By JIM BARON

PROVIDENCE — The Obama phenomenon rolled into Rhode Island Saturday, mixing its gospel of inspiration and hope with the practical politics of getting out the vote for Tuesday’s Democratic primary.

An estimated 10,000 people showed up to hear Illinois Sen. Barack Obama energize his supporters for the homestretch of the primary campaign, 5,000 of them cramming into the Rhode Island College recreation center – the same room where Obama’s opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton, attracted about half that number last week – and another 5,000 listening outside in the cold and intermittent light rain.
Stopping by before his speech to address the overflow crowd that was shivering on the newly-fallen snow, Obama borrowed a famous line from the movie “Jaws,” joking, “it looks like we need a bigger boat.” Earlier in the week, the Obama campaign said it was looking for a space that would hold 10,000 people, but no such room was available on such short notice, as the candidate hadn’t committed to a Rhode Island visit until mid-week.
To emphasize the importance of the get-out-the-vote effort, volunteers who participated in neighborhood canvassing before the rally were rewarded with V.I.P. seats at the front of the audience and did not have to stand in the hours-long line that snaked around the school grounds outside the doors of the gymnasium.
Supporters were urged by everyone who stepped up to the microphone, including Congressman Patrick Kennedy and Attorney General Patrick Lynch, not only to vote on Tuesday but to bring family and friends and co-workers to the polls with them.
In a state where Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, sometimes joked that they should be paying taxes because they visit here so frequently, the most recent Brown University poll conducted Feb. 9-10 showed her lead over Obama dwindling to 8 percentage points from a nearly 2-1 advantage last September.
While other states voting on Tuesday, most notably Texas and Ohio, have far more delegates at stake, Rhode Island is being watched nationally because it has until now been considered safe ground for Clinton. A loss here for the New York senator would have a psychological effect far beyond the number of delegates won or lost.
Whipping the already-excited crowd into a frenzy with the climax of his now-familiar stump speech, Obama said, “If you will march with me, if you will organize with me, if you will fight alongside me, I promise you we won’t just win Rhode Island, we will win this nomination, we will win the general election, we will change this country and we will change the world.”
But amid the get-out-the-vote pitches, Obama didn’t skimp on the soaring rhetoric that has come to characterize his bid for the presidency.
The election campaign, Obama said, “is not about tearing each other down, it is about building the country up…The size of our challenges have outstripped the ability of our broken politics to solve.”
Defining hope as “imagining and then fighting for what didn’t seem possible before,” Obama said, “there is a moment in the life of every generation when that spirit of hope has to come through, when we shed the fears and the doubts and we don’t settle for what the cynics tell us we have to accept, but we reach for what we know is possible.”
Calling for unity, the freshman senator said, “if we could get by our divisions of race, religion and reason and come together to challenge the special interests that have dominated Washington, there is no challenge we could not solve and no destiny we could not fulfill.”
Directly addressing his opponent, Senator Clinton, Obama said “real change is not calling NAFTA a victory and saying how good it was for the American people until you decide to run for president. I will be thinking about workers and not just Wall Street when I put together trade agreements. Real change isn’t saying we will stand up to the lobbyists and special interests when you’ve taken more money from the lobbyists and special interests than any of the Democrats or Republicans running for president like my opponent has.”
Obama boasted that he is “the only one in this race who has passed laws to take power away from lobbyists.”
He pointed out that Clinton said in a debate that she voted for a controversial bankruptcy bill, but hoped it didn’t pass. “I’ve got to say, that’s not how things work. If you don’t want something to pass, you don’t vote for it.
Real change, he said, is not voting to support the war in Iraq “and telling the American people it was a vote for more diplomacy. The title of the bill was “A resolution to authorize the use of the United States armed forces against Iraq. That sounds like a vote for authorizing the use of armed forces against Iraq.” Touting his opposition to the war, and that of former Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who has endorsed Obama, Obama said “I knew what it was. Lincoln Chafee knew what it was. We were voting to go to war.”
In a written statement issued just hours after Obama’s speech, Clinton campaign communications director Howard Wolfson retorted: “Real change isn’t attacking NAFTA in Ohio while news outlets report that your chief policy aide told the Canadians your criticism is just rhetoric. Real change isn’t attacking lobbyists while utilizing their services throughout your campaign. Real change isn’t voting against a cap on credit card interest rates and opposing a freeze on home foreclosures on sub-prime borrowers. And real change isn’t running away from a debate on national security because you don’t have the strength and the experience to go toe to toe with John McCain.”
After the speech, Louis Palmisciano of Woonsocket said, “I’ve been to Iraq and come back, I’ve done a lot of amazing things, but I’ve never felt anything like this before. I didn’t think he was going to win in Rhode Island, but now I think he is going to win. People were actually standing in a puddle of water since 8 in the morning (to get into the rally that started just before 3 p.m.). How can you think he’s not going to win?”
Cumberland Town Councilman Jason Kirkpatrick said, “I have been excited since the day he announced his candidacy. He is the fresh breath of air this country needs.”