.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} Against all odds, this contradictory combination of black and white, hip and stiff, patrician and community activist, Harvard Law School graduate and public school boy, national celebrity and down-home dad, poetic writer and savvy politician, Sen. Barack Obama is running hard and fast to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee against a formidable field of experienced candidates.

Obama has joined the top tier of Democratic candidates – Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards – as they jockey to win the blue ribbon in the Jan. 5, 2008, Iowa caucuses, hoping that an early win here will slingshot them ahead of their competitors in the New Hampshire primary held just five days later.

We caught up with Obama as he was beginning a long day of campaigning in the Hawkeye State on a sunny Saturday morning in Des Moines.

The Holiday Inn parking lot was already filled with Obama’s entourage of shiny SUVs, a half dozen Secret Service agents and young staffers, all prepared for a 12-hour day of travel over 300 miles of dusty roads and crowded campaign events as hundreds of curious Iowans lined up to shake his hand and listen to his stump speech in Osceola, Creston and Shenandoah.

Inside the SUV, the 6-foot-2 Obama struck a patrician pose, head cocked ever so slightly but sitting erect with chin held high. His open white shirt sans tie as is his usual custom, Obama absentmindedly checked his BlackBerry, then turned toward me looking a bit bored at the prospect of using these precious minutes to talk to a journalist in a day already to be filled with talking.

Still, he listened carefully to the questions submitted by our readers and staff:

What, we asked, have you learned after seven months of campaigning for the presidential nomination?

“I’ve found that the American people are desperate for a different kind of politics,” he said. “They are really not only fed up with the Bush-Cheney administration policies, but they are also very weary of special-interest-driven politics in Washington and the tone of politics. As a consequence, we’ve found a great receptivity to our message of change and bringing the country together.

“Ordinary Americans are frustrated over the lack of economic progress that they’ve seen in their own lives. There’s a discrepancy, a gap, between the statistics of economic growth over the last six years and their stagnating wages and rising costs on everything from health care to gasoline, so there’s a lot of economic anxiety out there.”

Is that why you’ve proposed a middle-class tax cut?

“It reflects what I’m hearing from people whose wages are flat-lined and whose costs are going up. Then you feel squeezed, and that’s part of the reason we’ve seen such a low savings rate and high debt levels among individuals.

“The American tax code needs to reflect that we value work and labor. It doesn’t make sense for us to see people working and still poor, which is why we should have a living wage. It’s time that we have a tax policy that stops giving billions in tax cuts to the wealthiest few Americans who didn’t ask for them and didn’t need them and start giving working Americans a break.”

Obama’s tax cut proposal calls for providing $80 billion to $85 billion to American workers, seniors and homeowners, eliminating income tax for seniors who make less than $50,000, closing down corporate loopholes and simplifying the tax filing process.

Obama represents himself as the candidate of change for his party, and Des Moines City Manager Rick Clark wanted to know what process he would use when it comes to making decisions, especially with regard to foreign policy:

“I don’t think foreign policy is the place to be emotional and try to look into the souls of people,” Obama said. “Foreign policy is the area where you have to be clear-eyed and realistic in your approach. You start with the principle that you listen to everyone; that you talk to your friends as well as our foes. I’m not a believer that somehow we are punishing countries by refusing to talk to them.”

There’s a long day ahead of Obama, and it is still early in the morning. He yawns and excuses himself as he gazes out the window, viewing the golden fields of soybeans ready to be harvested. Obama is not a morning person. He sips green tea in the morning, and munches on trail mix and swigs countless bottles of water throughout the day.

Despite his big smile, springy step and capacity to deliver a knockout speech, the enigma of a thoughtful former constitutional law professor emerges during this up close and personal experience with Barack just being Barack.

Smack in the middle of our interview, Obama’s cell phone vibrates in his left pocket and he says, “Sorry, it’s my wife.”

He answers the phone and awakens from his professorial slumber:

“Goal! That’s outstanding! Tell me about it, how did it happen? Ah, uh. Wow, that is outstanding. This is your first goal of the season, isn’t it? This is excellent. I’m very proud of you. We’ll have to celebrate when I get home. All right, well, have fun, sweetie. I’m proud of you. All right. Love you. Hey, well that’s good. Solid kick, uh? All right. Well, you tell her I’m proud of her. Bye.”

Obama tells me that his oldest daughter, Malia, has just scored a goal for her soccer team and they won their match this morning.

“Way to go, proud Dad,” we say, and everyone laughs, in-cluding Obama.

“I take full credit,” he says with his typical self-deprecating humor, but quickly settles back into completing his last response: “Where were we? Oh yes, Iraq. None of this makes any sense. The premise of drawing down troops is not just that America can’t continue to finance this war, but …”

The candidate is back on message.

“I’ve been against the war since 2002,” he said. “If the troops aren’t home by Jan. 20, 2009, I’ll call the Joint Chief of Staffs into my office on the first day of my presidency and tell them to start bringing the troops home. I’ve been against this war from the start.

“I don’t expect that we can’t have an energy policy that puts an end to us sending $800 million a day to hostile nations that fuel terrorism. It doesn’t make any sense, and we’re melting the polar ice caps in the bargain.

“One of the ways we can really make a dent [in climate change] is by improving our fuel efficiency standard on cars. If we had cars that got 40 miles per gallon, we would save the equivalent of all the oil we import from the Persian Gulf, and we’d eliminate potentially 50 million tons of pollution. Just imagine what that would do to our environment and economy, but also our foreign policy.”

Illegal immigration has been a huge issue in Iowa, especially with our aging population. Lynn Horak, retiring CEO of Wells Fargo Bank’s Iowa operations, was curious to know how Obama would repair the immigration system.

Obama: “I haven’t seen an issue that has been demagogued as much as this one. We’re a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. As a nation, we need stronger physical and virtual borders because about one-half of all illegals are overstaying their visas.

“We’ve got to provide better identification and do a better job of tracking and verifying illegal immigrants, and this is the most controversial – we’ve got to provide a pathway to citizenship for the 12 million who are already here. They shouldn’t be able to get citizenship before people who did the right thing and waited patiently outside this country, but we also have to improve the system at the government level, because there’s such a big backlog.”

Scott Noah, a small business owner in Des Moines, wanted to know what Obama would do to make health care both more affordable and accessible.

“Let’s be frank,” Obama said. “All of the health-care plans proposed by the Democrats are very similar, and all would be a huge improvement on what we have now. I’m just not going to allow 47 million Americans to go without health-care insurance. With my plan, all children would have mandatory coverage, and by the end of my first term as president, we’re going to have universal health care in this country for every single American, and for those who already have health care, we’re going to reduce insurance premiums.”

During Obama’s stump speeches, he begins and ends with a call for imagination, change and hope, key words that have helped the junior senator from Illinois climb into the top tier of the Democratic heap in Iowa.

Having raised enough money to go the distance, his next challenge is to successfully fuse the idealistic Barack with the practical politician Obama, building an organization and transforming fans into voters.

Editor’s note: Beverly Davis’ son, Ami Copeland, is the deputy national finance director of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.