By VICKI SMITH
The Associated Press
Sunday, January 13, 2008; 1:48 PM

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- On a picture-perfect college green in the Old South, framed by live oaks dripping with Spanish moss, Barack Obama is talking about pioneers and immigrants, about slaves and suffragettes, about the can-do spirit that Americans used to have.

And somewhere in a screaming sea of 4,000, Arlene Estevez is pondering a parable: When a man asked for help, she remembers, God sent a rope. Then a ladder. When both went unused, He took them back.

"The world has seemed so hopeless. It's like there was nobody there to help us up and help us out," she says. "To me, (Obama is) the rope and the ladder. It's our opportunity right now, and I'm not going to miss it."

It is this way wherever Obama goes. Whenever Americans have been challenged, he tells them, there has been only one response.

It comes back to him in a deafening roar that surges into a vibrating chant: "YES WE CAN!"

The adoration of multitudes does not necessarily mean victory, as was made clear by his narrow but unexpected loss to Hillary Rodham Clinton in New Hampshire.

But observe the huge, multihued crowds that turned out to see him in New Jersey and South Carolina after that defeat. Watch their eyes brighten when they talk about him, listen to their voices build excitedly. In Charleston, his rally is punctuated by cries of "Hallelujah!" and "Amen!"

These people are believers in ways that transcend ordinary politics.

"When I hear him speak, my hair stands up," says Erma Mathis-Small, 53, of Jersey City, N.J., who waited hours to hear Obama speak at St. Peter's College. "Even standing here talking about him, hearing other people talk about him, makes my hair stand up. It almost seems like there is something magical about him.

"It's something inside him, and it's very powerful. It's his spirit," she says. "And that's the kind of thing that can touch you. It's more than words. I feel him."

Endorsing Obama in Charleston, 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry called him the candidate who "has the potential to lead a transformation, not just a transition." His supporters say that is not just a function of what he stands for, but who he is.

"We live in America, so I don't want to use the race card, but he's like me," says Shaa Tillman, a 26-year-old black student at the College of Charleston who, like Obama, is the product of a single-parent home.

"If he wants to get the vote, he really needs to reach out to African-Americans because they've been left out of the electoral process," Tillman says. "And not just black people. Young people, too. All they see are people who are old and stuffy and who are nothing like them."

Even those who are not committed to Obama agree he is something special.

"Obama is by no means my choice, and I will not go for him just because he's black," says Tinia Bland, a 43-year-old registered Republican who says she is leaning toward voting for Clinton. "He will have to show me that he can lead a nation and that my concerns will be met."

Still, she arrived five hours early for Obama's rally in Jersey City, her 8-year-old son Elijah in tow.

"I want him to see there is a man who looks like him, and that he is capable of making phenomenal decisions, and that this is an opportunity that he can aspire to," she says. "I really see him as a uniter. There doesn't have to be a white America and a black America anymore, and I like that."

When Obama arrives at the New Jersey gym, he is greeted by hundreds of people who were turned away because there is no room. Visibly exhausted, his voice hoarse, he stands in a chilly wind, offering an abbreviated version of the speech that thousands inside will hear.

Inside, he talks about his mother's death from cancer in 1995, about his jobs as a civil rights lawyer, a labor organizer, an Illinois legislator and advocate of ethical reform. "For me, change isn't just the rhetoric of the campaign," he insists. "It's been the cause of my life."

When a South Carolina onlooker shouts "We love you!" he pauses, grins and calls out, "I love you back!"

His stump speech is a rousing oration, tapping into American history.

"Generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of people: Yes, we can," he tells Charleston.

They were the words, he says, that inspired "a president who chose the moon as our new frontier and a King who took us to the mountaintop."

The ovation is thunderous. But some of his listeners are not entirely satisfied.

"It's one thing to give a great speech, and his speech was dynamic and it was emotional. It was great," says Michael DeBradley, 47, of Plainfield, N.J. "That got him in the gate. And I've got my mind made up: I'm voting for him. But now tell me something. Help me get others on board."

Though still undecided, his 18-year-old son Meekaaeel DeBradley and a friend, 22-year-old St. Peter's student Maurice Frye, were persuaded to don white T-shirts labeling them part of "Obama, The Movement."

"He speaks with so much passion, but I'm not sure what his views are on a lot of things," says Frye. He worries about a poor economy and sagging U.S. dollar. He wants more substance. "I think he speaks too generally. Not being specific hurts him because no one knows him that well yet."

Meekaaeel agrees. "It's good that he keeps saying what the problems are over and over again, but I need to hear the solutions, too," he says.

Darnell Harley, a Charleston, S.C., real estate investor and Iraq war veteran, still needs to see more strength _ the kind other nations will respect. Thirty-year-old Danielle Cain, also of Charleston, continues to study not only Obama, but Clinton and Ron Paul.

"I'll probably change my mind every two seconds up until I hit that button," she says.

But for Arlene Estevez, a 48-year-old single parent who lost her Charleston home to a foreclosure and has relatives serving in Iraq, there is no turning back. She has listened to all the Democratic contenders who say they represent her, "and the only one I see who's going to make a change for me is Obama."

"He is letting us know that we don't need to stand for these things that are happening now, and he is giving us a chance to say, 'No, this is not what we want.' We are running this government," she says. "We want it back, and we're going to take it back.'"

At age 37, Cara Dickerhof has never voted before. On Feb. 5, she will vote in her town of Bayonne, N.J.

"He's the first person in my life that's made me feel like I care about politics. I've never felt that connection before with anyone else," she says. "He makes me believe."