Sen. Barack Obama on job with Alameda County home health worker Obama shows aptitude for laundry, rustiness on turkey sandwich-making and ease with bread-and-butter issues during stint with home health worker

From left:Barack Obama, Pauline Beck and John Thornton. Obama sprinkles sugar on Thornton's cereal and watermelon while spending the day working with Pauline Beck during the Walk a Day in My Shoes program. Senator Barack Obama spends the morning with Pauline Beck, a home health care worker, first meeting her at her home in Alameda and then going to her work where she cares for John Thornton in Oakland as part of the Walk a Day in My Shoes program. Photo taken on 080807 in Alameda, CA. Photo by Lea Suzuki/ The Chronicle (Nadia Conners, Leila Conners Petersen)cq less From left:Barack Obama, Pauline Beck and John Thornton. Obama sprinkles sugar on Thornton's cereal and watermelon while spending the day working with Pauline Beck during the Walk a Day in My Shoes program. ... more Photo: Lea Suzuki Photo: Lea Suzuki Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Sen. Barack Obama on job with Alameda County home health worker 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

It wasn't a full day, just a couple of hours really, but his early-morning shift Wednesday to serve breakfast, mop and clean bathrooms for an elderly man in a clapboard East Oakland house delivered Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama a refreshing moment in the 2008 presidential campaign: a chance to be a candidate without a script.

Escaping what he termed the "bubble" of staged events and fancy fundraisers, the Illinois senator tentatively but earnestly smoothed the white chenille bedspread of John Thornton, 86, a disabled and housebound former concrete mason who needs round-the-clock home health care.

"My wife says my making the bed is a little shaky," Obama sighed, as he wrestled with the wrinkles. "The laundry and the breakfast, I can handle."

Obama's Oakland stint was part of a creative campaign by the Service Employees International Union to focus the presidential campaign on the issues of working people. On Wednesday, he became the fourth Democratic presidential candidate to "walk a day" in a service worker's shoes - a scripted event of a different kind that highlighted the power of one of the Democratic Party's strongest constituencies, organized labor.

Obama was led through his 6-9 a.m. shift in Alameda County, a stronghold of the service workers union, by a smiling, energetic home health care worker named Pauline Beck, 61. Beck bathes, dresses, feeds and cares for Thornton for $10.50 an hour.

While Beck's life - struggling to make ends meet with two jobs and regular visits to the food bank - couldn't be more different than the 46-year-old Democratic presidential candidate's, she came away feeling "he just cares about people. ... He wanted to know about me, yes, he did. He really wanted to feel what I did."

Obama, surrounded by reporters, photographers and television cameras, arrived at dawn in a black polo shirt and khakis to say grace and have breakfast with Beck's family in Alameda. Almost immediately, he began drawing out the life story and experiences of the mother of three adult children and foster mother of three kids, ages 2 to 17.

He was concerned that she didn't get sick leave, vacation time or even overtime, even though "you're supposed to be off at 11 - but sometime you don't get off until 1?"

Seeing Beck's bubbly 2-year-old great-grandnephew, Damion, Obama talked about his own home.

"The hardest thing about running for president is being away from your family," said Obama, the father of two young girls. "My wife, she just holds it all together," he said. As Beck nodded sympathetically, he said, "Sometimes I think I miss them more than they miss me."

Beck, escorting him to the Oakland home of her elderly charge, then put Obama to work, a cheery taskmaster. "I got the mop, the bleach and the washing powder," she said, tossing her jaunty gray curls, and showing the presidential candidate some new moves.

She instructed him how to lift, dress and bathe a much bigger body without breaking your back ("know how to brace yourself"); she showed the senator how to fold clothes ("shake 'em out, then they don't get wrinkled"); and she occasionally reminded him of the to-do list ("there ain't no standing around").

Obama gave it back to her.

"My wife's going to see all this and say, 'How come you don't do this at home?' " he said, grabbing a green dustpan and getting ready to clean the bathroom. "I'm going to tell her I'm running for president."

Beck laughed as he added mischievously: "She's too smart to run for president. ... She just wants to tell the president what to do."

The two, from such different worlds, seemed to bond: Beck, one of the 14,000 home health care workers in the county, and Obama, the presidential hopeful who had to relearn the fine art of making a turkey, mustard and mayo sandwich.

By the end of the day, the candidate said the visit provided him a look at important issues that presidential campaigns just don't seem to find time for anymore.

"Talking to someone like Pauline reminds me why I got into politics in the first place," Obama said, as he sat down after his cleaning chores to make the man Beck calls Mr. John his turkey sandwich and wrap it in a Glad bag with some chips.

"Because I think there's a real tendency during the course of a campaign, especially a high-profile, high-pressure campaign, to start worrying about the tactics and the strategies and the competition ... instead of worrying about whether Mr. John gets his sandwich. And that Pauline is getting paid for the wonderful work that she does."

"It gives me, also, a lot of confidence about the American people," he said. "People joke about how I talk about hope a lot. The reason I'm hopeful is people like Pauline."

"There's a lot of good people like Pauline who aren't asking for much. They just want a living wage. They want health care, so they aren't bankrupt when they get sick. They want a good education for their children and their grandchildren. They want to be able to retire with a little dignity and respect. That's not too much to ask for in a country as wealthy as ours."

While Obama's stint underscored the value of an endorsement from the SEIU, the country's fastest-growing union, it also served to provide an up-close-and-personal look at just why he connects with so many people on such a visceral level.

Beck said that she, too, got what she wanted out of the day: someone to listen. When the day began, she said, she was unsure whether any of the candidates for president really cared how she lived.

By day's end, she said she believed that Obama "will be a president that cares about labor.

"What he did is really genuine," Beck said. And she gave him the highest compliment she could think of: She called him "my co-worker, Sen. Obama."

Obama's Bay Area visit

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., after his stint as a home health care worker, answered questions from reporters about a variety of issues. The Democratic presidential candidate:

-- Urged his supporters not to contribute to independent political groups - particularly so-called 527 organizations that have no individual donation limits - that are currently raising money to aid his cause.

"My recommendation to people who are interested in supporting me is to support me through our campaign - the way over 250,000 donors have supported us, the way hundreds of thousands of volunteers have supported us. Get involved in the campaign that we've set up, that is above board, that is transparent, that is legal. And I think if people channel their energies in that way, we'll all be better off.

-- Said if he were president he would "probably" invite Giants slugger Barry Bonds to the White House to recognize the outfielder's career home run record as "a remarkable achievement."

But Obama said the use of performance-enhancing drugs is a "cloud" over baseball and other sports.

"I would like to see our sports leagues recognize that children look up to sports stars more than probably any other individuals ... and right now, I'm not sure our kids are learning the right lessons."