Obama wows crowd at fundraiser

Families pay $1,000 to hear Dem candidate

John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 11, 2007 at midnight

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BROOMFIELD - Talking to the enthusiastic crowd that was streaming out of Sen. Barack Obama's closed-door, no-media fundraiser on Sunday was a bit like interviewing the proverbial blind men trying to describe an elephant.

Everyone remembered something different, usually what mattered most to them.

For some that meant the Illinois Democrat's consistent opposition to the war in Iraq. For others, it was the details of his health care plan. For others, it was education.

For Boulder resident Juliana Forbes, it was no one thing but her overall sense of Obama the presidential contender.

"He was hopeful, to use a word he used," Forbes said as she left the standing-room- only, $1,000-per-family fundraiser inside a hangar at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport.

As she left the hangar with her mother-in-law, Forbes was balancing seven Obama campaign buttons atop two bumper stickers atop two posters. Obama already had her money when he and his wife, Michele, arrived at the airport a bit late. By the time the event ended about an hour later, he also had Forbes' previously undecided vote.

"I would say it's verging on fanatical," Forbes said of her reaction to Obama's approximately 30-minute stump speech.

"I had heard about the sense of authentic that you feel in both of their presence," she said, referring to the candidate and his wife. "But it was something to hear him. I haven't felt that in a long, long time."

Sunday was Obama's second campaign stop in Colorado in less than three months. Unlike his Denver visit in March, where his campaign workers let a large portion of a crowd of 2,000 in for free, entry to this venue was more controlled. Attendees estimated the crowd at 400 to 500 people.

And this time, reporters were not permitted inside.

During the March visit, Debi Baydush met Obama at a private gathering at the home of a Level 3 executive. She liked what she saw then, but wanted more particulars. She left Sunday's fundraiser saying she got what she wanted.

Baydush had read Obama's health care proposal and liked his claim that billions could be saved by converting more medical data to electronic records.

Obama recently proposed an overhaul of the health care system that would provide wider, but not universal, coverage. The proposal relies on cost savings achieved through technology and by letting tax cuts for the wealthiest people expire.

Not everyone in the crowd was entirely convinced they would vote for Obama. But several said they were more inclined to after Sunday's talk.

Forbes' mother-in-law, Nancy Norris, of Key West, Fla., described herself as a lifelong Republican but said she is considering voting Democratic this time. For whom remained to be determined, she said.

At that, Forbes added: "She's got the button in her purse, though, just in case."

ensslinj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5291

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