A HIGH-PROFILE candidate, Barack Obama attracts big crowds. Two weeks ago as he was pacing the stage in front of 850 supporters in Portsmouth, it was obvious he relishes the opportunity to work the crowd.

When telling a joke, he chuckles to himself, eliciting giggles from the crowd before hitting them with the punch line. Moving to a more inspirational segment of the speech, Obama brings the crowd with him as he expresses how proud he is of all those who "stood up" to make his presidential bid possible: civil rights workers, his own grandfather fighting in World War II, and his mother, who raised him.

Then he tells the crowd that it is time for them to stand up.

"I know the only reason I'm standing here is because someone stood up when it was risky, stood up when it was hard. Standing up with courage and conviction they somehow managed to change the world, and now it's our turn."

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama and an unidentified woman discuss issues at the Rochester American Legion.

As he ticks off planks on his platform -- especially universal health care and a broad reform of national energy policy -- audience members began standing up.

At the crescendo of his stump speech, the entire crowd stands and cheers.

The candidate is clearly in his element before a large crowd: He smoothly moves from topic to topic and during the question-and-answer sessions he is well prepared, even when an audience member awkwardly begins a question about racism in the United States and how he would deal with racism while still winning the general election.

"Your question is, can a black guy named Barack Obama win?" Obama interrupted, before getting the woman's assurance that if concerns of his electability weren't an issue she would vote for him. "So then your question is, can I take a leap of faith that the people sitting next to me will also vote for Barack. It starts with you."

Obama's entourage on the campaign trail is large, and the candidate himself is almost always surrounded by a cadre of blank-faced U.S. Secret Service agents, so moments of spontaneity and intimate interaction with voters are rare.

Earlier in the day, at the Loaf and Ladle restaurant in Exeter, Obama sat down for a conversation with six independent voters and then had a bowl of chili with several diners while five feet away a horde of national media watched like hawks while straining to hear their conversation.

Outside the restaurant, Obama playfully hefted a pile of snow in the direction of a senior-level staffer's head. It was the second attack of the day, staffers said, but this time in front of the media pack.

While the Exeter event was designed to give voters, and the media, glimpses of Obama interacting on a personal level, his two later events the same day were unapologetically large. Like Portsmouth, a large crowd of at least 300 turned out to see Obama in Rochester.

The candidate acknowledged how the crowds have grown to tens of thousands in larger cities.

"And that's all pre-Oprah," Obama joked in Portsmouth, referring to his latest celebrity endorsement. "Once Oprah came on the scene, I can't take credit for that. That was insanity."

At all three events, Obama touched on his plans to reform the government drastically if elected. An overhaul of the health-care system, which he insisted could be done by bringing representatives from the medical field, the health insurance industry and consumer advocates together, was a cornerstone of the speech.

►Slideshow: Obama holds a rally on the State House lawn

Energy independence, withdrawing American troops from Iraq in 16 months and expediting the minimum-wage increase were other touch points.

On the stump in Portsmouth and Rochester, Obama portrayed himself as an outsider who can sweep Washington, D.C., clean with fresh reform. Taking a veiled swipe at several of his opponents in the Democratic primary who have had lengthy careers in Washington, Obama told both audiences he would not be playing the same "game."

"We don't need someone to play the game better, we need someone to put an end to the game playing," he said. "I believe there is such a thing as too late, and that hour is almost upon us."

Voter Mark Klein, who attended the Portsmouth event, said he's split between supporting Obama and John Edwards, who he had seen the night before. Both men are charismatic, but Obama has a polished tone and more high-minded plans, he said.

"Obama is a bit more intellectual in his appeal. Edwards is more visceral," Klein said.

In Rochester, at the final event of Obama's day, audience members began trickling out a side door as a question-and-answer session began to run long.

Once again Obama's smooth, practiced and sometimes far-wandering answers were thrown off track when a woman, who would not give reporters her name, stood to ask Obama why he was short with her son at an event in Dover several months before.

"You said, 'Make it quick,'" the woman said, describing Obama's response when her son asked him to pose for a picture.

"That really threw me back, so I just wanted you to comment on that."

Obama, solemn-faced, seemed to struggle with a reply.

"I might not have seen the kid. I might have been distracted because someone else was talking to me at the same time," he said, after several false starts.

"So the problem is you get a snippet and then, now, you come away ... Maybe it's just one of those things where if you catch someone at any given moment it might appear that was the case."

The woman, who described herself as a Web programmer from Dover, said she has always liked Obama and while he didn't apologize, she was satisfied with his response.

After the event, she approached him as he worked his way along a barrier, surrounded by Secret Service agents, shaking hands and posing for pictures.

Spotting the woman, he leaned over the railing and shook her hand.

"You kind of put me on the spot," he chided, before smiling broadly and embracing her.

Then, after a flurry of camera flashes, he turned to shake another hand before being pulled away by the crowd.