Hermione Eyre: From behind Obama, I could see a girl moved to tears ...

Barack Obama is good at looking after his volunteers. On Saturday I found myself standing right behind him, catching a smile, as he addressed 10,000 supporters at a last-minute rally in the swing state of Nevada.

My ringside seat was a reward for having been up since 5.30am helping direct the crowds through the airport-style security checks – and sitting there, close enough to try and make out my blobby face behind him on YouTube, was just the kind of experience that keeps campaign teams charged up through the final push.

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He really does have the charisma of a film star, supremely relaxed and confident. The stage management was smooth – he walked on to Kanye West's remix of Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up", and the bright Vegas sunshine provided the ideal spotlight.

You would never have guessed from his performance that he had been delivering roughly the same speech three times a day at rallies all over America. He made his message of change and hope sound fresh, almost spontaneous. John McCain claims to be the inheritor of Reagan but it is Obama who is the gifted actor.

From behind Obama I saw what he saw: a sea of T-shirts printed with that bold, self-consciously iconic image of his own face; a girl moved to tears in the front row; a few placards that looked home-made but were in fact painted the night before by volunteers (in this age of image control, no one is allowed to bring their own, non-vetoed posters in with them. You can see why; certain phrases – like, say, "black power" – would make winning some states considerably more difficult).

Obama spent about five minutes greeting volunteers, neither shaking hands nor high-fiving, but making a gesture somewhere between the two, gracious yet informal. Pressing flesh is one way of keeping the supporters going. On Sunday he went for another method: he made a conference call to 20,000 party workers. "It was just for a few minutes and he sounded tired but it was good to hear his voice," said Dallas, a Vegas-based activist who was also entrusted with driving Obama to and from his plane.

During the drive Obama took a call from John Kerry. Minutiae like this keeps staff going; they love it. The tiny Obama office in each district is powered by this kind of gossip as well as boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. At the branch in Southern Highlands where I have been volunteering, a sign reads: "Do NOT assume we've won. We haven't."

The atmosphere is anything but complacent. A highly targeted campaign sees registered voters being visited every day, sometimes by Limey busybodies like me; sometimes by supporters who have been bussed in (or rather, have driven in – the concept of public transport is not strong here) from neighbouring California, a safe Democrat state, to lend a hand.

I met one retired teacher, here for five weeks, and some Berkeley students, here for five days. Another last-minute fillip was the arrival of Michelle Obama on Monday, holding her own rally in a sports centre out of town.

Canvassing Las Vegas over the past few days has been a mixed experience. An alarming number – maybe one in 10 – of smart middle-class homes in gated communities have been repossessed, their doors double-bolted with a special foreclosure padlock. The sub-prime crisis has hit Las Vegas hard. Then again, about one in five households has gone for Halloween celebrations in a big way.

Out hanging doorknobs with last-minute advice cards ("Your local polling station is ... ") we encountered plenty of hostility. One man in army fatigues gave a satirical salute and told us, "the white race is over". A particularly vituperative woman told us to get lost because she had voted for Hillary Clinton and then switched to McCain ("You got a Puma!" our organiser told us – "Stands for 'Party Unity My Ass'").

"I have three – no, two words for you – three days!" said Obama in a rare moment of confusion at the rally on Saturday. Now those days are up. The Nevada Democrat campaigners are exhausted and nervous, although not so nervous that they haven't planned a huge party to be held in the Rio, a casino that stands out for its gaudy neon façade even on the Vegas sunset strip.

Perhaps he'll drop by, or make a conference call. We've started to believe the senator can be everywhere, always. Although helpfully, after Obama's rally on Saturday, hostile Republican flag-wavers were out to remind us of one thing: "Obama is not God". Thanks for that, angry lady with the placard. We won't expect free drinks for 5,000 at the election party then.

h.eyre@independent.co.uk

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