The Outsider

Barack Obama has a numbers fetish. The junior senator from Illinois takes off his suit jacket on stage in front of several thousand people at a Los Angeles rally today. He's with them, he says, one of them. The stage has been set up on a basketball court, an explicit "I'm with the people" statement for Obama today, in between four fund raisers in Beverly Hills.

To the crowd at the recreation center, Obama runs through the numbers: 17,000 people in Springfield; 2,500 people in Iowa; another 2,000 in Waterloo; 7,000 people in Ames, and 3,500 at George Mason university. He's drawing crowds, and that's the message. This "grassroots" campaign helps play into his speech.

"I've only been in Washington a little while," Obama tells the crowd, addressing the "he's inexperienced" complaint from his detractors, "but I've been there long enough to know it needs change."

Obama, the Harvard grad and U.S. senator with scores of Democratic Party activists helping him, sees himself as the outsider. Hillary Clinton is the establishment. David Axelrod, his senior campaign advisor, stands in the back of the rally and tells me: "We all understand she is very formidable and she has a very efficient machine that has been built over two decades. And so if tactics determine the outcome, we're probably going to lose. But I think there is something different going on out there. There is a hunger for change."

"We no longer have a government that responds to the people - it's all slash and burn and deal making," Obama said. His biggest applause comes when he says the Iraq war was "not authorized."

(The other Obama is collecting cash in California. He attended two fund-raisers before the rally today, at a private home and the Beverly Wilshire.)

The Obama rally was big enough that it seemed like just after Labor Day in an election year. But this crowd seemed more curious than committed. Many were squarely in his camp, but others just wanted to see the phenomenon, the media star. The VIPs included L.A. council members Bernard Parks and Herb Wesson, schools chief Jack O'Connell, scores of environmentalists and labor leaders. The crowd carried signs that read, "Stop the Hate" and "Tell Your Mama 'bout Obama."

At first, Obama's microphone wouldn't work. "The White House is trying to mess with my mic," he joked. Nearby, a woman had collapsed in the crowd. He spent several moments on this. "Are you OK?" he said from the stage. "Can somebody get her some water? Is she OK? Why don't you go ahead and sit on the ground?"

His speech touched on Iraq and health care and young men in prison. He said some schools have "more rats than computers." He said America spends $800 million to finance countries that finance terrorism. "We fund both sides of terrorism," he said. He talked about racism and sexism and New Orleans. He said an Obama fan club arose on FaceBook.com. He claimed he was old and didn't understand FaceBook.

After the speech, Obama went into the crowd and was mobbed. He escaped into a tennis court and left for the Beverly Hilton Hotel and, even later, a private estate where dinner was waiting.

(Photos: Robert Salladay / LAT)