Obama and Clinton came to the stage together shortly after 11 p.m., the Illinois senator’s arm draped supportively around the former president’s back. The tensions between the two men that lingered long after the Democratic primary ended were nowhere in evidence.

Clinton, cast in the recently unthinkable role of Obama’s warm-up speaker, seemed somber about the state of the country. “We can’t fool with this,” he said, referring to the presidential election. “Our country is hanging in the balance. This man should be our president. He is going to be our president, unless the American people forget what the election is about.”

Clinton asserted that it was “not a close question [as to] who can best get us out of the ditch.” He ran through a list of four reasons why Obama would be a better president than John McCain. According to Clinton, Obama has a better philosophy, better policies, a better decision-making process and a better capacity to execute his decisions.

Embarking on a further explanation, Clinton recalled that Obama had taken “a little heat” for not coming out with a big, dramatic statement when the financial crisis first struck in the middle of last month. “He knew it was complicated and before he said anything -- he wanted to understand,” the former president noted approvingly.

Clinton, however, provoked an outbreak of eye-rolling among the press corps when he added that among the people whose counsel helped Obama come to grips with such a grave matter were none other than Clinton himself, his wife and “my economic advisers."

(Clinton also noted in passing that he had brought Florida “back into the fold” for the Democratic Party in 1996.)

The former president provided a robust defense for the candidate on the issue of wealth redistribution.
The Republican Party, he noted, “just presided over the biggest redistribution of wealth upwards since the 1920s, and we all know how that ended. … So don’t tell me about redistribution. What Senator Obama has is a plan that works, from the bottom up.”

Obama, for his part, was extravagant in his praise for the man alongside him, describing him as “a great president, a great statesman, a great supporter in our campaign to change America.” He also included Hillary Clinton in his encomiums, stating of the couple that “I am proud to call them my friends” and adding, “We all wish that the last eight years looked a lot more like the Clinton years.”

Later in his speech to the 35,000-strong crowd, Obama also praised Bill Clinton for fostering good relations with the rest of the world – goodwill that had been squandered, he asserted, by the current administration:

“We will restore the kind of moral standing we had around the world when Bill Clinton was president,” Obama promised. “He gave the world a sense that he was listening to them and he cared about them.”

On a lighter note, Obama also playfully dismissed some of McCain’s attacks upon him. He mockingly suggested that his opponent’s campaign had found out that “when I was in the fourth grade, I split my peanut-butter sandwich and gave some to my friend. And they said, ‘Look, he’s a redistributionist!’”

Obama, who has appeared more concerned about complacency among his supporters than anything else in recent days, also urged the crowd in closing: “Don’t believe for one second that this election is over. Power concedes nothing without a fight. We are going to have to work like our lives depend on it.”

The Democratic contender will be hoping his opinion poll lead was further solidified by the 30-minute infomercial that ran across several networks and cable channels shortly before his appearance here. Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki told me the film was “an opportunity for people to see, unfiltered, what Senator Obama’s priorities would be in the White House and how he would lead.”

He will go to Indianapolis Thursday and then leave for Hawaii in the early afternoon. He will be back on the trail Saturday. On the campaign plane, spokesman Robert Gibbs declined "for privacy reasons" to say anything about her condition other than saying it was "very serious...I think everyone understands that the decision Senator Obama is making to go to Hawaii underscores the seriousness of the situation."

Here's the official statement from Gibbs:

Obama came over to the photographers gathered on the tarmac clutching a Mickey Mouse hat which had apparently been left on the seat of his vehicle. He asked the photogs how much they would pay him to put it on. When responses of "$2" and "$5" came back, Obama countered "not enough," and walked away smiling.

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Thursday referred to "pro-America areas" of the country, seeming to imply that the label was synonymous with political conservatism. The following day, Representative Michelle Bachmann asserted on MSNBC's Hardball that Obama "may have anti-American views."

Axelrod, who spoke to me as Obama addressed a crowd of approximately 10,000 at the Crown Center Coliseum here, asserted that Powell is "seen as an American statesman, and people understand that. When he makes an endorsement, he makes it from the standpoint of the country."

Axelrod also said that Powell's endorsement might be "a source of encouragement" for voters who had hitherto harbored doubts about supporting Obama. "And for Republicans who are disaffected, I think he articulated their views very, very well," he said.

The Obama team has been buoyed by unusually large crowds in recent days – including 100,000 who gathered beneath the Gateway Arch in St. Louis yesterday, making that rally the largest domestic event of the campaign to date—and by a record-breaking fund-raising haul of more than $150 million for the month of September.

Axelrod asserted that one of the reasons for the late-breaking increase in grass-roots enthusiasm was the nature of the Republican campaign, which he claimed had been negative to a counterproductive degree.

"There are a lot of voters who are disgusted with the tone of the Republican campaign, and part of that has been manifested in increased small donations to our campaign," Axelrod told me. "I think Senator McCain and Governor Palin have helped us immeasurably. I don't necessarily think it's good for the country, but I think people are expressing themselves by volunteering, by showing up at rallies and by contributing to the campaign."

Obama himself spoke to Powell around 10 a.m., the campaign said. In addition to thanking the former secretary of state for his endorsement, Obama told Powell during the 10-minute conversation that he looked forward to taking his advice up until the election and "hopefully" over the next four years.

Obama also opened his speech here by paying tribute to Powell: "This morning, a great soldier, a great statesman, and a great American has endorsed our campaign to change America. I have been honored to have the benefit of his wisdom and counsel from time to time over the last few years, but today, I am beyond honored and deeply humbled to have the support of General Colin Powell," he said.

Obama also addressed the attacks upon his sense of patriotism: "We can have a tough contest … but we've got to have a line that we don't cross," he said. "There are no real or fake parts of this country. We are not separated by the pro-America and anti-America parts of this nation—we all love this country, no matter where we live or where we come from."

Obama told the crowd that such attacks were an attempt to distract voters from the real issues.

"No matter what they do, you will have the chance to walk into that voting booth, and close that curtain, and say, 'Not this time. Not this year,'" he said, to cheers.

“I’d like to cover everybody’s dry cleaning bill tonight, but I can’t cause I gotta use it on the campaign,” Obama told the huge crowd at the University of Mary Washington. “So consider it one more small contribution to our effort to change the country.”

The audience had been drenched by an earlier downpour and lighter but steady rain resumed minutes after Obama began speaking. University police meanwhile estimated that a total of 26,000 people had turned up for the event, 14,000 of whom had to be turned away. That statistic seemed to augur well for Obama’s efforts to win this key battleground.

The most recent major poll from Virginia, released by Rasmussen on Friday, gave him a lead of five points over John McCain. He began his speech last night by saying, “I think we may just turn Virginia blue this time.”

The Democrat for the most part hewed close to his standard lines of attack against John McCain, highlighting his opponent’s links to lobbyists, accusing him of offering nothing other than an extension of the Bush administration’s policies and cynically demonstrating a newfound enthusiasm for increased regulation of Wall Street.

He described McCain as having been, in the last few days, “an awful lot different to how he’s been the last 26 years.” Tying all his attacks on McCain together, Obama later added, “I am running for president of the United States because the dreams of the American people are too important to have eight more years, or four more years, or one more year, of this nonsense.”

Attempts to put the most favorable spin on Friday night’s presidential debate continued throughout the day, with aides to both candidates cognizant that no clear consensus about a winner had emerged. Obama adviser and traveling press secretary Linda Douglass told me here that, “I think it is really beginning to sink in with those of you who write about the debate that he [Obama] won last night. Clearly the voters concluded that he won in all the polling that was done.”

Referring to McCain’s frequent repetition of the accusation that Obama “just doesn’t understand” various issues, Douglass said that it was McCain who “doesn’t get it.” She added, “He can use insulting phraseology if he wants to. It didn’t go over very well with the voters, by the way.”

Obama was joined by Joe Biden here, and the vice presidential nominee worked his way through a brief, punchy speech that excoriated McCain and was devoid of the peculiar ad-libs that have sometimes gotten him in trouble. When Obama took the mic, however, he felt the need to warn Biden to move the stool on which he was sitting further away from the rear lip of the stage. “I don’t want to have to choose another vice president,” he said amiably.

Obama ended his address by using the weather as a metaphor.

“This won’t be easy,” he cautioned. “The storm hasn’t quite passed yet. Sometimes the skies are cloudy. You think the rains will never pass. But here’s what I understand: that as long as all of us are together, as long as we are all committed, there is nothing we can’t do. … These young people know that these clouds will pass and a brighter day will come.”

Also among the crowd at the rally was Bill Day, the Democratic challenger to Republican Congressman Rob Wittman. Wittman represents Virginia’s First District, which includes Fredericksburg.

Day talked about the presidential candidate’s likely effect on his own race.

“There will be huge coattails from Barack Obama,” Day said. “He has empowered groups of people who have never been empowered before. The Commonwealth of Virginia ordered an additional 200,000 voter registration forms just last week. It’s not just because of Barack Obama, but he’s a huge part of it.”

Neil Kinnock, the former leader of the British Labor Party, is best known in American circles as the man from whom Biden borrowed some rhetoric during his abortive bid for the presidency in 1988. Back then, Biden got caught adapting comments Kinnock had made about being the first member of his family to go to college. Although the Delaware senator had credited the British pol for the ideas in previous speeches, one occasion on which he did not do so proved disastrous for his White House hopes, leaving him open to the accusation of plagiarism.

Kinnock is now a British lord. He is graciously singing Biden's praises, telling yesterday's Times of London, "Joe is a great guy who brings a whole collection of virtues to the Democratic ticket, notably his insight and experience. I really do wish him all the best."

(Kinnock also revealed that on a visit to Capitol Hill last year, Biden "swung open the door and introduced me as his 'greatest speechwriter.'")

One of the pivotal moments of Kinnock's career offers just as stark and cautionary a lesson for Biden's running mate, however.

Barack Obama will address a capacity crowd of 75,000 people at Invesco Field here tomorrow night. His aides have spoken of the event as an illustration of their desire to open up the political process to as many people as possible. The combination of the size of the audience and Obama's prodigious rhetorical gifts has led many Democrats to salivate at the prospect of a landmark occasion.

Not so fast. Kinnock – himself no mean performer on the podium – once held a similar, grandiose set piece in the run-up to an election. It was hailed as a huge success at the time –and soon after came to be seen as a key factor in his party's shock defeat.

In spring 1992, the British Conservative Party – not unlike the G.O.P. right now – was facing a general election in deeply inhospitable circumstances.

The party's longtime leader and icon, Margaret Thatcher, had been ousted in an internal "heave" at the end of 1990. Opinion polls of the time that showed Labor leading the Tories by up to 20 points had encouraged Thatcher's party to throw her overboard despite her three successive general-election triumphs. Her replacement, John Major, was famously lacking in charisma – he would be portrayed in the satirical puppet show Spitting Image as preternaturally gray. His attempts to sand away the rough edges of Thatcherism had met with some success, but Labor remained the strong favorite to win the election.

Polling Day was set for April 10. On April 1, Labor convened in the northern English city of Sheffield for a huge rally in a sports arena. A crowd of around 10,000 showed up. The event itself – replete with pounding music, extravagant light shows and a dramatic entrance by Kinnock and the members of his shadow cabinet – exhibited a sort of pizzazz that had never before been seen in British campaigns.

In the moment, the rally seemed extraordinary. Kinnock's deputy leader, Roy Hattersley, wrote later, "It was a night of uninhibited euphoria. Even the mediocre speeches were greeted as triumphs of oratory." The acclaim that greeted Kinnock's introduction as "the next prime minister" shook the ground.

The Labor leader, unwisely, forgot that the most important audience was not in the hall but at home, in front of the TV. He bopped around the podium manically – not entirely unlike Dennis Kucinich during his speech here on Monday, in fact – proclaiming, "We're all right! We're all right!"

Some of the journalists present also lost their bearings, one BBC correspondent describing the event as the most amazing political occasion he had ever witnessed.

The voters begged to differ. Three polls on the morning of the event had shown Labor with a lead of 7, 6 and 4 percent respectively. The two first major surveys afterward showed the lead had evaporated.

In the days that followed, further polling seemed to indicate that floating voters had seen the rally as excessive and triumphalist. On Election Day itself, the Tories bested Labor by more than 7 percent, enough to renew their overall majority in the House of Commons. Kinnock announced his intention to resign as party leader three days later.

It seems unlikely that Obama will let the huge crowd here tomorrow affect him in the same way as befell Kinnock 16 years ago. But the Democrat's campaign has already been bedeviled by accusations of presumptuousness (that hastily retired faux-presidential seal) and a quasi-messianic quality. The danger is that tomorrow night's event will feed into those charges rather than vaporize them.

As Kinnock's example shows, the party faithful and the broad electorate often see the same things through utterly different lenses. Epic events that can seem moving and momentous to the former can look hollow and hubristic to the latter. All Democrats should hope that Obama will not have to learn that lesson the hard way.

The problem with Mr. McCain's appearances in Maine and New Hampshire on Monday and Tuesday was not merely that the crowds he attracted were smaller or less ardent than those who customarily flock to see Mr. Obama – though they were. Nor was it that asserting his opponent would "lose a war in order to win a political campaign" smacked of frustration – though it did.

The more fundamental weakness was Mr. McCain’s failure to answer a very basic question: Why does he want to be president? His stump speech provided no compelling rationale for his candidacy and no real road map for where he wants to lead the nation.

Mr. McCain's past is indisputably heroic. But, when it comes to the future, he seems as bereft of "the vision thing" as George H. W. Bush, who hosted a fund-raiser for him during his swing through the Pine Tree State.

Mr. McCain's speech at the Maine Military Museum in South Portland on Monday was a striking case in point. Given the setting, it was inevitable – and right – that he would pay homage to his fellow veterans and refer to his experiences as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. But civilians far outnumbered past or present members of the military at the event, and to the extent that any of them were undecided voters, Mr. McCain made a poor job of explaining why they should choose him.

He rushed through his speech, stomping on his own applause lines and, as is his wont, mangling some remarks. His opening reference to "this balmy Arizona day" was presumably a joke, but it almost came off as a slip of the tongue. More awkward was his blunder as he sought to work up the crowd on the issue of energy:

”I will end this dependence on foreign oil!" Mr. McCain proclaimed. "I will depend it! Uh, I will end it."

He shrugged half-apologetically.

"I will end it? I have a plan to end it."

Mr. McCain's speech was marked not just by the minor errors it contained but by the necessities it lacked. The Republican threw a couple of perfunctory jabs in Mr. Obama's direction, but no sustained critique bound them together. The closest he came to a rallying cry was a promise that "as president of the United States, I will always, always put my country first."

This is all well and good. But if patriotism alone were enough to make a great president, there would be thousands of worthy contenders. Not even Mr. McCain himself seems clear about what else he is bringing to the table.

This is an especially dangerous vulnerability against an opponent like Mr. Obama. The Democrat's lofty rhetoric attracts its share of mockery, but his intentions are always clear. His pledges to summon change and heal partisan and racial divisions are known to every American who is even halfway politically engaged.

Mr. McCain’s stumble-filled presentation, by contrast, has become a distraction that endangers one of his supposed advantages over Mr. Obama. The perception that the Republican is a seasoned foreign policy expert and Mr. Obama a callow pretender is hard to maintain as the Democrat nimbly traverses the treacherous territory of Middle Eastern politics and Mr. McCain talks – yet again this week – about "Czechoslovakia" rather than the Czech Republic.

Mr. McCain still has his strengths, including the simple fact that he is a hard man to dislike. One of his most impressive moments came during an audience question-and-answer session in Rochester, N.H. When an antiwar female audience member spoke trenchantly and at length, Mr. McCain began by hushing those in the crowd who had begun to heckle her, answered her respectfully and then asked volunteers to give the microphone back to her so she could respond to his comments. Such an attitude seems far removed from the hectoring stance commonly adopted by the current administration.

And anyway, concerns about Mr. McCain's shortcomings evidently do not weigh heavy on the minds of voters like Sue Brunner of Topsham, Maine. Ms. Brunner, a veteran and homemaker, attended the Republican's South Portland event. When I asked her why she was supporting Mr. McCain, she responded that Mr. Obama was "evil" and added that she was worried by "his Muslim connections.”

But if Mr. McCain is to have any chance of drawing support from unattached voters who aren’t quite as committed in their loathing for Mr. Obama, he will need to call on a certain level of political skill. Among other things, he will need to demonstrate the ability to craft a compelling message and communicate it with clarity and power.

On the evidence of the past few days, Mr. McCain will have trouble doing so.

Hillary Clinton showed up in a blue pantsuit. Barack Obama was jacketless, with a blue tie.

Clinton was first to the mic, in front of a lively crowd of thousands gathered on gently sloping grass next to the local elementary school. A large old-style sign, perhaps 25 feet tall, spelled out "Unity" at one side of the arena --just in front of a huge, crane-hoisted American flag.

Unity, Clinton said, is not just a beautiful place but a "wonderful feeling.” She looked forward to Barack Obama taking the oath of office. He looked a bit bashful on his stool.

She said that Obama will need more Democratic senators when president, one of whom she reckons will be Jeanne Shaheen.

She said that New Hampshire has a “special place” in her heart and that it will come to have a special place in Obama’s heart. Then, a big soundbite about how they will stand "shoulder-to-shoulder" from now on.

She said she is proud that she and Obama had "a spirited dialogue," then added, "That's the nicest way I could think of phrasing it."

Genuine laughter from crowd.

She went on to echo her well-received concession speech in Washington, praising Obama’s "grace and his grit," talking about their commonalities and how they are part of "one America.”

A small group of women, not unified, began chanting, "We want Hillary". Counter-shouters: "It's over!"

Disunity did not escalate.

Clinton moved on to those 107 votes cast in Unity for each candidate in the primary. "Each vote was a prayer for our nation," she said.

She moved on to McCain. After saying that both she and Obama respected his heroic service to his country, she said that he and George Bush are "two sides of the same coin and it doesn't amount to a whole lot of change."

Of supporters of hers who are now potential non-voters or McCain voters, she said she "strongly urges" them to "reconsider."

“I hope you’ll work as hard for Barack Obama as you did for me,” she said.

As soon as she finished, the crowd began chanting "Thank you Hillary,” urged on, briefly, by Obama.

As he took the mic, he joked they must have had "a peek" at the opening line of his speech.

He thanked her. Then, speaking quietly, he talked about the "honor" of sharing a stage with her. And he called her "one of the finest senators New York has ever seen."

A woman in the crowd yelled “Hillary rocks.” Obama immiediately replied: “She rocks. She rocks. That's the point I'm trying to make."

He talked, significantly, about how much the country needs both her and Bill Clinton, both during the election and beyond.

”We need them, we need them badly, not just my campaign, but the American people…in the months and years to come.

He went to talk about how Hillary Clinton had shattered barriers, and had made it possible for girls, including his daughters, to “take it for granted” that women could accomplish anything.

"Women can do anything the boys can do and do it better, and do it in heels,” he said. “I still don"t know how she does it in heels.”

He said that the 107 votes for each of them now amounted to “214 votes for change in America.”

He turned to general-election stump language, and got big applause for his standard “end the war in Iraq” passage. Environment and energy got louder applause than healthcare. (A New Hampshire thing, perhaps?)

He said the election against John McCain isn’t about left versus right but about “the past versus the future.”

Then: "I promise you that if all of you are willing...to organize and mobilize then we are not just going to change this country but we will change the world."

After a final thank you to Hillary, he put his arm around her as they waved to the crowd. She was clearly leading, and he followed.

She quickly stepped off the stage and down the stairs while Obama stayed up there, for an awkward moment, and sipped a bottle of water. When he stepped off, he went stage right while she shook hands stage left.

They are still working the crowd.