Obama, Up Close and Unfiltered

ST. LOUIS, June 11-- Even when you're at the epicenter of a presidential campaign, the media world can seem a blur.

I was the newspaper pool reporter Tuesday -- due mainly to my willingness to submit to a 6 a.m. baggage call -- when Barack Obama made the rounds with a cardiac nurse at a hospital here. After watching him chat with patients and the medical staff, I tapped out a pool report that other journalists could use as fodder in describing what had happened. It wasn't hard news, just some behind-the-scenes color.

Within moments, Time's Mark Halperin had the verbatim report up on The Page.

Later in the morning, Obama held a news conference with the traveling media. Almost as soon as it was over, part of it was up on YouTube and the video posted on a number of blogs.

In the old days -- a couple of campaigns ago -- one benefit of hitting the road with a candidate was the chance to get the first crack at what he was doing and saying. Now just about everything short of his using the urinal is available within nanoseconds, making it possible to follow the campaign from your desk--or your kitchen--with real-time urgency. When you were the only one who saw the media avail, you could call your editor and tell him what you thought the lead was. When everyone sees the avail, you call and they've already decided what the lead is. Plus you're expected to file for the Web immediately if not sooner.

But one thing you can't get at home is a sense of the candidate as human being: How does he relate to ordinary folks he encounters on the trail? How does he relate to patients who are about to undergo medical procedures? Obama has a relaxed, unassuming air as he makes chit-chat. He could have done a 20-minute photo op, but he spent an hour and a half. Here's what I e-mailed The Washington Post:

Dr. Barack was strutting his stuff as he made his morning rounds at Barnes Jewish Hospital here.

"See, I'm finally doing something," the Democratic presidential candidate told reporters as he wheeled a computer cart into a patient's room. "I'm rolling."

Obama was spending the morning with a cardiac-care nurse, the first of what his staff says will be a series of visits with working Americans. He peppered Kate Marzluf, 26, with questions about her routine, pored over patient charts and perfected a look of medical concern.

The senator stared intently at a monitor showing one patient's vital signs. "How come it's so messy?" he asked. "How old is she?"

Wired for sound and trailed by a press pool, Obama, in white shirtsleeves, watched as Marzluf sorted cups and needles into a plastic tray. "I know this is a stupid question," he said, "but how do you make sure you're not mixing stuff up?"

As the nurse talked about the morning's procedures, Obama said some of it "makes me [faint] just to think about it. You're not drawing any blood, are you?"