The Associated Press

EL DORADO, Kan. — Democrat Barack Obama intensified a serious effort Tuesday to win what has been a safe Republican state and picked up Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ endorsement for his White House bid.

Hundreds of cheering supporters braved blowing snow and frigid temperatures to crowd into a gymnasium at Butler Community College to see Obama, one week before Kansas’ presidential caucuses. The city fire marshal estimated 1,900 people were in the gym and about 400 more were in overflow areas in other buildings.

Obama has Kansas ties: His mother was born at Fort Leavenworth during World War II, and Stanley Dunham, her father and Obama’s grandfather, was a native of El Dorado. Also, his rally occurred on Kansas Day, the anniversary of the state’s admission to the Union in 1861.

He began his speech by declaring: “We’re among friends here. We’re family.”

He said he could talk about making politics less divisive because of his personal experiences. “It’s a story that began here in El Dorado,” he said.

Democratic presidential candidates long had sought Sebelius’ backing in a state that George W. Bush carried by large margins in the 2000 and 2004 elections. No Democratic nominee for the White House has won Kansas’ electoral votes since 1964, but Sebelius has won two terms and prospered politically.

“Our country is more than a collection of red states and blue states because my story could happen only in the United States of America,” Obama said.

And he pointed to Sebelius: “She’s shown America that the Democratic Party is a party that can run anywhere and win anywhere and lead anywhere.”

Sebelius won re-election in 2006 with nearly 58 percent of the vote, even though less than 27 percent of the voters in Kansas are registered Democrats. Her success has led national Democratic leaders to describe her as one of the party’s brightest stars. She gave the Democratic response to Bush’s State of the Union address Monday night.

“Barack Obama has Midwestern values, values that we know about, and he got them from his grandparents and his mom,” she said after arriving late because of the weather.

Later Tuesday evening, Sebelius joined Obama at a rally of about 2,500 supporters in Kansas City, Mo. Obama touched on recurring campaign themes of the Iraq war, health care and the economy in a 50-minute speech that was interrupted frequently with applause and once by a woman in the front row who appeared faint. Some in the crowd had been waiting more than two hours to hear the candidate speak.

Obama asked if someone could get the woman a chair, and within seconds a chair was sent over the heads of several people in the crowd until it reached the woman.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Obama said. “People helping people.”

State and national Republican Party officials portrayed both Obama and Sebelius as out-of-touch liberals. Christian Morgan, the state GOP’s executive director, said endorsing Obama “does nothing for Kansas.”