Posted: 09.29.2010

Logistics kept the leader of the free world from experiencing his first ever World Dairy Expo on Tuesday.

Mark Clarke, general manager of World Dairy Expo, tells Pam Jahnke that the National Democratic Committee contacted WDE about President Barack Obama visiting the show during his stop in Madison on Tuesday.  Obama made several unscheduled campaign-style stops in a day already packed with
events in two states. Obama surprised the football, volleyball and girls' tennis teams
at LaFollette High School in Madison, by visiting their practice fields Tuesday. Earlier in Albuquerque, N.M., Obama surprised the lunch crowd at Barela's Coffee House.

An "unscheduled stop" at expo, however, was not in the cards.  Clarke tells Jahnke, "Once I explained the nature of the show - the open campus - the traffic patterns, it became obvious to everybody that the security issues were just to large to tackle.  Plus, we really didn't want to disrupt all the commerce and business activity that would've been going on."

World Dairy Expo continues through Saturday at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison. 

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