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Linnie Frank Bailey, an Obama delegate from California's 44th District, strolls the grounds of the state capitol in Sacramento with husband Greg Bailey. (Michael Rondou - For The Washington Post)

But the past eight years have been tough, especially financially. What was happening outside of her home affected what was happening inside.

The war in Iraq. "A war," she says, "that never should have been waged."

The federal response to Hurricane Katrina. "I was ashamed to be an American," she continues, "and ashamed that I didn't know that pockets of New Orleans are that poor."

The rising cost of electricity, health care, college tuition -- you name it. At Ralph's, her local supermarket, two gallons of milk used to go for $4.39 and "then it went up to $5 something and recently it was up to $6."

"It's not just about Iraq, it's not just about the economy, it's not just about one thing," Bailey says. "The question I asked myself a few years ago was: 'If you're not going to get involved now, then when?' "

She adds: "And I'm [ticked] off. A lot of Americans, most Americans, are angry and frustrated and dissatisfied at the direction of the country."

There's always been a wall between politicians and their constituents, she says, and climbing that wall to get involved -- writing letters, making donations, etc. -- wasn't too easy and convenient. Until the Web. "These days, there's no excuse for not participating. It doesn't mean you'll always get heard. But at least you've expressed yourself."

It was online where she sent her first letter to a politician -- an e-mail to Sen. Ted Kennedy in the fall of 2002 thanking him for his opposition to the war in Iraq. She thought mostly everyone -- the press, Congress, Washington -- was reading the situation wrong.

"I did not think it was going to be a cakewalk. I did not think Iraqis wanted us there. I did not think they were going to hug us. I just couldn't believe that people were jumping on the bandwagon."

'If Not Now . . . When?'

It was also online, on BarackObama.com, that she learned more about the first-term Illinois senator. She repeatedly watched his keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention.

"He spoke of unity: red and blue, white and black. That's what attracted me," says Bailey, who a few years ago left a black Methodist church where she's worshiped since she was 9 in favor of an integrated evangelical megachurch. Sunday mornings are the most segregated hours in America, she says, and she wanted to move past it. She looked at her friends, her neighborhood, her kids' friends -- all from different races and ethnicities -- and decided it was time to give an integrated church a try.

The more she read about Obama, the more she liked him and his policies. She cites his racially mixed background as an asset. "Remember that speech in Philadelphia? When he said he could no more disown his black pastor than he could his white grandmother? He's the only person who could have given that kind of speech." And she specifically mentions his early opposition to the Iraq war and what she views as his "less isolationist and more globalized" view of foreign policy.