CAMPAIGN '08 - Running behind on star power

Leading a parade of bodyguards, staffers and about 20 journalists, Obama first knocked on the door of Fortino and Maria Brito. Mexican immigrants, the Britos spoke little English and the conversation was brief. A few houses down, the Democratic presidential candidate had better luck with Jody DeGard, who was "flabbergasted" to see him on her doorstep. Her support tottering between Illinois Sen. Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, DeGard said she would remember the personal touch come January's caucuses.

Moments later, Carol Cook, an account manager for John Deere, walked out of her front door and almost fell off her porch when she saw the commotion. "Who is that?" Cook called across the street to her neighbor Dixie Edwards.

"It's that black guy who's running for president!" Edwards called back, prompting Cook to race over to shake his hand.

Everywhere he goes, Obama gets a Hutton Street-style welcome.

Crowds coo, strain to shake his hand, get his autograph, take his picture. In town meetings, supporters testify with religious fervor. At a Des Moines forum on global climate change, high school physics teacher Bill Cox lobbed the ultimate love bomb: "You remind me of John Kennedy," Cox said. "Are you going to be the person to . . . lead us to true energy independence?"

"I am the man," Obama replied confidently, prompting an ovation.

So why isn't Obama doing better in the polls?

No candidate in recent memory has swept onto the national political scene with greater fanfare. Obama has been on magazine covers and talk shows. Oprah Winfrey endorsed him, and Obama Girl's unrequited urges turned him into a YouTube sensation. He has raised nearly as much money as Clinton, and in Iowa, at least, has advertised twice as much (4,244 TV spots versus 2,192, according to the Nielsen Co.)

Yet he has been unable to translate the relentless, often fawning attention into anything approaching a surge, especially in the crucial state of Iowa. Here, where the nation's first contest is scheduled to take place the first week of January, polls show him in a tight three-way race with Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, though Clinton has recently pulled ahead.