EXCITEMENT

Woman at left yawns with excitement at Perrin rally


Barack Obama has the charisma of a rock star. It is not unusual for people to faint from excitement at his rallies. It has become so routine that when someone keels over, the senator asks if there is an E.M.T. in the house to help the person who has fainted. “I think somebody got faint,” he will say. “They just need a little water and some juice.”

Democratic candidate Carl Perrin thought he was generating the same kind of excitement recently. He was giving a stirring talk about how important correct grammar is for effective government when a woman slumped to the floor from the chair where she had been sitting. None of the nine people at the rally was an E.M.T., but as it turned out, the “victim” didn’t need any medical assistance anyway. When someone asked her if she was all right, she sat up, grinned sheepishly, and said, “Sorry, I guess I just fell asleep.”