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Be like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama: Meet the huggable Tazawana Jo Barlow. Courtesy photos by Twila Old Coyote

Face Time

By Brett Thomas-DeJongh for CrowNews.Net

MISSOULA, Mont.—She's not a superdelegate, she hasn't donated money to any campaign and she won't be eligible to vote until 2025.

Yet Tazawana Jo Barlow got face time and photo ops with both Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama when they appeared in Missoula last weekend.

How did the baby, who's a Crow tribal member, manage the kind of access that most journalists and lobbyists can only dream about?

It helps to be 10 months old and very cute. That, and her mother has a knack for being in the right place at the right time.

Amid some 8,000 people at an Obama rally held at the University of Montana's Adam Center on April 5, Twila Old Coyote finagled VIP seats behind the lectern and stage for her and her daughter. She also got within arm's length of Hillary Clinton during a Sunday event attended by nearly 2,000 people at the Neptune Aviation hangar near the Missoula International Airport.

And both times, the candidates seized the opportunity to create the kind of "aww" moment that wins hearts and minds — and votes.

After finishing his speech, Obama was shaking hands but refusing photo ops — that is until he spotted Taza. Old Coyote remembers he had just told a supporter, I'm not posing for pictures, but upon seeing her daughter, quickly added, Except with babies.

Once Taza was in Obama's arms, Old Coyote snapped a picture with her camera phone to preserve the moment. At the Clinton rally a day later, Old Coyote was ready with her digital camera.

After her speech, Clinton shook hands with supporters and took questions. "I had Taza on my shoulders, but we were about four people deep," Old Coyote said.

She had given up getting closer, she said, but then Clinton looked her way saying, Oh, there's a baby. People in front let mother and child through, and soon Taza was in Clinton's arms. She's so sweet, Old Coyote recalled Clinton saying, I want to take her with me.

Taza seemed to be at ease with both candidates. Old Coyote, who works at the University of Montana's office of American Indian Student Services, is not as impartial. She is an Obama supporter, she said, because she sees him as someone who will do more to address Native American issues.

"He wants to meet on a yearly basis with tribal leaders, and not have them go through the bureaucracy," Old Coyote said. She also said she believes Obama's background better equips him to understand the Native perspective.

"He gets it," she said. "And I don't think [Clinton] does."

The story originally was published by CrowNews.Net and is used with permission.

Brett Thomas-DeJongh is a graduate student at the University of Montana School of Journalism.