finally to central North Carolina, where he ended his day shortly before midnight.

Heading into the final two weeks of the campaign, Obama is setting records for crowds, cash and carbohydrates. His journey is heading into its final phase powered by pizza, pie, jet fuel and the energy of hundreds of volunteers and behind-the-scenes workers who make his ever-longer days possible.

Morning in Chicago

At 4 a.m. Central time, Mamdouh Megally of the Air Charter Team, the company that operates Obama's Boeing 757 charter, is up to get the jet ready. Since June, the jet has logged 57,222 miles the equivalent of two trips around the world.

Two hours later and about 300 miles south, Sgt. Steve Swofford of the St. Louis Airport police and his bomb-sniffing dog Lexie report for duty on the banks of the Mississippi River to help secure the site where Obama will speak.

Obama, after a rare night at home with his family, heads out to the gym at 7: 30 a.m. An hour later, he's back home to change.

At 10:20 a.m. Obama's charter, custom-painted with his red, white and blue logo, takes off for St. Louis with 72 people aboard. Among the passengers: journalists, Secret Service agents, whose campaign shifts are measured in weeks, not hours; and support staff for whom the road has become a way of life.