CLEVELAND -- The Lion of the Senate yesterday brought Ohioans to their feet by walking into a room.

He mentioned his brothers and hundreds swooned. He read the driving directions to the hall -- literally, recited the interstates and local roads he'd traveled to reach yesterday's speeches, a bit of shtick he has employed for years -- and the crowd roared with delight.

Edward Moore Kennedy, elder statesman of a family dynasty and accessory to history, toured this state for Sen. Barack Obama and swallowed the place whole.

"He's got Kennedy charisma. You know, like John and Bob? Ted's the man," said Willie Stokes, who showed up an hour early at the Fairhill Center in Cleveland to hear a 15-minute speech the senior senator from Massachusetts delivered without notes, in whole paragraphs, as if commas and semicolons were suspended in midair as he spoke.

"You're here because you care very deeply about your families. You care very deeply about your children.

"You want to have someone who is going to lead this country," Mr. Kennedy told a packed hall here.

He launched into the patented litany of Kennedy issues: more funding for education, reeling in the North American Free Trade Agreement, jobs creation and national health care. On the latter issue his preferred candidate, Mr. Obama, has not fully committed to the sweeping policies Mr. Kennedy has sought.

But riding a wave of applause, he rolled through the details the swept up crowds here, in Youngstown, and, by afternoon's end, Akron.

"Ted Kennedy is someone everyone here seems to rally around," said Dennis Madden, Cuyahoga County administrator.

"Despite his age -- he's probably in his mid-70s -- he's still an outspoken person on behalf of working families and individuals in the country. Once again, the Rust Belt states and metropolitan areas are very receptive to that."

Receptive, yes. In ways even the Obama advance staff hadn't fully anticipated.

"It's more of a neighborhood kind of reception," explained one when a reporter noted that only 62 chairs had been set out, roughly a third of the depth of the 80-foot-deep meeting room at Fairhill.

With 20 minutes to go before the senator's scheduled arrival -- meaning a good 45 minutes before he actually got there -- volunteers were wheeling in more chairs.

By the time the senator strode to the lectern, the room was shoulder-to-shoulder and ready to fill with a wall of oratory.

It was classic Kennedy. He turns 76 this week. Son of a family known for bone-crushing touch football games and dizzying ski runs, the senator walks with a hunched back.

For after-speech press gaggles he needed a chair. His endorsement of Mr. Obama, and the speaking schedule he has set for himself -- New Mexico, California, Texas, Ohio -- bespeaks an urgency to which he admits.

"The time is so important in terms of this country and what this country represents in the world," he said after a stem-winder at Youngstown State University. "Public service was something that was very important to our family and I still believe in it."

Does he derive a sort of nourishment from these things?

He never answered that one. Instead, he turned it into a question about the qualities of Barack Obama.

"He stays on message," explained one staffer.

The package the message comes in is important to listeners, whether it be because of the content or the Kennedy brand.

John Bishel, a chemistry student at the University of Akron, drove from his home in Columbus, he confessed, simply to hear a Ted Kennedy speech.

"I definitely was drawn by the name," said Mr. Bishel who, at 22, not only had no recollection of the presidency of John F. Kennedy, or the Camelot-infused life of Bobby Kennedy, but wasn't even on earth when Ted Kennedy made his own, ill fated bid for the presidency in 1980.

Told of a generation that grew up in homes where JFK's photograph sometimes hung next to that of Pope John XXIII, Mr. Bishel remembered simply that, in his house, the Kennedy's were remembered.

"It was more talking about the past. Kennedy was a big name in the past. Nowadays, with the passing of John and Bobby and I guess, you know, Kennedy's always had a mystique, but I don't think it's as big as it was in the past," he said.

His brother, he added, was a big Kennedy fan.

"We actually went and visited that museum over in Boston back in August," he said.

For Riki Jones, an eighth-grader from Cleveland, the connection is even murkier. He came with his mom, Mia Stubbs, because she was excited about the speaker. "I wanted to support my mom," he said.

What does he know about Ted Kennedy? "I don't know anything abut his brothers," Riki said.

Not even John Kennedy? "Oh, that's his brother? I didn't know that."

No problem. By the time Mr. Kennedy got to Youngstown, he was able to remind the crowd of that connection.

Right after reminding Youngstowners that they cared about their futures, their children's futures, their country's future, he reminded them of his brother John's final campaign push in the autumn of 1960.

He mentioned the town square. He invoked a crowd number that had some in Youngstown, a city living on half the population of its heyday, gasping in surprise.

"Two hundred and fifty thousand people turned out to wish him well," Mr. Kennedy said. "He came here to Youngstown on a number of different occasions.

"And my brother Bob and myself, we've always been well and warmly received and we've always felt we were among family. Are we among family?" Applause filled the room.

There was one empty space in that sonic wall.

Ted Bosela, 49, had brought his son, Steve, 18, to hear the speech. Ted Bosela even vaguely recalls his father's stories of the famous JFK visit in 1960.

They'll probably vote Republican. But they left the room with little doubt that, in the Democratic arsenal, they'd just looked at some major throw weight.

"He's a good talker. He makes his point and he can get people to believe in it," said Ted.

"Both him and Obama," said Steve, "which I haven't seen in politics that I can remember."

Would this bring him around? "I look more at the stance in the issues than if someone can talk well," Steve said.

In the hallway nearby, people were lining up for one last look at the man who'd just filled the room.

Admitted Ted: "He still has it."