Slog tipper Justin writes:

One year ago today, Obama effectively buried Clinton and the primary was over. We knew it was true because Tim Russert said it was true.

Was that really only one year ago? It seems like so much longer. But Justin's tip made me wonder where I was a year ago. Turns out it was almost one year ago today that I was out among the white people of southern Oregon, trying to figure out why Hillary Clinton was still in the presidential race (and still hoping to win the Oregon primary) even though Tim Russert and everyone else said it was over for her. At the Jackson County Fairgrounds, down near the border with California, I found something of an answer:

As that Clinton event at the Jackson County Fairgrounds was finishing up, a familiar face walked by the press area—a friend from college who now travels with the senator. He looked great for having been in three states in one day, and after a few minutes of catching up he told me to grab my stuff and come with him.

We walked to the back of the arena, songs like "American Girl" and "Don't Stop Believing" playing on the loudspeakers. My friend nodded at a Secret Service agent and then the two of us were walking under the risers that had formed Clinton's backdrop, into a "greenroom" draped in blue cloth and filled with local law-enforcement officers in their dress uniforms, probably waiting for a picture.

Through a curtain, across a short stretch of concrete, and then, with my friend as my escort, I was suddenly inside the bubble of Secret Service protection that was surrounding Clinton as she worked the rope line. Because of the late hour, Clinton had promised the crowd she would answer their questions one on one rather than doing a Q&A, and my friend wanted me to hear what people say to Clinton as she presses the flesh. This is something people don't see and don't understand, he was telling me: the intensity of Clinton's connection with her supporters, the absolute firmness of their conviction that she should go on.

It was true.

Inside the bubble with Clinton, all I heard were older women with misty eyes thanking her, older men telling her to press on with the campaign no matter what, younger men and women saying they couldn't wait to have her as their president. For several days before the event, the pundits had been declaring the race over and Clinton's chances nil—but these voters either hadn't heard or didn't care. Yes, they were almost all white. But their attraction to her was obviously about more than simple distrust of Obama. Clinton would sign things—copies of her book, scraps of paper, campaign signs, a copy of an e-mailed letter to the editor complaining about Clinton's treatment in the press—and then she would lean in to answer questions and I would lean in behind her, just a foot or so away, trying to hear the exchange above the cheers and the music.

The first question I heard was from a young man asking about gay marriage (Clinton explained she supports civil unions). There was another question about violent video games, another about health-care funding, and then it was mostly gift giving and people pleading with her to stay in the race. She received a sticker to put on her car that would identify her as part of the Holy Ghost Racing Team. She smiled. She was handed packages, letters, a necklace. She laughed easily, shook hands warmly.

"Can I shake hands with you?" a woman asked gently. "God bless you."

"Thank you for hanging in," said a young man in a blue shirt. "I hope you win, I really do."

It's hard to describe the blast of supportive emotion that was directed at Clinton wherever she turned. We were making our way around a cordoned-off circle that surrounded the stage she'd used for her speech, and she was soaking it up, no longer the self-consciously straight-shooting and unflashy persona that she presents onstage as a contrast to Obama's soaring oratory.

Instead she was at ease, listening, laughing, and signing everything in sight, "Hillary."

She didn't seem in a hurry to leave. I wouldn't have wanted to leave, either. It was all praise and support and good wishes in the bubble. It was lovely. It was another world.