MIAMI -- Clearly, Barack Obama can draw a crowd.

About 50,000 people in Orlando, 75,000 in Kansas City, 100,000 in St. Louis. And yesterday, more than 30,000 on the Miami waterfront, where the Illinois Democratic senator used a sunset rally to target the truthfulness of Arizona Sen. John McCain, his Republican presidential rival.

"Apparently Senator McCain's decided that if he can't beat our ideas, then he's just going to make up some ideas and run against those," Mr. Obama shouted into the balmy night air. "Well, what we need now is not straw men; we don't need misleading charges. What we need is honest leadership and real change."

But the rock-star scene has grown so familiar that it's no longer surprising -- or terribly newsworthy -- when the Democratic nominee attracts a super-sized audience.

So Mr. Obama dulled things down on the second day of a Florida swing, presiding over an economic roundtable so academic that it could have been professor Obama teaching one of his constitutional law classes.

The afternoon event in Lake Worth was grand in ambition: a roundtable with several Democratic governors, a former head of the Federal Reserve, the chief executive of Google. It was stately in execution, down to the 12 furled flags standing, sentrylike, against a blue-curtained backdrop.

It was also the rare Obama appearance that left his audience of 1,800 slumping into -- not leaping out of -- their seats.

"It's not what I was expecting," said Victoria Pierre-Louis, 32, a Haitian immigrant and campaign volunteer, who hastened her citizenship application so she could vote Nov. 4. "I'm already a supporter, so I kind of know everything he's doing. I was just waiting for a chance to scream and holler."

Florida is suffering, terribly. As Mr. Obama pointed out, the state has lost more jobs in recent months than economically strapped Michigan and Ohio. "We packed the schedule with rallies; we're telling people to vote early," said Obama spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki. "We also want people ... to know what the [economic] solutions are, and what the steps are going to be if Senator Obama becomes president."

So after the crowd exhausted chants of "Yes, We Can!" and "We Will Rock You!," Mr. Obama begged their forbearance for "a more serious discussion," with "some of the smartest people you ever care to meet." He outlined his economic recovery proposal, including a tax cut for working families, tax credit for companies creating domestic jobs and public-works plan to put people back to work.

Some people welcomed the conversation. "I thought it was going to be a pep rally, and I see intelligent people having a discussion about lots of things. How could it be a bad thing?" asked Fred Sklar, 56, a water management scientist from West Palm Beach.

But eyes wandered. Heads nodded. Some took long water or bathroom breaks. Many fanned themselves furiously as the heat rose inside the packed gymnasium.

After 90-odd minutes, the Buckeye State's Mr. Strickland finally roused the audience with a political rejoinder, a poke at Joe the Plumber, the Ohioan who has become an economic totem for Mr. McCain and fellow Republicans.

Mr. Strickland said he just visited Joe Wurzelbacher's neighborhood, where he met "Sean the Ironworker," who asked him to pass along a message to Mr. Obama: "Tell him Sean the Ironworker is building a bridge for him to the White House."

That got the crowd cheering.