Rising Star

by David J. Garrow

  As he had before, Barack explained to Herbert how the U.S. Senate was less satisfying than his years in Springfield. “When I was in the state legislature in Illinois, every senator had to be on the floor on every bill. And the sponsor would stand up and present it, and anybody could ask questions . . . so you’d actually have a sense of deliberation.” On Capitol Hill, “that almost never happens on the floor of the Senate” and that was a “disappointment.”36

  As Barack traveled the country for book signings and Democratic campaign rallies, two Philadelphia events on October 21 produced an Inquirer news story telling readers that Barack was “as handsome as John F. Kennedy and as charismatic as Bill Clinton.” He offered “a schoolboy’s charm and a movie star’s smile,” and reporter Christine Schiavo quoted a fifty-three-year-old man as explaining, “You feel like you’re in the presence of greatness when you’re around him.” Scheduled to appear the next morning on NBC’s Meet the Press, Barack spoke by conference call with Robert Gibbs, David Axelrod, and Axelrod’s partner David Plouffe about the likelihood that host Tim Russert would confront him with his January declaration that he would not run in 2008. Barack told his aides he considered such a race “unlikely,” but “Why don’t I just tell the truth? Say I had no intention of even thinking about running when I was on the show in January, but things have changed, and I will give it some thought after the 2006 election.”

  On the air with Russert, Barack said it was “important not to buy into your own hype,” and “I’ve got a wife who knocks me down a peg any time I start thinking what they’re writing about me is true.” When Russert raised the presidency, Barack explained that “most of the time it seems that the president has maybe 10 percent of his agenda set by himself and 90 percent of it set by circumstances.” Asked about greatness, Barack replied that “when I think about great presidents, I think about those who transformed how we think about ourselves as a country in fundamental ways,” who “transformed the culture and not simply promoted one or two particular issues.” The presidency “can’t be something that you pursue on the basis of vanity and ambition. I think there’s a certain soberness and seriousness required when you think about that office that is unique.”

  As he had with Bob Herbert, Barack reiterated that as a candidate, “the bargain you’re making with the American people is that ‘You put me in this office and my problems are not relevant. My job is to think about your problems.’” Just as expected, Russert presented Barack with the videotape of his January denial. “Given the responses that I’ve been getting over the last several months, I have thought about the possibility, but I have not thought about it with the seriousness and depth that I think is required. . . . After November 7, I’ll sit down and consider it.” Russert pressed the point. “It’s fair to say you’re thinking about running for president in 2008?” “It’s fair, yes,” Barack agreed. “I am still at the point where I have not made a decision to pursue higher office, but it is true that I have thought about it over the last several months.” “So it sounds as if the door has opened a bit,” Russert observed. “A bit,” Barack replied.

  On Monday morning every major newspaper headlined Barack’s comments to Russert. The New York Times quoted Steve Hildebrand recounting how “the reaction that Obama got in Iowa was like nothing I’ve ever seen before with another politician.” Times columnist Bob Herbert, reflecting on his Boston Q&A with Barack, warned he would have to “develop the kind of toughness and savvy that are essential in the ugly and brutal combat of a presidential campaign.” Beginning a West Coast swing that would take him from Phoenix to Denver, San Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles, Barack told a magazine editors’ conference that his family might well not be prepared for a presidential race. “It’s not clear that they are ready for it, or that I even want to put them in a position where they’ve got to make that decision.” Michelle “cares more about whether I’m a good father and a good husband than she does about whether I’m a U.S. senator.”

  In a lengthy television taping, Barack told host Tavis Smiley that on Meet the Press, it would have been “foolish of me to pretend that somehow I hadn’t thought about it.” Yet “the presidency is a unique position,” one “that consumes you, it consumes your family,” and “you have to feel that you are prepared in a very internal conversation between you and your maker, and your family.” Barack confessed that “I haven’t even thought through the process to think it through. . . . I need to take a look at what message do I have that would be unique, and am I the right messenger for it? Most profoundly, I’d have to talk to Michelle and my two little girls and find out whether this is something that they’re signed up for.” On the issues, “the most important area where we have not made serious efforts is when it comes to serious inner-city poverty,” especially with regard to opportunities for ex-offenders. Barack twice cited “the capacity to disagree without being disagreeable,” and while he stressed avoiding “the demonization of the other side,” he nonetheless attacked the “radically ideological Bush administration.”37

  In Denver, more than five hundred people began lining up as early as 5:00 A.M. to have Barack autograph their copies of Audacity. “We need healing, and this man can bring it about,” one customer told a reporter. Back in Chicago, longtime cheerleader Newton Minow penned a Tribune op-ed headlined “Why Obama Should Run for President.” Up until Minow happened to see a rebroadcast of Barack’s Iowa steak fry appearance on C-SPAN, “I did not think he should run for president,” Minow explained. But watching Iowans’ enthusiasm for Barack had changed his mind, and Minow called him, saying, “You ought to go for it now.”

  In the Washington Post, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer also called for Barack to run, predicting that while he would not win in 2008—“the country will simply not elect a novice in wartime”—a loss would “put him irrevocably on a path to the presidency,” in part because “there are more Americans who would take special pride in a black president than there are those who would reject one because of racism.” Writing in the Financial Times, Jacob Weisberg, who had so memorably interviewed Barack four months earlier, asserted that the nationwide acclaim that had greeted Barack’s book tour “has overthrown much of the conventional wisdom about what is likely to happen in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign.” If Barack announced his candidacy, he “will rapidly become the de facto Democratic frontrunner,” eclipsing Senate colleague Hillary Rodham Clinton and former vice presidential nominee John Edwards.

  In Marin County, north of San Francisco, eleven hundred people paid $125 per person for a copy of Audacity and the opportunity to hear Barack address a noontime charity fund-raiser. The following morning in Seattle, more than two thousand people heard Barack tell a political rally, “We’ve got to have hope. We’ve got to have a belief in things not seen.” Later that day, a book signing attracted a sellout crowd of twenty-five hundred. On Saturday morning in Austin, Texas, people began lining up at 6:00 A.M. for a Barack book signing in the Texas capitol. Barack made it back to Chicago in time to tardily join Michelle at a gala sixty-fifth-birthday celebration for Rev. Jesse Jackson at the South Shore Cultural Center. CNN correspondent Don Lemon buttonholed an exuberant Michelle. “I love this man. I grew up in this man’s house. I’ve seen it all,” exclaimed Michelle in recalling her childhood friendship with Jackson’s daughter Santita. Then Lemon asked, “Are you ready to be first lady?” and Michelle clammed up. “No comment.”

  Barack complained to Chicago Tribune books editor Elizabeth Taylor that “I never get a chance to read anymore,” and when Taylor asked what books had most impacted him, Barack cited Gandhi’s Truth, calling Erik Erikson’s psychoanalytic biography “a great book.” On Monday morning, Barack was at a Borders in downtown Minneapolis, where the store quickly sold out of its one thousand copies of Audacity. “I saw him on Oprah,” one student told a reporter. “I’m not really into politics, but I like inspiring people, and he inspires me.” At a subsequent rally in suburban Rochester, Minnes
ota, Barack was “mobbed for autographs,” and on Tuesday in Milwaukee fifteen hundred people braved a chilly wind at a riverfront park to hear Barack speak on behalf of Democratic Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle. U.S. senator Herb Kohl told the crowd “we might just have a future president in town,” and Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett said the enthusiasm was “something we haven’t seen for decades.” An older woman told a journalist that Barack was “our Jack Kennedy,” and a New York Times correspondent called Barack “the prize catch of the midterm campaign.”38

  But trouble was brewing back in Chicago as Tribune reporters discovered that the vacant lot adjoining Barack’s new home was owned by newly indicted Tony Rezko. Barack later recounted, “I called him to let him know that ‘Look, you may be getting inquiries about this, and so it’s important for you to be able to talk to folks about your intentions in terms of development and so forth,’” but now Tony was not taking anyone’s questions. Chicago columnists came down hard. Revisiting the purchase prices of the two properties, the Tribune’s John Kass concluded that “Obama bought his home at a $300,000 discount. Rezko bought the adjoining lot from the same sellers at full price. One got a juicy bargain. The other overpaid.”

  Appearing on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, Barack alluded to the criticism, saying, “there’re going to be some days where” as a politician “you get knocked around a little bit,” and the next morning a Tribune editorial called for Barack “to explain, fully and quickly” whether Rezko “in effect subsidized Obama’s purchase of the opulent house and also provided an abutting private preserve that adds to its ambience.” Late Friday Barack told the Sun-Times he had not spoken with Tony for more than six months, and that neither he nor Michelle had ever represented Rezko or his various companies. In a written statement, Barack said “it was a mistake to have been engaged with him at all in this or any other personal business dealing that would allow him, or anyone else, to believe that he had done me a favor.” Barack added that “I consider this a mistake on my part, and I regret it,” but a Crain’s Chicago Business editorial criticized the conjoined purchases as “a colossally stupid move.”

  But Barack’s hectic schedule of Democratic campaign rallies, especially in states where Senate challengers were waging competitive races against incumbent Republicans, left him little time to ponder the Rezko criticism. In Richmond, Virginia, he “received a rock star’s welcome” and “thunderous cheers” when speaking on behalf of Democrat Jim Webb. A State Journal-Register poll of Illinois voters showed that 59 percent would vote for Barack for president, although only 50 percent believed he should run in 2008. Appearing in Cleveland with Ohio Senate candidate Sherrod Brown on Saturday, Barack told Brown’s wife Connie Schultz that a 2008 race was doubtful. “You know, Michelle really does not want me to do this.” Indeed, when Barack first told Michelle about the upcoming Wednesday meeting to discuss a run, “I said ‘No way. Absolutely not.’ The last thing I wanted was for my girls to have their worlds turned upside down. It broke my heart just to think about it,” Michelle recalled. “Let’s not do this now,” she told her husband.

  But on Sunday, November 5, two days before Election Day, Barack made his third trip that fall to Iowa, giving “a boisterous speech” on behalf of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chet Culver. “After the election, I’m going to sit down and give the possibility the serious consideration it deserves,” Barack told reporters, and discuss it “with my family, with my pastor.” A Washington Post story surveying the fall campaign efforts of possible 2008 contenders stated that “Obama has generated rapturous enthusiasm among Democrats,” and that “his success on the campaign trail in recent weeks has added to his cachet.” The Post also calculated that Barack’s fund-raising efforts had raised a total of $3.6 million for Democratic candidates. On Tuesday, Barack spent the evening watching election returns and making congratulatory calls to Democratic winners. As the hours passed, it became clear that Democrats had won control of the Senate, defeating six Republican incumbents to take a 51–49 majority. Democrats also won control of the House, seizing thirty Republican seats, and in Illinois young Alexi Giannoulias won election as state treasurer. Savoring how his party now controlled both houses of Congress, Barack told the New York Times, “Democrats have a wonderful opportunity to show that we have an agenda for change.”39

  On Wednesday Barack headed to David Axelrod’s office in River North to have lunch with mayoral brother and former commerce secretary Bill Daley, who told him, “You gotta run.” But the day’s main event was still ahead: an afternoon meeting in Axelrod’s conference room that Pete Rouse had begun pulling together weeks earlier. In attendance were Axelrod’s partner David Plouffe, the enthusiastic Steve Hildebrand, Robert Gibbs, former Senate staffer Alyssa Mastromonaco, who was now at Hopefund, close friends Marty Nesbitt and Valerie Jarrett, and Michelle. Rouse had prepared a six-point memo to guide the discussion, but Barack had three uppermost questions. Number one, “Could I win?” especially against Hillary Rodham Clinton. “How would you organize a campaign against the best brand name in Democratic politics?” Second, what would be the impact on his family? “What would the schedule look like? How much money would I have to raise?” Michelle asked whether Barack could get home to see his daughters each weekend. Hildebrand eagerly said yes, but Plouffe, who thought that running was very unlikely, interjected a firm no. “If you run, you’ll never see your family, you’ll be under pressure the likes of which you can’t imagine, and it will be absolutely miserable from a personal standpoint.” Marty Nesbitt reacted jokingly to that litany: “I’m so glad I’m not running for president.” Barack immediately corrected him: “Oh, but you are. This is going to affect your life, too.”

  But Barack’s third question was the toughest: “Should I win? Is there some unique message, something distinct enough from the other candidates, that would justify me running this soon?” Over the past three weeks, Barack had come to believe that the answer to this question was yes. From the Iowa steak fry onward, throughout all of his book tour and campaign events, “there was just this remarkable, visceral response” crowds had shown toward him. “What it told me was that people really were looking for something different.” Yet Michelle worried that even if she could be convinced that a campaign would still allow Barack to be the father she wanted her daughters to have, “can we actually chart a course to victory? I want you to show me how you’re going to do this. You need to show me that this is not going to be a bullshit, fly-by-night campaign,” one participant recalled. Barack spoke up, but Michelle cut him off. “We’re talking about you right now.” Barack finally said that the question going forward was “whether we can build not a winning campaign, but a credible one,” yet his tone was measured. “Well, I think it’s highly unlikely that I’m going to do this, but we should go and do due diligence on this and have another meeting in a month.”

  Barack, Michelle, Nesbitt, and Jarrett headed to a nearby Italian restaurant for dinner. Plouffe left the meeting thinking that a race remained improbable, but Barack “was more serious about running than I had anticipated.” David Axelrod agreed: “I think he wants to run,” but “Michelle is the wild card.” At dinner, Michelle voiced her doubts and worries to Jarrett and Nesbitt, especially regarding Barack’s physical safety plus the impact on their daughters. Eventually Valerie pushed back. “Let’s try this from a different perspective. Michelle, let’s say Barack answers all your questions to your full satisfaction,” that “he’s got an answer for every one of them. Are you in?” Michelle’s reply surprised her husband: “I’m in a hundred and ten percent,” but she quickly turned to Barack. “You’re going to be really specific with me. You’re going to tell me exactly how we’re going to work it out” before she would give her blessing for a race.40

  The next morning the New York Times reported that The Audacity of Hope would be the number 1 hardback nonfiction bestseller in the newspaper’s next Sunday rankings. Calling the book “something of a publishing stunner,” the paper rep
orted that to date Audacity had sold 182,000 copies. With 860,000 copies in print, the book’s success promised to increase Barack’s royalty income even further. But his focus was elsewhere. Buoyed by the previous afternoon’s discussion, Barack was on the phone to Democratic activists in Iowa and New Hampshire, asking what John Norris, who had run John Kerry’s 2004 Iowa campaign, called “earnest” questions about the Democratic race. In New Hampshire, state party chairman Kathy Sullivan and Jim Demers, Dick Gephardt’s former New Hampshire campaign chair, received calls. “Kathy, this is Barack Obama. I might be coming to New Hampshire.” Sullivan had been thinking about holding a December event to celebrate Democrats’ November victories, and she immediately invited Barack to address it.

  Returning to Washington, Democrats’ new Senate majority allowed Barack to trade in his membership on the Environment and Public Works Committee while adding two more appealing ones—Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs—while retaining Foreign Relations. Meeting privately with a dozen or so D.C. friends, many of whom he had known since Harvard, Barack found the group hesitant about his presidential prospects. One African American expressed doubt that the country was ready to elect a black president, and several comments obliquely touched on Barack’s safety. Speaking with the Associated Press, Barack remarked that “the people who are most hesitant about this oftentimes are African-Americans because they feel protective of me.”