At a town hall meeting in Beaumont, Texas, Barack Obama fielded a tough question from a man standing in the front row of the 1,500 strong crowd, which had been cheering loudly at every  applause line. “You’re the junior senator from Illinois and you have not finished your first term,” the man began. “And you’ve got this audience all in the palm of your hands, but you have 200 million people that you have to convince by November, that you have the experience to take over all these issues. How do you tell them that you have the experience?”

The crowd began heckling the man, who turned out to be the news director for KBMT-TV, the local ABC affiliate in town. Obama tried to answer the man, but the pro-Obama/anti-questioner crowd continued to jeer. “No, no, no - listen. Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait everybody that was a legitimate question. That was a legitimate question,” Obama said to try to quiet the audience.

“I mean the one point I would just make right off the top, right off the bat is this question has been asked for the last 13 months, so it’s not like you’re the first one who’s thought of this question,” Obama said confidently. “There has not been a debate, there has not been a forum with the other candidates where this question hasn’t been answered. We’ve now had primaries and caucuses in 35 states and there are a whole bunch of people who appear satisfied by my response. Let me give it once again,” he said sharply.

Standing a few feet away from the man and looking down at him from the stage, Obama ran through his CV, talking about his experience as a community organizer, a civil rights attorney, a constitutional law professor (”at one of the top law schools in the country”), a state senator, and a U.S. senator. The crowd approved of his credentials and cheered. “I’m not done, I’m not done. Sit down everybody, settle down. I’m not done,” he said

“The point is - I’ve got 20 years of experience. I haven’t been in Washington as long as some of the other candidates, so if your criteria for who the best equipped is to be president is how long you’ve been there, then we shouldn’t have even had a primary and a caucus - we could have just looked at Joe Biden, who’d been there the longest and settled it that way. But I think what the American people are looking for is not just longevity, but they’re looking for judgment and they’re looking for  who can bring the people together,” Obama finished.

The audience member/news director took a step towards the stage, apparently satisfied with Obama’s response. “Uh oh!” Obama let out as a Secret Service agent raised his hands to stop the man. Obama received the man’s extended hand.  “I appreciate it. I think I convinced him. All right, there you go, I got his vote.”

It’s unclear if the newsman was there for work purposes or for pleasure, but a reporter and camera crew from his station were on hand to cover the event.

Barack Obama has taken to asking voters to make him their second choice candidate - although he jokes they’d be better served if he were their first choice, of course. Why? Well, in order for a candidate to remain viable in the Iowa caucus system, he or she has to have at least 15% support from caucus goers. If a candidate, say a Chris Dodd, doesn’t get that magic percentage, his supporters will have to realign behind another candidate.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told reporters on a conference call this morning that Obama and Edwards, and not Hillary Clinton, will be the two candidates likely to get support from Richardson, Kucinich, Dodd, and Biden supporters. Which could lead to Iowa success.

So Obama was sure to hear out 59-year-old Gene Blanshan, a self-described Biden supporter, at an event in Jefferson, Iowa. Blanshan asked the senator why he should pick Obama over Edwards as his second choice.

Obama spent a few minutes outlining the differences, including where he has consistently stood on issues like NAFTA, No Child Left Behind, and the Iraq war. He added, “The point I am making is in my gut, there is a consistency of who I am fighting for, what I believe in, choices I have made in my life that can give you some assurance of when I get into the White House, I am going to be fighting for you. And I am not going to be different as time goes on.”

Blanshan was immediately swarmed by the press following the event. He told us he asked Edwards the same question - and he made up his mind as to who his number two candidate is.

John Edwards continued with his eight-day “Main Street Express” bus tour in Iowa on Wednesday, making stops in such cities as Iowa City, Grinnell, and Des Moines. At Mr. Edwards’ side was actor and film director Tim Robbins, who praised the former senator for his ability to speak up for the common man, and criticized the media for representing this as a “two-person race”–overlooking Edwards and instead focusing most of their attention on the conflict between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

“There is one man who is neck-and-neck with these two in the polls,” Robbins said of Edwards. “When I was here eight months ago with eight viable candidates running, we were being sold a fiction of this being a two-person race.”