Former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle saw the face of a nation Tuesday in a campaign rally for Barack Obama at the Black Hills State University student union in Spearfish.

There were plenty of fired-up college students, of course. But the 120 to 150 people assembled in support of Obama cut across lines of age, gender and race in a human mix that Daschle - a national co-chairman for Obama's presidential campaign - has seen time and again across the nation.

"It really looked like America," Daschle said. "And it looked like South Dakota."

South Dakota is a more prominent part of America than usual these days, as Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton slug it out for the Democratic nomination for president. The state's end-of-the-line June 3 primary, previously expected to be an as-usual afterthought in world of national politics, is enlarged this year by the nearly neck-and-neck campaign.

It isn't quite Indiana, where the outcome of the May 6 primary could be a crucial part of the nomination puzzle. But South Dakota matters enough for Obama to commit staff, advertising and big-name surrogates like Daschle to the fight.

Eventually, the candidate himself is expected to show, too.

Ben Mincks, a 19-year-old BHSU freshman from Rapid City, is looking forward to that with an excitement about politics that he couldn't have imagined a year or two ago. Mincks represents the wave of newcomers attracted to politics by Obama. Politically disengaged last year, Mincks happened to watch an Obama speech on television. Now, he's president of the BHSU Democrats who helped organize Tuesday's rally and plans to continue volunteer work for the Obama campaign.

"It's definitely because of Obama," Mincks said. "I've never been interested in politics. There was just something about Obama that inspired me."

Daschle understands that charismatic pull. He felt it himself when he was still Senate majority leader, and he encouraged Obama, then an Illinois state senator, to run for the U.S. Senate.

But Daschle contends that he was even more engaged by the substance of Obama than he was by the style. As the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review, Obama could have reaped the financial rewards of legal work in the corporate world but instead took a different route, Daschle said.

"He had all kinds of offers to go into corporate law, and instead he chose social work and community organization," Daschle said. "That impressed me that somebody with that propensity for professional success chose the path he did."

That path led in 2004 to the U.S. Senate and appeared earlier this year to head for an almost preordained Democratic nomination for president. But some slips in the Obama campaign, Clinton's resilience and a double-digit victory in the recent Pennsylvania primary leave the outcome in doubt.

Obama's case hasn't been helped by his long association with Chicago's the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose rough-edge oratory on America and race relations has become a burden to the campaign. Obama initially rejected some of Wright's more inflammatory comments without denouncing Wright personally. On the campaign trail in North Carolina on Tuesday, however, Obama was more critical in his comments about Wright and his ongoing dialogue.

"I think Barack was as forceful as anybody has a right to expect him to be today when he spoke out in North Carolina about his frustrations and the depth to which he disagrees vehemently with Rev. Wright," Daschle said. "I believe that today, in a very forceful denunciation of Wright's speeches and rhetoric, he further confirmed his anger and continuing sense of disbelief about Rev. Wright's attitude and disposition on these matters."

Mincks said the Wright controversy never had any effect on his belief in Obama and his candidacy.

"I thought it was just another thing that the media was blowing out of proportion," he said.

But newcomer or not, Mincks understands that other voters who will be essential to the outcome of the primary race might need some reassurance. Mincks thinks Obama gave it with his speech in North Carolina.

"That (Wright controversy) was probably hurting him with some of the blue-collar voters, because they might think he's too liberal," Mincks said. "I've talked to people who were afraid he was associating with radicals like that. I think today's speech was a big step in setting their minds at ease."

If you go:

Tom Daschle will be in Custer and Rapid City on Wednesday:

9:30 a.m. community coffee in the Pine Room, Custer County Annex, Custer

11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. book signing at Prairie Edge, 606 Main St., Rapid City

Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com