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For Obama Faithful, Fears Cloud Hopes

Evoking memories of King, Kennedys stirs anxieties over safety

By Jane Yager,  Newser Staff

Posted Feb 25, 2008 10:15 AM CST

(Newser) – "Stop worrying," Barack Obama tells supporters. “I've got the best protection in the world.” But they're worrying anyway: Even as supporters have watched their candidate rocket from longshot to frontrunner, their anxieties about a possible assassination attempt have grown, the New York Times reports. “Some candidates are bigger targets than others," ex-contender Gary Hart notes. "Any transition candidate or change candidate has a higher profile.”

"Barack scares us," says one expert. "He represents so much hope and change. That is exactly what was taken away from us in the 1960s.” Secret Service agents have guarded Obama since May 2007, earlier than any other presidential candidate ever, and his coverage rivals that of a sitting president. As Obama himself points out, "Neither Kennedy nor Martin Luther King had Secret Service protection.”

A Secret Service agent, left, watches the crowd as Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., participates in a march on the South Carolina Capitol in honor of Martin Luther King, Monday, Jan. 21, 2008, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
A Secret Service agent, left, watches the crowd as Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., participates in a march on the South Carolina Capitol in honor of Martin Luther King, Monday,...   (Associated Press)
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., shakes hands at a rally surrounded by Secret Service agents Friday, Jan. 4, 2008,  in Concord, N.H. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., shakes hands at a rally surrounded by Secret Service agents Friday, Jan. 4, 2008, in Concord, N.H. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)   (Associated Press)
Democratic presidential hopeful, U.S. Sen Barack Obama, D-Il., with Secret Service close by shakes hands following a visit to Mack's Apples while campaigning  in Londonderry, N.H., Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2007. Obama told voters they should elect him U.S. president, not because I have some perfect solution to...
Democratic presidential hopeful, U.S. Sen Barack Obama, D-Il., with Secret Service close by shakes hands following a visit to Mack's Apples while campaigning in Londonderry, N.H., Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2007....   (Associated Press)
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., guarded by two Secret Service agents, right, works the rope line after speaking at a town hall meeting on the campus of Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2008. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., guarded by two Secret Service agents, right, works the rope line after speaking at a town hall meeting on the campus of Winthrop University in...   (Associated Press)
A Secret Service agent is silhouetted as Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.,  addresses a crowd of over 9,000 during a rally in Birmingham, Ala., Sunday, Jan. 27, 2008. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
A Secret Service agent is silhouetted as Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., addresses a crowd of over 9,000 during a rally in Birmingham, Ala., Sunday, Jan. 27, 2008. (AP Photo/Charles...   (Associated Press)
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