Obama in New Hampshire's North Country

HANOVER, N.H. May 29, 2007 — -- For the family of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., Memorial Day weekend was spent driving through the mountains in an RV filled with extended family.

But that RV was trailed by a phalanx of cars, vans and a bus, holding Secret Service agents, campaign staffers and members of the press. And those mountains? They were in New Hampshire — home, of course, to the nation's first primary.

For Obama, this two-day swing through New Hampshire's North Country was actually three trips in one. It was one part campaign visit, Obama's first through this more sparsely populated portion of the state; one part photo op, with made-for-television moments like an ice cream social and a walk across a covered bridge; and one part family vacation, with cousins and other relatives joining Obama's wife and two young girls in a rented RV as they drove across the state.

Crowd Control

The weekend began Sunday afternoon in Conway, N.H., with a town hall meeting at the local high school. A crowd of more than 1,000 people came out to see Obama in person, an impressive number given the town's entire population is less than 10,000. Impressive, too, considering Obama was competing for attention with Memorial Day cookouts, the Indy 500 and a gorgeous 70-degree day in the White Mountains.

In fact, large crowds seemed to follow Obama throughout the state. On Monday, Obama spoke at a rally at Dartmouth College in Hanover before an estimated crowd of more than 5,000. Even Sunday night in Berlin, a few hundred supporters came to see Obama scoop ice cream for his wife at a park in the center of the town.

One explanation for the sizable turnout at the events, besides Obama's well-documented "rock star" appeal, may lie with the state's independent voters.

New Hampshire law allows independents to choose which party's primary they want to participate in, and the crowds may have been fueled by some of these independents coming to learn about Obama. This would be in line with a recent survey by the University of New Hampshire, which indicated that dissatisfaction with the GOP might lead as many as two-thirds of the state's independents to vote in next year's Democratic primary.

But no matter their party affiliation, the crowds were largely receptive to Obama's message, with the loudest applause coming when Obama criticized the No Child Left Behind Act, repeated his call for withdrawal from Iraq and, on Memorial Day, when he explained how he wanted to improve care for veterans.

In turn, Obama seemed genuinely energized by the size and enthusiasm of his audiences.

Still, he said there were problems with having such large crowds — a "high-class problem," he called it. In the future, he said he hoped to eventually hold more intimate gatherings, and suggested he might slightly alter his campaign's strategy of releasing an advance list of his campaign events to national reporters and the local press.

"Probably what we're going to be doing is more off-the-record stops that aren't scheduled, so that I can just hop into a diner and sit down at the counter and start having conversations," he said Monday morning in Littleton.

A Family Affair

An increased emphasis on smaller events may not be the only change coming to Obama's campaign strategy. This weekend marked the first time Obama was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, and Obama told reporters to expect to see more of 8-year-old Malia and 5-year-old Sasha over the course of the summer.

"It makes it a lot easier for me to campaign when Michelle and the girls are with us," he said.

For months now, Obama and his wife have made no secret of their concerns that his presidential bid might interfere with his family obligations. Perhaps to reassure voters concerned about this, Obama made a point this weekend to show that he continues to fulfill his roles as a father and husband.

At the ice cream social Sunday night, Obama stopped midway through his prepared remarks and turned to his wife. "Mich, it's getting cold. Do you want my jacket?" he asked. She turned down the offer.

Earlier that evening, the press bus stopped at the Wild Boar Tavern & Restaurant to watch as Obama ran in to grab carryout for the rest of his family, who stayed behind in the RV. On his way out, Obama proudly gave reporters and TV cameras the full rundown of the family's dinner menu, which included meatloaf and chicken fingers — the latter, he pointed out, were not for him.

As this weekend demonstrated, the addition of Obama's family to the trail may hold value for the campaign beyond just providing carefully choreographed moments like the ice cream social and dinner run. Young children, as the Edwards campaign discovered four years ago, are always an asset in a presidential campaign, and Michelle Obama has become an effective spokeswoman for her husband.

At the end of the town hall forum in Conway Sunday afternoon, she received a standing ovation, after explaining why she thinks Obama deserves voters' support.

When she was asked a follow-up question about how she would act as first lady, Michelle drew still more laughter and applause from the audience when she turned to her husband and instructed, "You may sit down."

Wardrobe Change

Whether because of the presence of his family, the size of the crowds or because he was well-rested — he spent the first half of the weekend at home in Chicago with no public events — Obama hit most of the notes he had to in order to make the weekend a success for his campaign.

At the very least, over the course of two days, half a dozen public events and two press availabilities, Obama managed to do no harm to his campaign: He said nothing that could be quickly taken out of context and turned into a negative headline. As reporters like to say, he made no news.

Perhaps that was to be expected, given how highly choreographed the trip was. On Monday, it was hard not to notice that at each of his three public events, Obama's wardrobe subtly — but quite intentionally, it seemed — shifted.

Monday morning, for a somber Memorial Day wreath laying, Obama was decked out in full suit and tie. At a senior center later that morning, Obama was still respectfully dressed, but a bit more casual, after ditching the suit jacket. And by midafternoon, surrounded by thousands of college students on the sunny campus of Dartmouth College, the tie was gone, too.