Hopeful delegate has Obama always by her side

Sondra Samuels didn't go anywhere on the state DFL convention floor Saturday without Barack Obama -- his life-sized cardboard cutout, that is.

Samuels was campaigning to be a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. As she walked the floor with the Obama cutout, she gave people a chance to have their picture taken with it.

In exchange, "they have to listen to my spiel," she said.

Samuels said she paid $25 for the cutout, and so far it has been money well spent.

"I had one lady and she just started talking [to it]," Samuels said. "She's like, 'Barack ... I like everything that you're saying.'"

"He's startling some people," added Samuels. "When I come in the room at a certain angle, it looks like [it's really] him."

Clinton speech touches Obama supporters, too When Hillary Rodham Clinton finished her concession speech in Washington, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, an early Barack Obama backer in the state, turned away from the television set at the convention center and began hugging the many Clinton supporters around him.

"It's hard to be a good loser right now," Stevenson said. "I just want to sit down somewhere and sob. My heart is really hurting.

"She is just a fabulous woman," Stevenson added of Clinton. "That hug [with Rybak], that was good. There were a few tears on his chest. I'm not tall enough for his shoulder."

Said Rybak: "I thought it was a spectacular speech. It meant a lot to me to be with Hillary's supporters. I could see through their eyes how much it meant."

Cory Springhorn of Shoreview thought the same. "I thought she did what she needed to do," said Springhorn, a state DFL alternate delegate who was wearing a Barack Obama button on his lapel.

Springhorn acknowledged he had been apprehensive about what Clinton would actually say -- and, more important, about how her supporters would react to it.

Richard Robinson, a state DFL delegate from St. Paul, said after the speech that he had supported Clinton but had switched long ago to Obama.

"I think she's doing the right thing," said Robinson, who is black. "I also think she should also be part of [Obama's] cabinet."

Supply and demand in Rochester There were thousands of political buttons and T-shirts for sale at Trentt Cramer's booth outside the convention hall. But the framed, black-and-white picture of Sens. Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey, taken in 1958 at an outdoor political rally, is not for sale.

Still, the offers keep coming.

When someone asked how much, cashier Palmer Van Beest jokingly said $1,500.

"They look at our stuff, and they seem interested, but then they see that," Cramer said of the picture.

For now, said Cramer, he's upping the price to $5,000.