This weekend, across the country, the Obama campaign is holding three day training sessions for volunteers in its Organizing Fellowship Program (more on that in a day or so). Claire McCaskill was the kickoff speaker in St. Louis this morning before more than a hundred trainees, and she wanted to know, first off:

“Are you fired up?! Are you fired up?!”

She urged the participants to look around the room and be aware that they are part of history. She admitted that she’s “older ‘n dirt”. To prove it, she said that when she was seven, her mother made her say “trick or treat for Jack Kennedy” at every house when she went to. So she’s seen a lot of campaigns. And this one is special.

It’s special because this candidate isn’t all that comfortable being treated like a rock star. Instead, Obama sees this campaign as being about us and about making the kind of change that will once again convince people that anyone can be president. He wants to create a transparent administration, with open drafting of policy on energy instead of something drafted by oil executives in Cheney’s office.

Claire told the crowd she’s jealous of all the fun they’re about to have. Yeah, they’ll eat cold pizza and drink warm beer because the fridge will be overflowing with leftovers that have become science projects. But they’ll be working for someone who wants to smash up the halls of power and build a new house.

She insisted that Obama is not one of those candidates who believes he can’t win unless he heeds the polls. Last fall, he was stuck for several months running 20-30 points behind Clinton, and he was feeling the pressure from a variety of people who told him he had to start running negative ads. They told him he was naive if he didn’t. But over and over, he said, “We’re either going to do this the right way or we’re not going to do it at all.”

Near the end of that period, Claire saw Obama in the Senate one day and asked him how he was holding up. He told her that he was going to win in Iowa and that he was going to do it from the bottom up, not from the top down. So McCaskill wound up by urging those in the room to be part of that bottom up solution. “Have a ball, and I’ll see all of you as we watch President Obama take the oath of office in January 2009.”

The crowd rose to its feet, clapping and cheering. When the dust settled a little, Claire was crying. She laughed and said that’s why we women live longer–we let that stuff out.

Having spoken less than ten minutes, she took questions for almost fifteen. Here are a few highlights:

• Obama will be going to rural parts of Missouri much more than most candidates have. “The margins in rural Missouri are the key to the kingdom. If we get 42 percent and start edging up toward 43 or 44, yee howdy!”
• Obama will haunt the rural areas and red areas. “We’re going to go into the belly of the beast in this campaign.”
• Congress will adjourn in October, and Claire plans to be everywhere in Missouri for that whole month, campaigning for Obama and Nixon.
• Obama hasn’t talked to her about the possibility of being the vice presidential nominee. He doesn’t talk about the vp slot to anyone–“well, maybe Michelle, when nobody else is around.”

Noting how many people in the room were in their twenties, Claire asked, “How many of you are over 25? Over 40? Over 50?” (There were a few in that last category, by the way.) She confessed that when a woman gets past fifty, she starts having fantasies about getting a face lift. She concluded: “This campaign is better than plastic surgery. I feel twenty years younger.”