my own personal barack attack, or why you should workshop your paper at the local pub

The junior faculty here at IU soc has a habit of workshopping papers over beer and chips at Nick’s English Hut. We’re discussing my latest paper on antiwar organizations and my cell phone goes off. My beloved Liz tells me that the Obamanator is in Bloomington and heading toward Nick’s pub. After seeing a photographer run through the pub, I figured the Holy One is here. So I go downstairs and it’s a mad house. Reporters, bar flies and all sorts of riff raff. Then a security type guys tells me I have to sit down. I do and then the Coolest Law Prof Ever shakes my hand:

Yes, that’s right – he shook my hand while I took his photo! I should’ve asked him to autograph my working paper, but the thought didn’t cross my mind at the time.

Concluding ethnographic note: There seems to be a world of difference between an Obama and a Hillary appearance. When I saw the Hill speak near the UoC a few years back, a small and deferrent crowd came out. But today, it was if a combined Jesus-Buddha showed up. He hugged a customer and she  told her freinds it was like she was now a celebrity herself. The hug transformed her. I kinda doubt that happens at the average Hillary event.