Inside Obama’s Dream Machine

Obama, who generally shies away from questions about how "historic" it would be for him to win the White House, nevertheless acknowledged that Iowa was, in fact, a noteworthy moment. "I think there's no doubt that it's a measure of our progress as a country," he told NEWSWEEK. "I've said from the beginning I had confidence in the American people. Race is no doubt still a factor in our culture. But people want to know who is going to provide health care that works, schools that work, a foreign policy that works. If they think you can do the work, I think they are willing to give you a chance."

On the campaign trail, Obama portrays himself as a one-man melting pot. There's something for everyone: A biracial kid with an absentee father whose improbable path carried him from Hawaii to Indonesia to Chicago to Washington. A Harvard Law grad who turned down a coveted Supreme Court clerkship to work with the poor in Chicago. A United States senator who shops for groceries with his daughters and only recently got out from underneath his student loans. The campaign he wants you to see is not about Red America or Blue America, but Obama's America. The soundtrack at his campaign events includes '60s soul (Aretha Franklin's "Think"), the '70s Philly sound (the O'Jays' "Give the People What They Want") and, in a sly nod to the other side, even a little country (Brooks and Dunn's "Only in America"—which was the theme song of Bush/Cheney '04). At a high-school rally in Des Moines, he brought his field organizers onstage to take a bow. The group included whites and blacks, Asians and Latinos. "It's a good-looking bunch," he said. "They're like a Benetton ad."

It's a compelling theme, and it doesn't hurt that Obama, tall and handsome and blessed with a weighty baritone, knows how to bring along a crowd while seeming to stay slightly above it. It also doesn't hurt that he is married to Michelle Obama, a dynamic, ambitious Princeton and Harvard Law grad who is her husband's intellectual equal, and often a better pitch-person than the candidate himself. On the stump, she is direct and sometimes takes up subjects Obama avoids, especially issues of race.

Obama rarely narrowcasts to black audiences, leaving it to her to address concerns among African-Americans. In a November speech before an audience at historically black South Carolina State University, Michelle spoke movingly about doubts that a black man could ever be elected president. She said she understood "that veil of impossibility that keeps us down and keeps our children down—keeps us waiting and hoping for a turn that may never come. It's the bitter legacy of racism and discrimination and oppression in this country. A legacy that hurts us all."

When they campaign separately, she often draws crowds in the hundreds. Stepping down from the stage, she finds people lined up to hug her. Campaign staffers joke that Obama starts the sale, but Michelle is "the Closer." In private, she uses gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) put-downs to keep Obama, who can tend toward the grandiose, from getting too full of himself. "I'm often reminded by events, if not by my wife, that I'm not a perfect man," he says.

Out campaigning, Obama leaves the impression that he is in awe of his good fortune. Yet little about his career—he went from Illinois senator to United States senator to presidential candidate in just 11 years—has had to do with chance. His success so far has just as much to do with what the crowds don't see: the wide and deep political organization that Obama quietly built in preparation for his run.