On Sunday, Obama went door-knocking for votes — and for press coverage of that political theater — in some quiet Ohio neighborhoods. His arrival quickly drew crowds, however, that interfered with the campaign’s attempt to generate idyllic images of Obama pounding the pavement.

The candidate-cum-organizer did talk policy with several voters, so the latest pool report features some ”verbates” — verbatim notes — on Obama’s exchanges.

These are not direct quotes, but they provide a rough sense of Obama’s canvassing message.

To a truck driver on the auto industry: The auto companies [have] been hit hard… they can’t get financing and people can’t get car loans, so you’re going to see a slow down. There was talk about potentially a merger between GM and Chrysler. We don’t know if that’s going to be true or not… What we have to do is we’ve [passed] some loan guarantees for them to start retooling for more fuel efficient cars — so that’s probably going to take two or three years to get going. The truck driver interrupts and notes we have to go green. Obama agrees: That’s exactly right — we’ve got to get your trucks more fuel efficient.

Obama spoke to another voter about mortgages:

Here’s what we need to do. We actually gave, in this rescue package, the Treasury secretary the authority to buy up these mortgages. But part of the deal is, if you do that, then banks that are holding mortgages — you force them to negotiate with the owners so where the bank gives up some of the principle and they figure out a fixed-rate mortage for 30 years that is at a price where people can pay.

And that’s better off for everybody. So the bank- they’ll lose a little money, but they won’t lose as much money as if they have to sell it in a foreclosure sale. The home owner gets to stay in their home. The community ends up being better off because the prices don’t drop as much as they’re dropping…

Sounds like it’s all economy out there, if you can believe it.

(Photo credit: Obama Flickr.)

“Don’t tell us that the only way to teach a child is to spend most of the year preparing him to fill in a few bubbles on a standardized test,” Obama said, to a smattering of applause. “Let’s finally help our teachers and principals develop a curriculum and assessments that teach our kids to become more than just good test-takers!”

Obama was most eloquent while imagining what American public schools could look like in the future. Channeling Jimmy Wales, he floated a more open source approach to learning.

“Imagine a future,” the Democratic nominee said, where students “don’t just do book reports but design PowerPoint presentations; where they don’t just write papers but build websites; where research isn’t done just by taking a book out of the library but by emailing experts in the field, and where teachers are less a source of knowledge than a coach for how best to use it.”

After summarizing his entire education plan, Obama conceded that it “sounds like a lot.” Yet, he told voters, all the funding and accountability is doable.

“We can do it all. We can increase the number of students taking college-level courses; expand innovation and school choice; invest in the schools of tomorrow, and put a quality teacher in every classroom – all for the cost of just a few days in Iraq. And we’ll pay for that cost by carefully winding down the war in Iraq; by ending no-bid contracts, and by eliminating wasteful spending,” he added, to some of the loudest applause of the morning.

The crowd, made up of supporters, local volunteers and about 25 students from an AP government class, chanted “Obama,” “Yes, We Can” and, in one spontaneous riff, “No More Pitbulls!” — a reference to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, also campaigning in Ohio today.

A new poll has Obama trailing by seven points in Ohio, suggesting a post-convention bounce for McCain here. Though both campaigns consider the state a toss-up.

Sen. Barack Obama is making his eighth visit to this key swing state since he clinched the Democratic nomination, At a local school, he is unveiling a new education plan to help students compete in a “global economy.” About 30 miles away, Sen. John McCain is holding a rally outside a restaurant in Lebanon with Gov. Sarah Palin, who has greatly increased his crowds recently.

Obama’s aides dished the first preview of his plan to a local paper, The Plain Dealer, which leads today with a measured article about how Obama would boost federal spending on charter schools by $200 million.

To hammer home this policy contrast, Obama released a new ad blasting McCain for fighting education funding and trying to abolish the Dept. of Education.

“John McCain doesn’t understand,” intones the narrator, echoing Obama’s stump speech, which argues it’s not that McCain is insensitive to working-class problems — he just doesn’t “get” them.

Today, standing before five American flags at Stebbins High school, Obama applied this critique to education: “After three decades of indifference on education, do you really believe that John McCain is going to make a difference now?”

Obama also outlined his record on education:

Giving our parents real choices about where to send their kids to school also means showing the same kind of leadership at the national level that I did in Illinois, when I passed a law to double the number of charter schools in Chicago. That is why, as president, I’ll double the funding for responsible charter schools.

Now, I know you’ve had a tough time with for-profit charter schools here in Ohio. That is why I’ll work with Gov. Strickland to hold for-profit charter schools accountable; and I’ll work with all our nation’s governors to hold all our charter schools accountable…. Charters that aren’t will get shut down.

And we’ll help ensure that more of our kids have access to quality after-school and summer school, and extended school days for students who need it.

Obama is also proposing an “innovative schools fund,” that would provide federal funding for school districts to experiment with a range of school forms — not only charter schools, but also nonprofit academies, career-training schools and Montessoris, as his policy advisers explained in a media conference call on Tuesday.

The federal government plays only a small role in charter-school funding, of course, so even Obama’s proposed increase would still constitute a sliver of overall funding.