A composed Cardin rides the Obama bandwagon
2006-09-28
Source: Baltimore Sun
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rss feedOne in a series on the rituals, comedy and drama in a season of politics in Maryland.
Ben Cardin's name was everywhere in College Park yesterday - on the banner across the stage where he held a rally, on the shirts of his volunteers, on the stickers and signs they handed out to students and on the lectern where he spoke.
"Who's Ben Cardin?" one young man asked as he entered the amphitheater on the University of Maryland campus. Like most of the other 300 or so students there, he came to see Barack Obama, the senator from Illinois and the biggest Democratic rock star, post-Bill Clinton.
Obama's rally with Cardin yesterday, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's appearance with him Monday, also at the university, were partly attempts at charisma transfusion - two of the party's brightest lights trying to shift the focus to a man who seems to prefer life in the shadows.
It happens all the time in politics, and Clinton, of New York, and Obama are booked this fall firing up crowds for their less-heated colleagues. But when the rallies are over, the signs pulled from the ground and the stickers peeled from the clothing, what good does it do?
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