"A Higher Calling".(La Grenouille)

Byline: --ANDR�% LEON TALLEY

Dateline--Chicago: Immediately after Senator Barack Obama' s Iowa victory,

which was history in the making on so many levels, my mood was truly Get the Fire. Members of his staff had responded to my queries before Christmas about the possibility of working as a volunteer for his presidential campaign. And on the second Saturday in January, I walked into his headquarters on Michigan Avenue to meet Susan Young, a volunteer who spends almost every evening at the phone banks.

Not since I was very young and got excited about Jack and Jackie Kennedy has there been such an exhilarating moment for me in an election year. Let me make it crystal clear that I have no inside scoop on the senator and his wife, Michelle. The last time I saw the wife of the man who has elevated American politics with magnificent dignity was at Oprah Winfrey' s private supper the night before her Legends Ball in 2005, when we were seated next to each other. After Young and I organized a special Women for Obama evening that I would be hosting in a few weeks, I toured the Boiler Room. Many staffers were racially diverse under-30s in wash-and-wear, tumble-dry clothes. We ran into head speechwriter Jon Favreau, 26, and into another Obama worker who was off to O'Hare for a flight to Atlanta, where Michelle was scheduled to deliver a speech the next day at the Trumpet Awards honoring African-American achievement. "They love us in Atlanta!" she told me.

Next stop: Volunteer headquarters in a rented space on West Adams Street. The task was polling registered voters in the 803 and 843 area codes of South Carolina. Handed a script, I was allowed to let it rip and express my own enthusiasm in the calls. My first call was to a white male senior citizen, who told me he was definitely voting for the senator.

"Is your wife voting for him?" I asked.

"If I vote for him, she will."