"I've never been a big entourage guy," he said during a news conference as his plane flew from Montana to St. Louis. "And so one of the adjustments of being a candidate is not being able to go take a walk somewhere without having a big fuss. And that takes some getting used to."
The point was demonstrated vividly on his campaign plane a few days before, when Obama had to use the bathroom at the back of the aircraft -- the lavatory in front being temporarily unavailable. He sidled past the press corps, explaining his predicament to surprised reporters.
His rival, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, is also showing signs of stress. He takes weekends off in Phoenix or at his Sedona retreat. But at times he has seemed annoyed by a press corps he once went out of his way to charm.
When a reporter recently asked whether he'd seen a doctor about his cold, he turned to an aide and said: "Can you believe this? You can't make it up."
Security is so tight around Obama these days that it has constricted his routine. Appearing in Butte for a Fourth of July parade, he watched from a reviewing stand rather than walk the parade route. Sharpshooters atop buildings peered through binoculars as the Obamas watched the floats.
The Illinois senator told the crowd he wasn't accustomed to watching parades as a spectator. Had he walked the route, the Secret Service would have been ordering people along the sidewalks to show their hands, Obama said. "And that wasn't going to be much fun for everybody," he said.
Visiting the Missouri home of former Democratic President Harry S. Truman last week, Obama sounded wistful over "Give 'em Hell Harry's" freedom to go where he pleased.
Obama was shown Truman's old hat and coat, and mused about what his life would become should he win in November. "The thing that I envy most about Truman was that when he was in the White House, he could go out and take a walk. He could put on that fedora and take a stroll without someone following him."
Obama has been campaigning virtually nonstop since a brief vacation in the Virgin Islands almost four months ago. Even then he couldn't completely escape. CNN shot footage of him reclining in a chaise longue, wearing a ball cap and talking on a cellphone. When a correspondent asked how he was, he said with a half-smile, "Just trying to be left alone."
