President's visit to Fort Myers was new, familiar

Before I went to see President Barack Obama in person, the expectation was that it would be an experience unlike any other. I had never seen a president before in person. I might never get the chance again.

"You will always remember this," people told me. "This will be something you will tell your grandchildren about."

In the end, the president's visit was special, but there was an undeniable sense of déjà vu. After all, news stations have broadcast visits by presidents to other towns, in other counties before. In many ways, what I was seeing and experiencing wasn't much different from watching the evening news. And although it was in person, it was also impersonal, because President Obama's appearance in Fort Myers was world politics reflected through the prism of local politics. When he mentioned the local mayor, Jim Humphrey, what he meant was mayors in towns all over the United States.

When he kissed Henrietta Hughes, the woman who told him she had lost her home, the action was more symbolic than personal.

"There are a lot of people like you," he told Ms. Hughes as cameramen zoomed in to capture the moment and relay it across the nation.

EVAN WILLIAMS/FLORIDA WEEKLY President Barack Obama in Fort Myers recently to drum up support for his stimulus package. Even the sights and sounds surrounding the event, many of them not broadcast, seemed eerily familiar.

When driving down Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard toward downtown Fort Myers, on the way to see the president, I instinctively checked the east-facing side of the federal courthouse, lit up by the morning sun, a straight shot from the Harborside Convention Center where the president would speak. What I saw — two black dots, one moving down, the other up the side — was familiar because I had seen this on television or in a movie. This was real life although it didn't feel like it. I was fascinated, but not surprised, that I already understood the black dots were Secret Service snipers.

Other familiar images: a line that stretched around the block. A few people bought T-shirts from hawkers on the street corner. A woman who worked on the second floor of an office building had opened the window and was looking out over Monroe Street, where she might catch a glimpse of the president's motorcade. Eyes kept searching the crowds and the streets, as if the president might suddenly come strolling around the corner and tap someone on the shoulder.

Members of the media hung around a separate entrance, looking casual and unimpressed. But they pushed each other out of the way so they could be first in line when the gates opened. Then they all waited again to be let through a metal detector. Then they all waited again, inside, for nearly two hours, for the president to arrive.

When Mr. Obama came on stage, there was more jockeying for position by cameramen trying to capture him from every angle. People in the audience stood and strained their eyes, as if the slender, grinning man in the suit might suddenly flicker into nothing more than an image projected on the wall.

In the end, the president delivered the performance that he had come for. His crowd-pleasing smile and the rhythms of his speech became a comfortable familiarity to downplay the fear of asking a question of someone so famous and powerful.

When people asked their questions, it was a real president, not an unreachable figure on television, who delivered an answer. But for all the buildup of security, news stories, crowds and expectation, there seemed to be a lot less than met the eye. By the time clips of his appearance in Fort Myers were being broadcast on CNN, the rest of the world had seen the appearance too. And by that time, the people who were there in person had become little more than useful parts of a stage set.