Rising Star

by David Garrow

  Cauley expanded the campaign’s tight quarters by moving from the fourteenth floor at 310 South Michigan to a larger, unfinished space on the seventeenth. Barack initially was perturbed by all the exposed wiring, but when Jimmy deftly explained that encasing them would cost several hours’ worth of Barack’s call time, Barack immediately replied that they looked just fine. Nate Tamarin knew that Barack “just hated” call time, but Cauley’s arrival meant increased discipline, and “the campaign really ramped up,” Audra Wilson recalled. The campaign had yet to hire an African American outreach director, and when Barack asked longtime AFSCME lobbyist Ray Harris to take on the role, he instead recommended AFSCME organizer Kevin Watson, whom Dan Shomon also knew. Cauley had the experience to be campaign manager, but as a newcomer to Chicago and Illinois politics, “the care and feeding of the local animals,” as Jimmy put it, remained Shomon’s responsibility. After some brief “uneasiness at the beginning,” Cauley realized how “immensely useful” Dan was for anything in Illinois politics, and the two became an effective team.

  Dan and Ray Harris arranged to introduce Barack to Kevin Watson at Mellow Yellow in Hyde Park, and as often happened when Barack drove himself, he arrived more than an hour late. “You’ve got regular time, and you’ve got Barack Obama time,” Watson came to learn. Barack apologized, and almost immediately asked Kevin to join the campaign as base vote director, saying that Ray and Dan’s judgment was conclusive. Cauley’s campaign plan called for expanding the staff as slowly as possible, although both another finance assistant and a press person could not be delayed much longer. Cauley’s memo also recommended some “media training” for Barack to “Work on the Passion Gap” the consultants saw in Barack’s overly professorial public speaking style. By the end of September, campaign scheduling would be complicated by Barack’s four-days-a-week class schedule at the U of C, but he could not afford to take leave for the autumn quarter, although he would have no choice but to do so for the winter 2004 one. Some initial appearances on “urban” radio during the fall could boost Barack’s name recognition among black voters, but the veto session would occupy seven days in November.

  Once candidate petitions were filed, Joyce Washington’s would be reviewed with an eye toward whether Barack could become the only African American candidate. In mid-January a final eight weeks of radio ads would commence, with the extent of Chicagoland television advertising dependent on how the next six months of fund-raising went: hopefully five weeks at a frequency of 4,000 “gross rating points,” or in the poorer alternative three and a half weeks at 3,050 GRPs. The bottom line was crystal clear: “Barack Obama goal of 35 percent on election day,” a 2 percent increase from Pete Giangreco and Terry Walsh’s initial targeting figure, but one they had agreed to revise slightly upward. Their updated “Integrated Strategic Plan” hoped for the Democratic presidential race to remain competitive up through Illinois’s March 16 primary because “turnout will be enhanced, and Obama will be the likely beneficiary” as more black voters went to the polls. “To become the established African American candidate on the ballot is to build votes from a rock-solid base,” Giangreco wrote as he increased Barack’s projected vote share to just under 50 percent in Chicago and just more than 40 in the balance of Cook County. A statewide goal of 413,000 votes would mean victory with just more than 35 percent.29

  The morning after the consultants’ daylong meeting with Harstad, Barack made a three-hour drive northwestward to Galena, where the Illinois Federation of Teachers’ thirty-eight-member state board was interviewing the candidates as part of an annual retreat. “We’d had a good relationship with Dan Hynes for many years,” IFT political director Steve Preckwinkle recalled, and there was only a “pretty slim” chance that the union’s endorsement might go to anyone else. Some board members had questioned the utility of even interviewing Hynes’s opponents, but Preckwinkle’s experience with Barack in Springfield led him to say, “there’s at least one more serious candidate for us to interview.” Just before Barack’s 11:00 A.M. session, Preckwinkle cautioned him, “I can’t promise you that the outcome of this is going to be favorable to you.” Barack “puts his hand on my shoulder. ‘Steve, that’s fine. I didn’t ask for any guarantees,’” and said he appreciated the opportunity. “‘Now it’s up to me.’”

  The session lasted only thirty minutes, but Barack “literally just blew them away,” answering “every question” on issues like No Child Left Behind with “total command of the facts.” As a result, “our board was probably ready to make an endorsement decision that day,” but Preckwinkle recommended that they hold off for three months to see how Barack’s fund-raising progressed. “I told Barack I thought he did an excellent job,” that “he helped himself a great deal and probably made himself a contender with the board when he had not been prior to that.” When Dan Hynes asked how he had done, Preckwinkle answered honestly: “Frankly, probably a little flat, at least compared to one of the other candidates.”

  The next Saturday was Bronzeville’s annual Bud Billiken Parade, with Jim Cauley reprimanding Barack for walking “the whole damn parade with his shades on. ‘You gotta look people in the eye!’” he scolded. A Monday-night event in Elgin hosted by the African American Ministerial Alliance drew only twenty-five people to hear about “a chance to believe again,” Barack’s campaign theme, but his entire staff plus young volunteers Juleigh Nowinski and Tarak Shah pulled out all the stops to have as many supporters as possible present for the Illinois State Fair’s annual Democrat Day on August 13. Barack led off his remarks by describing a conversation he had had only an hour or so earlier. “Walking into the hotel this afternoon . . . I was stopped by a woman who actually works in the statehouse” and who told Barack that her mother had suffered a stroke and her Medicare coverage was expiring. Now the secretary might have to quit work to stay home and take care of her. “Ultimately, the only reason that we should be involved in politics is to give this woman a fighting chance,” Barack told the crowd as Hynes, Hull, and Chico waited their turns. The question “is not whether you’re going to vote the right way as a Democrat, it’s whether you’re going to fight as a Democrat. I’m tired of watching Democrats go to Washington and fail in the face of the Republican onslaught. I’m tired of Republicans taking a mile and then we take back an inch and call it a victory.” Democrats needed a Senate candidate “who is battle-tested, has been in the trenches, fighting in the state Senate” for programs such as the FamilyCare expansion, thanks to which fifty-five thousand Illinois families “are going to have health insurance because of a bill I passed.”

  Six months later, Barack would use that hotel lobby conversation again. “‘Senator, I know how busy you are, but I want to talk to you for a moment,’” Barack recounted. “‘Sure, what’s going on?’ ‘My mother, who’s aging, fell down and broke her hip. And she went into the hospital, and it looked like it was supposed to be a simple operation but something went wrong . . . she is now paralyzed. . . . She has two choices. She can get long-term care up in Chicago 200 miles away from me, or she can come home, and I will have to care for her 24 hours a day, which would mean that I would have to give up my job. And I don’t know what to do.’” Then “she started crying,” and Barack added, “I always think back to that story.”

  Rich Miller reported that at the fairgrounds that Wednesday, “Barack Obama gave the best speech, hushing the often chatty crowd with a stirring account of a family overwhelmed with medical bills.” Thursday was Republican Day, with Miller reporting that women staffing the Democrats’ tent were distracted by Republican Senate candidate Jack Ryan’s good looks. “Ryan has something about him which attracts attention and interest,” Miller explained. Barack cited the hotel conversation during a cable-TV interview with host Frank Avila, saying such a “typical” story showed why the U.S. needed to “move in the direction of a universal health care plan.” Barack also called for “universal preschool” and emphasized how as a U.S. senator, he would “be a check against over
reaching by the executive branch,” such as when a U.S. attorney general “decides that ‘I want to be able to read Frank Avila’s emails’ without having to go to a judge’” for a warrant. Asked how he would best describe himself, Barack replied, “I think I’m a populist.”

  On Sunday evening, Barack and Republican state senator Steve Rauschenberger jointly appeared on host Bruce DuMont’s two-hour, nationally syndicated Beyond the Beltway radio show. Also in Chicago but on the phone was Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. “It’s great to talk to you, Governor. Congratulations on the terrific work you’ve done so far,” Barack gushed. Dean returned the compliment. “I see a lot of people around with Obama buttons on. I didn’t know who you were until I saw those buttons and asked.” Barack was exultant. “I like that. I like that,” he told Dean. “I actually share many of your views.” After Dean signed off, Barack explained that “I like Dean a lot” because “there is an enormous hunger for plain-speaking Democrats” such as Dean. “He takes a clear stand, he speaks his mind.”

  Asked why he was running, Barack said, “I think that George Bush is making the wrong choices, and Democrats need somebody who can stand up to him. . . . The problem with the Democrats in Washington sometimes is they get rolled, or they don’t stand up for issues, and then they carp at Republicans who do have oftentimes the courage of their convictions, and I give George Bush credit for that.” Too often “Democrats seem timid when it comes to very commonsense issues that I think ultimately could generate support not only from Democrats but also from Republicans.” When a caller asked about illegal aliens, Barack responded that “immigration is a net plus to the economy, and that includes illegal and legal,” because “we end up benefiting from the work that’s done and the taxes that are paid by undocumented workers.” Throughout the show, the give-and-take between Barack and Rauschenberger was very genial, and as the program was wrapping up, Steve said in the Illinois Senate race Barack is “the Republicans’ number-one fear.”30

  The next morning the Chicago Sun-Times’ Steve Neal embraced the results of Paul Harstad’s late July poll. Obama is in “a very strong position to win” and a growing number of politicians “regard Obama as the most likely winner. . . . If the black community rallies behind Obama, he will be very difficult to stop” and “would be the instant favorite over any Republican now in the field.” In a subsequent column, Neal stated that Barack was “consolidating his base in the African-American community and among lakefront and suburban independents,” although Neal also said that Barack’s campaign was benefiting from a “finance committee that includes real estate developers Penny Pritzker and Tony Rezko” as well as Newton Minow, Abner Mikva, John Rogers, and Bettylu Saltzman.

  Dan Hynes’s polling showed him with a strong 26–15–12 percent lead over Maria Pappas and Barack, but with Blagojevich signing Barack’s nightclub safety, EITC expansion, and domestic violence protection bills into law, commendatory press clips ensued almost daily. John Kupper joked about “riding the wave of Barack bill-signings and Steve Neal columns” in a memo to Barack’s other aides while calling for an event featuring “jobs and/or pensions,” because “fighting to protect pensions was the number one argument for Barack” in Harstad’s detailed poll findings. The consultants turned their attention to selecting a press secretary for the campaign, eventually recommending Pam Smith, an African American public relations consultant who had worked on Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign. Barack took the lead in interviewing Kaleshia Page, a Smith College and Vanderbilt Law School graduate whom Audra Wilson knew and who had just finished a fellowship in the governor’s office. “You went to law school? Why aren’t you practicing?” Barack demanded. “He just hammers me,” because “he did not understand why I was not using the skills and experience I had.” She thought “this man’s attacking me,” and “it was just a little paternalistic,” but as soon as Kaleshia left, Barack called her cell phone to apologize and invited her to join Randon Gardley as a finance assistant to Claire Serdiuk. “Sorry I was a little rough on you,” she remembered him saying.

  Jim Cauley brought on Madhuri Kommareddi, an impressive Northwestern University senior who had volunteered in the spring before devoting the summer to her senior thesis, as operations director. Fellow undergraduate Lauren Kidwell, back at the University of Illinois for her senior year, began staffing a new Obama for Illinois Springfield office two days a week, and a young Rock Island woman, Andrea Hance, began working in Lane Evans’s Quad Cities area. Before long both Juleigh Nowinski and Adam Stolorow, a Brown graduate and army veteran whose best friend had met Cauley in a D.C. bar, went on staff as well. As Jimmy put it with only slight exaggeration, Barack’s campaign staff “was me and sixteen kids and Shomon.”

  Barack got a notable piece of good news when he was endorsed by well-respected Whiteside County Democratic Party chairman Lowell Jacobs, breaking Dan Hynes’s phalanx of downstate support, on account of Barack’s strong stance against the war in Iraq. Old friend Scott Turow remembered that it took Barack three phone calls before Scott agreed to host a late-August fund-raiser. “Why won’t you support me?” Barack pressed. “Look, you told me that you were going to beat Bobby Rush, and he kicked your ass, and now you’re telling me that you’re going to win the Senate race?” Scott responded. “Okay, tell me one of the people who’s either announced or who’s thinking about this that you’d rather see as U.S. senator,” Barack replied. “No one.” “Then you have to support me,” Barack insisted, and Scott gave in. “I thought it was pretty adept,” Turow said.

  That same day Barack called on U.S. representative Jan Schakowsky, whom Dan Hynes also “was really courting,” Jan recalled. “What both of them wanted from me was the progressive stamp of approval,” but she was very troubled by Hynes’s position on the Iraq war: “that was huge for me.” In contrast, Barack’s “war speech was very important,” but she was concerned about how his unusual name would fare on a statewide general election ballot. Attorney Alan Solow, who had been so impressed with Barack months earlier, had spent much of a weeklong summer trip to Israel trying to convince Jan to endorse Barack, arguing that “he stands for everything you believe in.” But someone familiar with Schakowsky’s thinking explained that when Barack visited her office to ask for her endorsement, “there was such an arrogance that it was off-putting.” She held back from making a decision, telling Pete Giangreco that Barack had been “kind of disrespectful” and complaining to AFCSME’s John Cameron that Barack “came to see me, and he was kind of a jerk.” Cameron, who had witnessed Roberta Lynch’s angry confrontation with Barack a month earlier, fully understood: “he came to see us, and he was a jerk!”

  In contrast, Emil Jones talked up Barack’s candidacy during a long, late-summer interview with Capitol Fax’s Rich Miller. “We as a caucus had a great session,” and “I think our greatest accomplishment was reform of the criminal justice system,” Jones explained. Barack’s “chances are excellent. He’s a very, very bright, articulate individual. I’ve known him long before he went to law school. We’ve been friends many, many years.” Jones predicted Barack “will pick up substantial support. He has a great mixture of supporters,” and “I think he will do an excellent job because he is able to attract voters from outside his base.” Would Joyce Washington’s presence hurt Barack among black voters? “I don’t think her candidacy is going anywhere. I told her she shouldn’t be running.” What about Blair Hull? “I don’t think you can buy an election.”31

  By early August, Hull’s consultants and top campaign staffers realized they knew less about their candidate than they should. Some Hull staffers knew that his 1998 divorce from former wife Brenda Sexton had been contentious. One of Hull’s earliest hires recalled that “I heard about it from one of Axelrod’s people.” Then the opposition researcher whom Joyce Washington had retained to look into both Barack’s and Hull’s backgrounds gave a friend who was leaving Hull’s staff a more specific tip, and Kennedy Communications soon loc
ated a police incident report that described how on February 9, 1998, “Hull Was Arrested for Domestic Violence.” While Hull had been “arrested and taken into custody,” the charges were dropped before any court appearance after Sexton filed for divorce, and a significant financial settlement was quickly reached. The incident report was available only at the Chicago Police Department’s 18th District Near North Station if someone knew enough to go there and request it.

  Rick Ridder convened a Saturday-morning conference call to discuss the problem. “There’s some stuff he hasn’t told us,” media consultant Anita Dunn warned pollster Mark Blumenthal, but of the more than fifteen people on the call, only Hull and his close friend Pat Arbor agreed with veteran Chicago political hand Fred Lebed that the campaign should inoculate itself by quickly giving the story to Sun-Times political columnist Steve Neal. “We would have weathered that,” Lebed explained, because whatever controversy ensued would be old news by March 2004. Dunn and others disagreed, and pollster Blumenthal later admitted to The New Yorker’s David Remnick that “the amount of money people were making was a factor” in the failure of anyone who was being paid by the campaign to advocate the disclosure of something that potentially could cut it short.