I didn't know anything about Barack Obama until he was chosen to give the Keynote address at the 2004 convention. Like many of you, I was blown away. It will go down in history as one of the great speeches ever given at a convention. It introduced many of us to a rising star in the Democratic party.
I cheered his election to the U.S. Senate, and didn't think much more about him.
About one year after the convention, on August 6th 2005, my wife and I saw Barack live. It was a non-political setting, but he lit up the room. He redefined charisma for me.
How did we come to see him live? It was purely accidental.
My wife and I are fans of the NPR show wait wait . . . don't tell me.. The show records live in Chicago (except when they take it on the road) and my wife and I were visiting and decided to get tickets.
For those of you who don't know it, wait wait is a great, snarky compendium of the week's news, political and just odd. It is packaged as a quiz show, but the top (and only) prize is having Karl Cassel record your answering machine message. Anyone who hasn't heard it should try it out. Many of you will be hooked.
One of the weekly segments of wait wait is called "not my job," where they invite some celebrity to come on and answer three ridiculously obscure questions about a subject they know nothing about.
I was thrilled to be going to the taping of the show, but doubly thrilled when I learned that Obama would be on for "not my job."
The theater where they do the taping is not huge. It seats maybe 300-400 people. The taping was fine, and then they invited us to welcome the young Junior Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.
He came in from the back of the auditorium, and I felt his presence physically. I have never felt anything quite like it before. From the confident way that he walked, to his winning smile, he dominated the room without trying. The host, Peter Sagal, and he made small talk for a few minutes. I don't remember any of the details. All I remember is how comfortable he seemed, bantering with a stranger in front of the audience. I was impressed with his quick wit, and his quiet self-confidence. He struck me then, as he has since as one of those rare people who are so sure that they are smart that they do not have to spend time proving it.
The time for questions came. Barack's challenge would be to answer 3 questions about the Baseball superstitions of Wade Boggs. (A book had just come out). In listening to more than a hundred "Not My Job" segments, I have heard celebrities get very tense about getting the right answer. I have heard celebrities make a big joke about how much they didn't know. Obama, characteristically, played it cool. He had fun with the questions and tried to answer them with what little knowledge he had. (They're multiple choice, so not completely impossible). If I'm remembering this right he got 2 out of 3, winning the "prize" for the home contestant. (I could listen at the link I've provided, but I prefer to write the diary from memory, unrefreshed).
After the questions, a little more small talk. My wife reminded me recently that he mentioned that he had to get home because he was expected to do the dishes. Now that we have seen Michelle in action, we know why he didn't want to shirk that duty.
I left the taping blown away. I am not a good enough writer to do it justice, but I had been in the presence of greatness. Of course charisma and a quick wit aren't the only things you need to be president. He didn't secure my vote that day. He did get me to follow his career more closely, though, and as I have watched during this long campaign, he has impressed me more and more.
Still, whenever I try to tell someone what charisma means to me, I tell them about the feeling I had when he first walked into the room. He is magnetic.