Supporters of Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama gather outside Cleveland State University last Tuesday.

NYT / TODD HEISLER

A lot can happen in a Rhode Island political week — from a Hillary Clinton visit on a Sunday to a Barack Obama visit on a Saturday — and the ironies have been running especially deep.

You’ll remember that New York Sen. Clinton mocked Illinois Sen. Obama last Sunday at a rally at Rhode Island College.

He was asked about it during Tuesday night’s MSNBC Democratic presidential debate in Cleveland.

In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Obama told me he didn’t know offhand that the footage of Clinton’s melodramatic lampooning of him — her saying, “I could stand up here and say, ‘Let’s just get everybody together, let’s get unified — the sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing…’ ” — took place in Rhode Island.

But, yes, now that I mentioned it, he noticed a smiling Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Clinton’s co-chair here, sitting behind her. “That I did see.”

And now I said that the rally was in the very same RIC recreation center in which Obama campaigned for Whitehouse in 2006.

“You should remind Sheldon of that,” Obama chuckled.

Not only does Whitehouse support Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, but also former Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who lost to Whitehouse and became an independent, supports Obama.

“I know,” Obama said. “Things seem to come full circle.”

Obama was right about that. Indeed, his campaign booked him for the same RIC setting for yesterday’s rally.

Buildings trigger memories. When I walked into the gym last Sunday, I thought about Obama’s stop in 2006, and, in any future visit, I’m sure I’ll hear echoes of Clinton’s rally.

She boomed, “I don’t see this election as about me, I see it as about you, about your lives, your families, your future.”

Cheers.

And so, the former first lady said, after the 1993-’94 drive for universal health care failed, “I helped to start the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and today in Rhode Island thousands of children have access to health care that never would have had it because they weren’t poor enough and they sure weren’t rich enough.”

Stormy applause.

In the days leading up to Obama’s Oct. 12, 2006, appearance for Whitehouse, I did a phone interview with the Illinoisan, then 45. He left open the idea of running for president someday but said it would not be in 2008. But by the time 2006 faded, he was seeing things differently.

Last week, as he was about to leave Ohio for Texas, I asked what he had learned about himself or the country that made him decide to run in 2008.

He said, “During the course of that campaigning on behalf of other candidates, you really got a sense that people were hungry for something new and something different, that they were frustrated with a politics that was all about petty bickering and point scoring, that people were looking for a different approach.”

During Christmas vacation, he said, he sat down with his wife, Michelle, and some other top advisers and concluded that his attributes — “the ability to bring people together” and so on — seemed a good match for the times and made a run worth doing.

He has, of course, flourished, and people project their hopes on him, and I wonder if anyone could be as good a president as his euphoric fans count on him to be.

Obama told me, “I’ve been very clear with people that change doesn’t happen from the top — change happens from the bottom up — and that the excitement and energy of this campaign is how the grass roots have become involved in ways that we haven’t seen in a very long time. That’s what’s going to bring about change.

“So the promises I make on the campaign trail are fairly modest. What I say is I’m going to be honest and straightforward about the challenges that we face, that I’m going to listen to even those who disagree with me, that I am going to be fighting for ordinary people and not the special interests in Washington, that I’ll be straight with them about where I stand and what I think. Those are promises I can keep. And together with the American people I think we can solve some of these major problems.”

I mentioned that several columnists have begun expressing sharp skepticism of him, needling him as, say, the “Hope Pope” and the “High Deacon of Unity.”

Obama asserted that in politics there is a cycle in which “people want to build you up and then they want to tear you down.”

He said, “During the summer of this campaign, people said that our campaign was terrible and it was all over and then we start doing well and we were geniuses and we could do no wrong, and I’m sure we’ll have another turn on the wheel sometime soon. But I’m less worried about what columnists are talking about and more interested in what I’m hearing about from ordinary people, in Rhode Island and across the country, and they are struggling. They’re having a hard time, and that’s real.”

He mentioned such concerns as health care, job security, home foreclosures and the costs of college, oil and gasoline.

“Those are the things that, you know, people I think are really worried about, and my job is to pay attention to them and not worry so much about what my political fortunes are on any given week.”

Last week, eying Rhode Island, Obama could look at a state where most big Democratic names are with Clinton but where he also has heavy hitters, most notably Rep. Patrick Kennedy.

The week included a Monday visit by Republican Mike Huckabee, a splash of activity in a GOP race that is widely regarded as over, with Sen. John McCain, who was here on Feb. 14, virtually certain to be the nominee.

With the Democratic contest afire, the Clinton campaign on Thursday brought in former President Bill Clinton to stump for his wife at Bryant University.

And did I mention Friday Rhode Island appearances by Sen.Ted Kennedy for Obama and Chelsea Clinton for her mother?

At Bryant, Bill Clinton said of Hillary Clinton, “She’s the best change agent, she’s got the best ideas for reviving the economy, for health care, for education, and she’d be the best commander in chief.”

He also vowed she’d stay in touch with the citizenry. “It is easy to get isolated when you are president and forget what life is like for real Americans,” he said. When a president is out of touch, he said, the consequences can be “horrible.” As an example, he pointed to the suffering of New Orleans residents in the days after Hurricane Katrina.

Hillary Clinton has been on a long primary/caucus losing streak, and there is a real question about her future if she can’t score some smashing victories this Tuesday.

Still, in Rhode Island last Sunday, she remained the picture of enthusiasm and fight.

I can see how a presidential candidate could remain convinced he or she was going to win despite the unyielding arithmetic of polls, strained finances, or the constant yak-yak of gloomy pundits.

Like other top-class candidates, Senator Clinton moves in a glamorous bubble — unquestionably a grinding ordeal, but definitely an emotional high.

When she speaks at a rally, as she did at RIC, people flock. They come early and they carry, or are given, signs. A giant American flag graces a wall.

When the candidate finally comes on stage, the signs bob up and down, a sea of crisp blue, red and white Hillary for President SMART CHOICE placards.

Or hand-scrawled ones like, IT TAKES A WOMAN TO STOP A WAR. (Or to start one, detractors might say of her 2002 vote to authorize use of troops in Iraq.)

Music blares. A forest of cell phone cameras sprouts.

This is politics in the round. Folks are positioned on all sides of the stage. The candidate paces back and forth, one hand holding the microphone, the other pointing or making grand, sweeping gestures. She is like an accomplished actress who knows her lines, repeats them performance after performance and makes them sound fresh. All major candidates are like this. And no matter that the audience has already heard on television everything that is said on stage, the fans relish hearing it in person.

One Clinton sentence after another touched off thunderclaps of applause or chants of Hill-a-ry! Hill-a-ry! Hill-a-ry!

Risers held armies of reporters, photographers and technicians, with their computers, lenses, recorders and bright lights.

When the rally ended, the crowd crushed forward as she worked a rope line.

Next stop was Johnston, where she greeted admirers at the Atwood Grill.

The national press corps was herded into the bar area to watch the scene from there. Secret Service agents and Clinton aides smoothed the way for her as she circulated in the restaurant.

Her entourage included Whitehouse — her Rhode Island day began with a fundraiser at his home — campaign co-chair Rep. Jim Langevin and Johnston Mayor Joe Polisena.

The mayor’s mother, Julie, got a Clinton autograph and gushed, “You’re doing a great job.”

Now here’s something I doubt a candidate would see anywhere but in Rhode Island — three fellows named Frank Montanaro, who were sharing a table. I noticed Clinton had gone over there, and, according to the family, this is how it went:

State AFL-CIO president Frank J. Montanaro introduced to the former first lady his 12-year-old grandson, also Frank J. Montanaro. She told the youngster, “Oh, we’ve got to have a picture. I’ve known your grandfather a long time.”

So, Frank A. Montanaro, the labor leader’s son and the boy’s father, snapped the photo, a nice memento of a memorable week in Rhode Island.

And this Tuesday night will tell the tale, here and in Texas, Ohio and Vermont, of what it all means for Clinton, and Obama, and America.

M. Charles Bakst is The Journal’s political columnist.

mbakst@projo.com