Almost two years ago, in the first months of Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency, whenever the Illinois senator would get crowds going he would intentionally dial it down a notch. I remember seeing him in Columbia on his first trip to South Carolina in February 2007, six days after announcing his candidacy. When the crowd started chanting, "Yes, we can," to his riff on Civil Rights, Obama abruptly changed the subject to labor's right to organize. It was clear he was making a conscious effort not to be perceived (or pigeonholed) as the same inspirational speaker they saw at the 2004 convention; he wanted to introduce himself and tell his story, but most of all he wanted people to realize that there was substance underneath all the style. Indeed, what he wanted was the reaction he often ended up getting from many who came to see him on the stump during the primaries: "He wasn't what I expected."
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