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Obama rallies the faithful

James Forsyth

Saturday, 26th January 2008

Barack Obama’s election eve night rally was a typical high-energy Obama event with people having to be turned away at the door. The crowd was more multi-racial than most have been here in this Southern state with a lot of college students in attendance. Indeed, the Obama campaign seemed to have taken care that the crowd directly behind Obama was a fairly even mix of blacks and whites.

The event had the feel of a revivalist rally. The first thing Michelle Obama did was thank the audience “for praying for us.” The candidate himself played up his own Christian beliefs. Talking about his decision to run, he emphasised that the family “prayed on that question a long time.” He also went out of his way to reassure the crowd that he is not a Muslim.

It will be a major shock, even bigger than New Hampshire, if Obama doesn’t win here. His stump speech is still long on hope and short of specifics—he talked of a “new politics in a new America”, “the world as it might be”, and being ready to “turn the page”—and if Obama is to match Hillary Clinton in Super Tuesday he needs to offer the middle class some beef.