Barack on Clinton Avenue

7:22pm. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this won't start on time. Barack Obama was scheduled to start his "Meet and Greet" here at Simpson College in Indianola at 7:15pm.

Wouldn't you know it...as soon as I start writing this, the event has now started. I'm guessing about 250 people are here, although two different times before the crowd got here, staffers took away chairs...probably several dozen in all. Not sure why the crowd isn't as high as the original setup would allow.

I guess this is now an official political event. Two women just held out their babies so he Obama kiss them. I don't recognize the song that's playing. Sounds like U2. Hold on...

Yep, it's U2. I had to go and ask the audio guy. He actually played it from a staffer's iPod. It's called "City of Blinding Lights", he tells me.

Sure wish we would have eaten dinner before we came.

I met a woman who runs a business out of Kansas City selling political buttons. There's a whole table of them out front. She said Obama and Clinton run neck-and-neck on-line. But Obama sells better at the actual event. Who's the best seller for Republicans? Fred Thompson, she told. He sells more than all other Republicans combined. Gee, I wonder if he'll run.

One last random bit of trivia...the street Obama had to use before he pulled into the gymnasium here....West Clinton Avenue. Hmmm....