Some random musings about the president's visit to Madison this week:

Over the years, I've attended several events where presidents of the United States have spoken, most of them at American Society of Newspaper Editors' conventions.

Truth be told, the students at Wright Middle School, who were herded into the gym an hour and a half before Barack Obama arrived, showed more patience than those roomfuls of newspaper editors. The kids, mostly 12, 13 and 14 years old, sat on the pulled-out bleachers along one side of the gym and quietly talked among themselves while waiting for the president to show.

Forty of them got to meet privately with Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan for about 20 minutes before the president was to deliver his speech. When those kids filed back into the gym, the looks on their faces spoke volumes. One boy gave his fellow students a thumbs-up as he climbed into the bleachers. This was a day that none of the youngsters will ever forget.

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The chairs on the gym floor were filled with educators like UW Chancellor Biddy Martin, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers, Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad, Wright's former principal and now West Principal Ed Holmes, present and past School Board members and the Madison Teachers Union's John Matthews. Also on the scene were Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, County Executive Kathleen Falk, several Madison alders and some County Board representatives, a handful of legislators and state officials and many leaders of the city's African-American community, including Milele Chikasa Anana, the publisher of Umoja magazine, who is battling breast cancer. She told me she's doing better all the time.

Aside from the ovation for the president, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett probably got the loudest welcome from the crowd as he entered the gym a few minutes before the president. Someone hollered "governor" at him, a signal that he should announce his candidacy for the Democratic nomination. There was speculation before Obama's visit that the president would put the squeeze on Barrett to run, but the Milwaukee mayor said the two didn't talk about his possible candidacy, only about education. Barrett told reporters after the speech that he still is debating what to do.

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One of Obama's better lines during his speech on the importance of improving America's education was that "the countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow." He said that the U.S. has fallen behind other countries, particularly in math and science, and attributed that to letting "partisanship and petty bickering stand in the way of progress."

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Some 170 journalists from here and nationally covered the event. Most of us were crammed into a fenced-off area in the back of the gym. A tent had been raised on the east side of the school where the overflow of media could watch the speech and file their stories.

Everyone entering, of course, had to empty their pockets and submit to being "wanded," while purses were sniffed by trained German shepherds, all routine procedure at any gathering that features the president. The lines moved remarkably well. The security folks, after all, are eminently experienced at their jobs.

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Got a kick out of Wisconsin GOP Chairman Reince Priebus, who implied that Obama's visit here was only a distraction from Republican victories in Tuesday's elections, particularly the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia.

"Voters are rejecting the failed policies of bigger spending and bigger government and they did it last night in a big way," Priebus intoned.

Apparently, he didn't stay up late enough to learn that the Democrats increased their margin in the House by one as they won a seat in upstate New York for the first time in 140 years or that a liberal Democrat, John Geramendi, beat a well-funded Republican to replace one of those Democratic "blue dogs" in California. These are people who actually serve in the federal government, as opposed to the new governors.

Truth is, Tuesday's elections meant absolutely zip in providing a gauge on Obama's performance.

Dave Zweifel is editor emeritus of The Capital Times. dzweifel@madison.com

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