Dedicated team racks up hours, miles
— -- 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.
They include press secretary Jen Psaki, who this year traded the keys to her apartment for a large suitcase, and Jim Jiranek, a Wi-Fi internet technician who hasn't seen his house in Pennsylvania since before the Democratic convention in late August.
Afternoon in St. Louis
By the time Obama takes the stage at 12:15 p.m., the crowd waiting for him in downtown St. Louis is being hailed as a landmark by local politicians.
"There has never been a crowd like this for a political rally in Missouri," says Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.
To Greenfield, the volunteer whose phone tree helped build it, "it made my heart soar."
The well-funded Obama campaign has equipment to ensure that the day's images soar as well. Joe Henry and Josh Jackson of a local equipment rental company keep two hydraulic lifts in continuous operation, hoisting news photographers into the air to take pictures of the sea of people listening to Obama speak under the steel arch that is St. Louis' trademark.
In the background is another landmark, the city's old courthouse, a historic monument where the slave Dred Scott in 1846 sued for his freedom. The case ended 11 years later with an infamous Supreme Court decision — later reversed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution — that stripped African Americans of their rights of citizenship.
Most members of the crowd are rooting for Obama, the biracial son of a Kenyan exchange student and white mother, to become the first African American president.
"The man is presidential; he's calm, cool, deliberate," says Dave Reinert, 66, who drove five hours from his home in Oxford, Ark., to see Obama. "We know he's probably not going to come to Arkansas, so we thought maybe we could come up here and lend a little support to Missouri."
As the crowd leaves, Obama lingers in a tent to do local TV interviews and refuel. Four slices of pizza disappear into his slender frame in quick succession, to the amazement of his staff. "I've never seen him out-eat me," says Robert Gibbs, a senior adviser who has traveled with Obama since April 2007. "But he did."
Arriving in Kansas City at 3:33 p.m., Obama heads straight to his local headquarters to help on the phone bank. "I am not kidding you. I am serious, here he is," Karen Puhr tells one voter as she hands over the phone.
"Hey, Ms. Turner, this is Barack Obama, how are you?" Obama says. "Are you going to be voting in this election?"
After repeating the process about a dozen more times, Obama spies a box delivered by Marcia Prentiss, owner of a local bakery. Inside: a sweet potato pie, cut into slices. It heads out the door with the candidate.
Evening in Kansas City
At 5:25 p.m., politicians warm up the crowd at Kansas City's War Memorial park overlooking the downtown. "We are taking people to the polls if it's raining, snowing, hurricane-ing. We have had enough!" says Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who represents Kansas City, Mo.
The sun is setting as Obama wraps up his stump speech by urging the crowd not to be complacent. "I learned my lesson from my great friend and supporter, Hillary Clinton, in New Hampshire," says Obama, referring to the defeat his onetime rival handed him in the primary there. "You can't let up."
Proving that he has no intention of doing so, Obama heads back to the airport by 6:50 p.m. to fly to Fayetteville, N.C., putting himself in position for another day of stumping in a swing state. He fell asleep after midnight, after unwinding by watching ESPN.
After midnight local time, Eric Lesser, a 2007 Harvard University graduate who is chief of Obama's ground logistics delivers the last reporters' bags to a Holiday Inn where they are staying — and where, in just a few hours, they will head out again with Obama.