Only now, after 18 months, has my world been truly Baracked

No one in recent history had attempted this kind of a political conversation with 75,000 people. Barack Obama pulled it off.

For 18 months, I listened to Obama on television, sometimes intently, often just barely — background noise to a running series of conference calls and meetings and e-mails.

In person, my attention undivided, I saw something of what so many others had seen for so long.