To Obama, ‘The Quads’ must be worth it

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By Barb Ickes | Monday, August 25, 2008 7:00 PM CDT | () comments

A reporter shouted the question from next to me at the fence.

“Did you decide?” he asked a woman walking toward us after Barack Obama finished speaking.

“He swayed me,” she answered. “He got me.”

I tried to catch up with her, eager to ask what part of the Obama speech did it for her and how she got an invitation. But I lost the woman in the crowd and, by the time I caught up with her again, she was ready to leave.

Wineva Harrington, 66, of Davenport brought her 4-year-old great-granddaughter with her to the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds on Monday, and both were ready to go home. So I waited a couple of hours, tracked her down and gave her a call.

I’d been skeptical about the claims that many of those invited to Obama’s speech were undecided voters. How could they plan a shindig like that, not knowing for sure who was going to show and in what state of mind?

Why go to all the trouble and expense of coming to Davenport, just to talk to a relative handful of undecided voters?

The couple of hundred people who filled picnic tables at the fairgrounds were supportive enough, applauding at all the right places. But it definitely was not a groupie crowd. Many people didn’t bother with cameras, and I didn’t hear people whistling through their fingers or chanting slogans.

You couldn’t accurately describe the event as a rally. But it was enough to convince Harrington.

“I thought he was for the working man, which is important to me, even though I’m retired,” she began. “There’s no guarantee, of course, no matter who says what.”

Was she really undecided?

“The Obama people called me Saturday, and I wasn’t going to come because I was baby-sitting, but I forgot my grandson started school, and I figured (taking) one child would be OK,” she said. “I spend the winters in Arizona, and I was a supporter of John McCain as a senator, but I don’t have the same feelings about him as president.”

And Obama?

“I felt like I could invite him over to dinner,” she said. “I wouldn’t feel like I’d have to put out the best china.”

But casual demeanor does not a president make, right?

“Right,” she agreed. “Maybe I’d have felt the same with McCain, but I’ve never been that close to him. I just needed this, being up close. I think that’s why they did it. They didn’t want people who were necessarily Obama fans.”

So the strategy worked?

“I don’t know about everybody else because I didn’t ask them, but I got a feeling, partly because of all the headshaking, that I wasn’t the only one who took to him,” she said.

Obama’s been on the campaign trail for more than a year and a half and has been here many times. He’s supposed to give the speech of his life at the Democratic National Convention this week, and there are only 69 days to the election.

It seems like an odd time to drop in on Davenport.

But, hey, if he wins by one vote …

Barb Ickes can be contacted at (563) 383-2316 or bickes@qctimes.com.