toledoblade.com --

A Harvard law professor who taught presidential candidate Barack Obama - and his wife, Michelle - spoke for nearly two hours yesterday about the man who first impressed him as a law student.

"I'm so excited about this candidacy that I just can't tell you. I'm just overfull with joy," Professor Charles Ogletree said to 35 mostly African-American professionals gathered at the faculty club in the Hilton Hotel Toledo on the University of Toledo Health Science Campus, the former Medical College of Ohio.

Mr. Ogletree is scheduled to speak at three Toledo churches today before ending his day in Columbus.

Mr. Ogletree recalled Mr. Obama's credentials in law school, not least as the first African-American to be president of the Harvard Law Review.

Still, Mr. Ogletree said that had anyone asked him years ago, he would have expected Mrs. Obama to be the one in public life, having grown up the daughter of a union organizer in Chicago.

"If you take a step back and take a look at his background, you wouldn't expect him to be where he is today," he said.

Yet, he said Mr. Obama has remembered his background by helping others. Mr. Ogletree cited Mr. Obama's rejection of an all-but-certain clerkship with a federal judge to become a community organizer in Chicago.

"That was unthinkable for anyone, certainly [for] an African-American to avoid the trappings of success," he said.

The candidate and his wife have "always impressed me as people who put the community first," he said.

"They lift as they climb. As they take a step up, they take someone with them."

Mr. Ogletree spoke of Mr. Obama's stances on issues from health care to education to energy-efficient cars. But he also spoke about the importance of the Ohio primary and the mechanics of voting.

In response to a question about whether super delegates - public officials and others who are automatic delegates - will sway results at the Democratic National Convention, Mr. Ogletree said the race will not be decided at the convention.

"If Ohio does what I hope Ohio will do, this race will be resolved on Tuesday, March 4," he said.

He urged people to report polling-place irregularities on Election Day.

Among those at the event were lawyers - Toledo Municipal Court Judge C. Allen McConnell and Keith Wilkowski, co-chairmen of Toledoans for Obama - and health-care professionals. Two sponsors were former members of the Toledo Board of Education, Deborah Barnett and Larry Sykes.

Pat Hogue, 53, a physician assistant and one of the event's sponsors, said that she hasn't seen such excitement in her 35 years of voting.

"There's a passion, a fever," she said. Yet when it comes to the candidate, "I just like the fact that he has a calm spirit. We've had the cowboy."

Contact Mark Zaborney at: mzaborney@theblade.com or 419-724-6182

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