Obama on the road and outside the bubble

It's the curse or maybe the blessing of living in a place that doesn't make or break presidential elections: The president and those running for the job just don't come around very often.
So President Barack Obama's two-day bus tour this week through western and central New York, a state that reliably backs Democrats in presidential elections, set the region abuzz.
Cheering crowds and curious onlookers lined the streets hoping for a glimpse of the president through the tinted windows of his armoured bus. Residents gathered at local restaurants and other hot spots on the chance Obama might drop by. In nearly every instance, they left disappointed.

And the newspaper in the small city of Auburn, deployed nearly its entire staff of 12 to cover the president's visit, even though his only event in town was a night's sleep at the Holiday Inn.
The scenes were a reminder that despite the nation's divided politics and Obama's own faded star power, the office of the president is still revered by many Americans, or, at the very least, generates interest.
Jeremy Boyer, the executive editor of The Citizen newspaper in Auburn, said many of the locals who gathered around town were there to see the spectacle, the lengthy motorcade, the imposing Secret Service detail, and "certainly the way they come in and just take over your city," Boyer said.

"Some of it is Obama," he added. "It's almost like because he's the president, he doesn't seem real to you."

Obama has frequently visited New York City, a fundraising hub for politicians. But he has rarely travelled elsewhere in the state. His trip this week underscored that second-term presidents no longer need to plan their travel itineraries around states that could go either way in elections.
Bus tours have long been standard fare in presidential campaigns. But Obama has occasionally hit the open road outside of the campaign cycles, boarding his black Secret Service-approved motor coach in search of an escape from the insular world of Washington and a way to reconnect with the American people.

The presidential security apparatus means some of that connection happens from a distance as the motorcade speeds by.
A woman on the sidewalk in Seneca Falls held up a small homemade sign that read "Thank You For Health Care" and told of her husband's recent stroke. Residents in the lakefront town of Skaneateles sat in lawn chairs at the end of their driveways and waved American flags.