ABOARD THE CNN EXPRESS

Charles Shenk, Bob Sirkus, and Michael Stern enjoy a football game

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– There were a couple of groups of guys in Chicago during the last seven days, all while the Barack Obama transition efforts were taking shape in a federal office building downtown.

One group of guys was gathered in room 1101 in the Sofitel Hotel near Rush Street. Their names were Charles Shenk, Bob Sirkus and Michael Stern; men in their early 60s, they were in town with their wives for a wedding, but the wives had gone out to lunch and had then gone shopping, whatever shopping now constitutes in this economy. The men weren’t budging from room 1101.

None of the three are political professionals, but all had been intensely, even passionately, interested in the presidential campaign; one of the men, utterly indifferent in past years to the electoral process, had surprised himself and his wife when, watching the Grant Park Election Night speech on television back in central Ohio, he began to cry because of the emotion of the historic moment.

On this day, in room 1101, he looked as if he might cry again. “Don’t drop it!” he wailed as an Ohio State receiver bobbled a pass attempt. He and his two friends– along with CNN Election Express producer Josh Rubin and I– were watching the Ohio State-Illinois football game together, and every time Josh and I attempted to discuss presidential transition team developments, the men shot us looks that made us think that if they could hit a “mute” button and silence us, they would.

Read the rest of this entry »

ABOARD THE CNN EXPRESS

MICHAEL GOTTSCHALK/AFP/Getty Images

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– As Barack Obama marks time here and frets about the sinking economy before his move to the White House, he faces a peculiar and striking dilemma on the financial front:

The one segment of American business that is booming is the Barack Obama business.

Everything with his face or his name on it is flying off retail shelves. But he can’t take advantage of it– a president is not permitted to profit personally from the sale of his own image.

Yet a case can be made that, were Obama to take his name and likeness and sign their licensing rights over to U.S. industries that are in deep trouble, he might be able to save those corporations.

A joke, of course.

Sort of.

Read the rest of this entry »

ABOARD THE CNN EXPRESS

MICHAEL GOTTSCHALK/AFP/Getty Images

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– Here’s the thing about honeymoons:

One of their defining aspects is that the rest of the world is supposed to leave you alone.

Right.

Chicago in November is hardly the place most honeymooners would choose for their little piece of paradise, but every incoming president is granted a honeymoon period, and for his, Barack Obama is here– either in his home on the South Side, or in his transition office downtown, where John McCain is scheduled to visit with him today.

A cold snap has hit the city– no surprise there: when historians someday look back upon Obama’s charmed political year of 2008, one of the eyebrow-raising facets will be that warm and balmy November Election Night scene in Grant Park; no one has that kind of good luck, but Obama did– and McCain’s friend Joe the Plumber might do well to come along with him here today, because by tonight there may be frozen pipes to deal with all over town.

Obama’s pre-White House honeymoon in Chicago has been festooned with several features most new presidents don’t receive, and each is symbolic of the unusual amount of goodwill with which he is taking office.

For one, the Topps trading card company– the people who first became famous for packaging baseball cards with brittle pink slabs of bubble gum, and wrapping them in waxy paper for sale to eager children– is issuing a series of Obama trading cards. The company that once sold colorful cardboard images of Moose Skowron and Minnie Minoso has determined that there is money to be made in the booming Barack Obama market– a good indicator that his appeal, at least for now, goes well beyond that of most political men.

Read the rest of this entry »

ABOARD THE CNN EXPRESS

Doug, Eric, and Vickie Stanton in Millennium Park (Josh Rubin/CNN)

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– Mixed messages:

“I've always thought that Chicago is the number-one city in the world,” said Doug Stanton, 66, visiting from South Carolina.

“This should make even more people want to come and take a look,” said his wife, Vickie, 64.

“I was here in the mid-1990s, and Chicago felt like it was in a slump,” said their son, Eric, 36. “It feels different now. I think that this probably has something to do with it.”

The “this” he was talking about was the election of Barack Obama, of Chicago, to the presidency. After months of rolling through different cities just about every day, our bus is now lingering in one place: Millennium Park, in downtown Chicago. We're here for the transition, because Obama, most of the time, is here.

Which is the message the world is receiving: Chicago, home of Obama, is now the political home of all things powerful and urgent.

There is another message this week, though, being heard more quietly even as visitors to Chicago talk about the high spirits of these pre-inauguration days.

“As the president-elect himself announced last Friday. . .,” the tinny, distant voice said through the telephone receiver.

Read the rest of this entry »

ABOARD THE CNN EXPRESS

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– When John McCain talks to Jay Leno tonight, maybe he will discuss whether he watched on television President-elect Barack Obama's Monday visit to the White House.

Or maybe the subject won't come up.

Today is Veterans Day, so expect part of McCain's appearance to be poignant. But he will undoubtedly also be funny and charming; you don't choose the “Tonight” show for your first post-election-defeat interview if you don't plan to be at least a little lighthearted. And McCain, through friends and staff members, is already putting out the word that he's doing just fine.

If he doesn't completely mean that, it's understandable. The prize he wanted so badly belongs to someone else.

But if you somehow were able to speak to him, you might point out:

Read the rest of this entry »

ABOARD THE CNN EXPRESS

US President-elect Barack Obama and his wife Michelle leave Spiaggia restaurant in Chicago, Illinois. (STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– The leavetaking begins today.

It’s a pretty good time to be in Chicago if your name is Barack Obama, but today he and his wife depart for their visit to the White House, and the countdown to the president-elect’s real farewell has already begun.

Over the weekend people on North Michigan Avenue were pausing in the frigid air at the corner where it intersects with Oak Street, and were staring up at the windows of a restaurant that has been there for many years, yet has never been the object of this kind of general curiosity.

It is a fixture on the corner– Spiaggia is its name, and although it sounds like an import from old Europe, it was opened not by a famous chef from Naples, Italy, but by Larry Levy from Ladue, Missouri, by way of Northwestern University– and the reason it was receiving long gazes was that Barack and Michelle Obama had dined there Saturday night.

Those who have also eaten there in the past were wondering aloud: Did Senator and Mrs. Obama sit in the main restaurant, or the more casual café down the hallway? Early news reports varied. But the fact that there even were news reports about the dinner– news reports sent with some urgency around the world– was a sign that Chicago, at least until January 20, has at this late point in its long civic history become a center of international attention in a way it has not quite seen before, and it has seen a lot.

And if this feels bizarre for the city, think how it must feel for the family in the middle of all of it. Across the Atlantic Ocean, political analysts over the weekend were deciphering what it signified that British prime minister Gordon Brown spent ten minutes on the phone with Obama, while French President Nicolas Sarkozy got a reported 30 minutes. Was there meaning in this? Could it be attributed only to the language difference, and the possible need for translation? As recently as 2004 Obama was hanging around downstate Springfield, Illinois, as one of 177 state legislators, and now the political giants of Europe were competing for bragging rights over how much phone time he allotted to them.

Read the rest of this entry »

ABOARD THE CNN EXPRESS

STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– For President-elect Barack Obama, there are four transitions going on at once.

If you listened closely, you could hear each of them touched upon at his press conference here as the week ended.

The first transition is the traditional one– the changeover from an old administration to a new one.

“Now, the United States has only one government and one president at a time,” Obama said to the gathered reporters. “And until January 20th of next year, that government is the current administration. I have spoken to President Bush. . . .”

But it is the other three transitions– the ones specific to Obama– that carry the most potential fascination.

There is the transition from Obama, the candidate whom the world had gotten to know during the campaign, to Obama, the man who will be president of the United States.

The same human being fills both roles. But there is– there has to be– at least the slightest tonal difference.

His Nancy Reagan/séance comment at the news conference is the example everyone is talking about this weekend. Had Obama the candidate said the same words, those words might have floated into the air and quickly evaporated. But when the 44th president of the United States says them. . . Well. You saw.

Yet there were less dramatic, but equally telling, instances of this. As Obama began the news conference, he said:

“This morning we woke up to more sobering news about the state of our economy.”

It was the “we” that made the difference.

Read the rest of this entry »

ABOARD THE CNN EXPRESS

Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– Quite a week. Here are ten pieces of supporting evidence:

1. If my reading of statistics is correct– never a certainty when my favorite truck-stop dining companion of 2008, Bill Schneider, is off the bus– Barack Obama did something perhaps even more impressive this week than becoming the first African-American to win the presidency.

He also became the person who, in the entire history of the United States, won the most number of popular votes in a presidential election.

Granted, the population grows between each election year, thereby increasing the total possible number of votes. But still. No one has ever received more votes than Obama did this week.

2. To put the above into a little perspective:

In 2000, the year the man whom Obama is replacing as president, George W. Bush, was elected, Obama was defeated in a congressional primary– a primary– by Bobby Rush, who first came to local prominence in the 1960s as a founder of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party.

Eight years later, not only is Obama president-elect, but no one– not Lyndon Johnson, not Ronald Reagan, not Bill Clinton– has ever received more votes on an Election Night.

Read the rest of this entry »

ABOARD THE CNN EXPRESS

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– There was a moment last night– this was just before Barack Obama and his family walked onto the stage in Grant Park for his first public appearance as president-elect– when the throngs of people in the park fell almost completely silent.

In one respect this was a product of an explicable glitch in the proceedings. During the long campaign, the timing of Obama’s entrances at rallies was meticulously coordinated– the preliminary orators (usually local government officials and candidates) spoke, the music and its pacing built up with the intention of quickening the pulses of the crowds, and then, at exactly the right moment, Obama, the candidate, would make his entrance.

But by late last night Obama was no longer a candidate, and there was no need to pump up the sense of anticipation, and the evening’s events– the concession call from John McCain, the congratulatory call from President Bush– were being dealt with as they rapidly occurred on a timetable Obama’s staff could not control. So there was some dead time in the park before Obama appeared on the stage.

And the crowd, for just those brief few moments, became all but mute. They weren’t certain what was going to happen next.

What happened next, in the crisp and clear night, was the Obama family suddenly coming into sight. Then, the cheers reached the sky. But in the quiet that preceded…

In that quiet there was the recognition:

Here comes the part of this drama that is unknown and unknowable.

Read the rest of this entry »

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS

Photo by Michal Czerwonka/Getty Images

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– City of the big shoulders, Carl Sandburg called it, and the phrase has become part of the national lexicon.

But the strangest thing is going on in Chicago tonight:

In Grant Park, uncounted thousands of people, with more pouring in by the minute, are staring at a giant television screen above the stage where, at some point tonight, Barack Obama will stand.

And behind the people– behind their backs, wrapping around the park– the high-rise buildings appear to be looking over their shoulders, gazing at the huge screen. It’s an illusion, but that’s the appearance of it– that kind neck-craning civic anticipation.

Political preferences aside, something is going on here tonight. Everyone– and seemingly everything– is stretching to get a good view.

There are beams from Hollywood-style Klieg lights shooting toward the blackness of the sky– a little out of place in the capital of the Midwest, but this is no ordinary night– and a crescent moon peers down upon security helicopters buzzing the field.

It’s hard to guess what passengers in jets heading right now for O’Hare or Midway airports must make of this– unless they realize that what they’re seeing is a gathering for Obama, they might wonder why such a churning crowd has gathered for a concert at which there is no performer up on the stage.

They’ll undoubtedly look down from those airliners in the November sky: just more people peering over the shoulders of a city on a night like none seen here before.

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS

Josh Rubin (CNN)

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– Because there have been so many unpredictable things during this presidential election year, the feeling in the Chicago air tonight is just one more surprise.

Not the feeling of anticipation among the Barack Obama supporters who have gathered in Grant Park– they are excited and encouraged, but the official declaration of a winning candidate is still some time away.

The air itself, though– the November 4 nighttime air in the city– is unlike most November nights that Chicagoans, over the generations, have come to expect.

It feels like a September football Friday night in small-town America– a little cool, but far from cold; crisp; overcoats optional. It was shirtsleeve weather here during the day, but right now, in Grant Park, you half-expect to see the parents of members of the school marching band carrying cardboard containers bearing hot chocolate and caramel apples up into the stands.

But then you look over the heads of the people gathered on the grass, and you see the Sears Tower in one direction, the Prudential Building, the brawny towers that provide a steel-and-glass barrier wall to the west of Lake Michigan.

The lawn of Grant Park is illuminated by highest-intensity-white portable lights, making it considerably brighter than the sidewalks of most Chicago neighborhoods; the night air is pitch-black but crystal-clear, giving the illusion that you can see to infinity. There is no candidate here yet– just television screens informing the people in the park of the projected results state-by-state.

The cheers begin on the floor of the park and the echoes roll toward the streets of the city, as if signifying yearned-for touchdowns.

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS

Yiqi Wang and Liuliu Pan

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– They could not vote in today’s election.

But in their country, they said, there are no nights like tonight– nights when supporters of opposing presidential candidates gather publicly in huge numbers in the hopes that the person they support will soon lead the nation.

“We came here tonight for pleasure,” said Liuliu Pan, 23, of Chengdu, China. She is in the United States to study neuroscience at Northwestern University’s downtown campus in Chicago.

“We didn’t know how safe it would be to come down here tonight," said her friend, Yiqi Wang, also 23, also of Chengdu. He is in the United States to study finance at the Illinois Institute of Technology, not far south of here in Chicago.

They said they did not know what to expect in Grant Park tonight– this year’s long presidential campaign itself has been quite different from what they are accustomed to at home, and what they had heard, in advance, about the potentially massive gathering in the park made them uncertain about whether to try to attend. Like so many of the people in the park with whom we have been speaking, they have no tickets to the event.

But. . . .

Read the rest of this entry »

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS

James Lewis and Pamela Conley

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– “I talked to my grandmother as I was on my way here," said Pamela Conley, 27.

There was something in her voice as she said this– something that sounded like pride.

“My grandmother is 81 years old," she said. “She lives in St. Louis. She told me she stood in line for almost three hours today so that she could vote.

“She told me that she thought she would never live to see this day. She remembers when everywhere she went, there were public restrooms that were labeled ‘White' and ‘Colored.’ ”

Pamela Conley said she has come to Grant Park tonight not just for herself, but for her grandmother, whose name is May Conley.

“I’m scared about what may happen tonight," she said. “I have trouble believing that Barack Obama will really win. It doesn’t seem real.”

But there was no way she was going to be anywhere this evening other than this park. She has no tickets; neither does her friend, James Lewis, 28, who was waiting with her to enter the portion of the park where people without tickets will be permitted to gather.

They won’t see Obama; they know that.

It doesn’t matter to them.

“This is history on so many levels,” Lewis said. “I’m not talking about just if he wins. But for a person like me to say that I have just voted for an African-American to be president of the United States. . . .”

His voice trailed off.

Does he believe that, by the end of tonight, Obama will be the next president?

“I won’t believe it even if he does win,” Lewis said. “I won’t believe he’s president until he is actually inaugurated.”

What does he mean by that?

“Just what it sounds like,” he said. “I worry. I hope he is elected tonight, but I won’t believe he is president until the moment I see him sworn in.”

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS

Audio Slideshow

The crowds heading to Grant Park are greeted by a recording telling them where to go.

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS

Dale and Catherine Dunn

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– “Welcome to Election Night at Grant Park,” the recorded voice intoned from a loudspeaker system, again and again and again.

“We talked to the boys about safety,” said Catherine Dunn, 36.

“They know not to walk away from us, and to look for a policeman if there’s any trouble," said her husband, Dale Dunn, 38.

They had come downtown to Chicago from suburban Schaumburg tonight, bringing with them their sons: Liam, 5, and Elliot, 4. They had heard all the stories about the huge crowds that are expected– people with tickets, people without tickets– and they are among the latter. But they felt they had to be here tonight.

“We want the boys, some day, to be able to say that they were here," Catherine Dunn said.

She said she will feel that way even if Barack Obama does not win the presidency: “There’s never been a night like this in Chicago,” she said. “It’s going to be an unforgettable experience, no matter what."

“This is an opportunity of a lifetime,” Dale Dunn said. “I want us to be able to talk about this night with our sons when they get older.”

The history of the piece of land to where they were heading is not pristine: this is where the riots at the Democratic National Convention of 1968 unfolded and ended up defining another presidential election season, and where street crime marred the area surrounding the Taste of Chicago festival during the summer just past. Grant Park, historically, has not been a place where one has automatically been able to count on placid and unsullied times.

But the Dunn family believes that nothing that has gone on here before will equal, in the city’s collective memory, what will happen tonight should Obama become president-elect.

“We won’t stay here all night, because the boys have their bedtime," Catherine Dunn said. “But we have to be in the middle of this, if just for a little while." They moved toward the lawn, hoping to be allowed to find a place.

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS

KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images.)

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– Here’s an Election Day prediction:

Some year not far in the future– maybe not four years from now, or eight years from now, or twelve years from now, but soon enough– don’t be startled if the current political trend toward early voting is reversed, and states decide to make it more difficult, once again, to vote on any day other than Election Tuesday.

At least that is the clear signal we are getting from the people we have talked with as we have driven through the United States on our journey leading up to today– and the clear signal we are getting from people at Grant Park, where tonight’s rally for Barack Obama will be held.

Read the rest of this entry »

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– When you spend an entire autumn aboard a bus with three other guys– days, nights, meals, missed meals– you tend to get to know each other pretty well, and to have too many conversations to count them all up.

So– this was at some point during the last week of the campaign, when all four of us who were sitting around the bus: Dale Fountain, who drives the Election Express; Josh Rubin, who produces the stories for CNN that come out of the bus; Jordan Placie, who makes certain the electronic signals hit the right spot on the right satellite and find their way into your home; your devoted typist– arrived, at about the same moment, at a mutual realization concerning this election year:

The finish line isn't.

Meaning: tomorrow night, when the story is supposed to end, it really is just beginning.

If Barack Obama wins the presidency, the historic aspects of that victory, and of what will follow, are self-evident. If John McCain proves the pollsters wrong, and walks away with the presidency, there will be a different kind of history in the making, one that will be analyzed for generations to come.

Either way, regardless of your political leanings, you almost certainly have to concede:

When the ballots are finished being counted late tomorrow night (or early the next morning), the country in which we live, and its long-running story, will only become more interesting, not less.

The finish line, we are about to find, is really the starting line.

Read the rest of this entry »

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS (CNN)

Eric Olmscheid

“It feels like people have put away their cynicism during this election year," said Eric Olmscheid, 27. “But if I had to bet, I’d say that the cynicism will come back once we have a new president.”

An arts education manager, he is another of the people with whom we’ve been speaking as we have moved through Iowa toward Election Day. As with the others, we spoke with him not so much about his preference in candidates, but his sense of what this election year has been like.

“People haven’t been as cynical as usual because, no matter who wins, there’s going to be a change in Washington for the first time in eight years,” he said. “The voters know that the president and vice president will not be people who have been working in the White House.

“But when I say that the cynicism will probably come back, that’s just because the first time the new president, whoever he is, makes an important decision, some people are going to be happy about it and some aren’t. It’s not going to feel like a campaign– in a campaign, the candidates don’t have to make real decisions for the country. And the people who don’t like that first decision the new president makes are going to go back to their old way of thinking about politics."

Still, he said, he believes most Americans understand that “things don’t happen in this country based just on what the president of the United States wants to happen." And he hopes the energy that has been shown by the electorate all during the campaign doesn’t disappear the first time what happens in the new administration feels like business as usual.

“There won’t be the flashiness of the campaign,” he said. That’s just the reality of governing, he said– the everyday business of running the country is not as compelling and exciting as what our presidential campaign seasons have turned into.

“But so many people have become involved with the campaign, thinking about it and talking about it and really caring about it,” he said. “I hope that doesn’t go away. Because I think the enthusiasm and engagement, no matter who you want to win, has been good for everyone, and I wouldn’t want to lose that."

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS (CNN)

Ben Bueford

“Hectic,” said Ben Bueford, 65.

That’s the word he thinks best sums up what this election year has been like: “It’s been a very hectic year, which I think is wonderful." He’s retired, and works part-time at a YMCA; he is one of the people with whom we spoke about the tone of the long campaign, on our way through Iowa as we move toward Election Day.

“You can tell that there has been a level of interest in this campaign that is different than in years before, and I think it’s that way all over the country, not just here in Iowa," he said. Because Iowa and its caucuses play such an important role in the early stages of the process of electing a new president, he said, it is tempting for Iowans to believe that the interest there is more intense than in other places.

“But I don’t think that's really so," he said. “It may have started here, but the way the country has become involved in this election year, especially so many young people– I’ve seen a lot of presidential elections, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this."

Because he is a supporter of Barack Obama, he knews he may be accused of not being objective about something he has noticed, but he wanted to offer his feelings about it anyway:

“I don’t like the tone of what John McCain’s campaign has been saying about Sen. Obama,” he said. “In my opinion, it’s starting to sound more like slander than a list of the facts. It seems to me that the McCain campaign is trying to make Obama seem to be not quite American. You can disagree with your opponent, but when you try to portray him as not being a good person, you put fear into people.”

He knows that McCain supporters probably feel strongly the other way, and the visceral strength of the feelings on both sides, he said, is what has separated this year’s campaign from some others he has watched in the past. “Whatever you may like or dislike about the campaign," he said, “you can’t criticize the level of energy. I don’t think it could possibly get any more energetic.”

Kari Tindall

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS (CNN)
“I don’t think we’re ever, as a nation, going to completely come together," said Kari Tindall, 25. “And I don’t think we really need to.”

She’s a fundraiser for a theater and arts complex in Iowa; as we moved through Iowa on our way to where we’ll be spending Election Day, we talked with people not about their predictions for who will win and who will lose on Tuesday, but about their thoughts concerning this long campaign itself– and what will come after.

“It’s our nature in this country to have two sides to everything,” Tindall said. “That‘s just what we do. So to expect, after the election, for people who supported Obama and people who supported McCain to completely agree on everything, just because one candidate has won. . .you know that’s not going to happen.

“What would be good, though, is if we’re able to use the experience of the campaign we've just been through to try to find some common ground when it's over. That in itself would be better than the way things have been.”

She said she worries that the campaign, in its final weeks, “has turned a little bit ugly." The way she perceives it, Barack Obama has managed to give the impression that he “always keeps his cool,” while John McCain at certain times “seems overwhelmed.”

But she recognizes that those perceptions will not be helpful once there is one winner and one loser. And she thinks the reason there has been so much interest– and so much acrimony– during the presidential campaign of 2008 is that “there’s a lot more news coverage than ever before."

It’s not that citizens make the conscious choice to be so consumed, even obsessed, with news, she said.

“It’s that you can’t get away from it. It’s everywhere. You couldn’t avoid the news this year even if you tried.”