Rising Star

by David Garrow

  When Ponce turned to the other candidates, only Gery Chico embraced gay marriage. “It is a basic matter of civil rights. It is the civil rights issue of our era. Separate but equal has been ruled unconstitutional a long time ago. To me, this is no different than giving women the right to vote in 1920.” Ponce shifted to individual questions, and when Blair Hull cited his complete independence from donors, Barack chimed in. “Blair identifies a genuine problem” because “we have a system of financing campaigns in this country that tends to be corrupting, and I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.” When Hull asserted that both Barack and Dan Hynes had accepted contributions from pharmaceutical interests, Hynes responded that “neither of us are beholden to special interests.”

  Ponce asked each of the candidates what book they currently were reading, and Barack immediately cited The 2% Solution, “a terrific book” whose sub-title, Fixing America’s Problems in Ways Liberals and Conservatives Can Love foretold its argument that “American politics urgently needs . . . a new center.” Author Matthew Miller decried that “our two major political parties are organized around ideologies and interest groups that systematically ban commonsense, well-funded policies that blend liberal and conservative ideas.” In a less combative nation, “politicians might sit down quietly with thoughtful colleagues in the other party and . . . develop a bipartisan caucus that refines an agenda informed by [a] problem-solving . . . mind-set.”

  Seeking further personal insights, Ponce asked the candidates to describe the last time they had used public transit. Maria Pappas drew laughter by asking, “Does that include a cab?” Barack said several months earlier in New York City, and “probably last year some time” after Ponce specified Chicago. As the debate moved along, Blair Hull returned to the attack, accusing Barack and Dan Hynes of taking a total of $130,000 from the U.S.’s top-ten outsourcing companies. Barack responded, “I’ve got a track record of fighting on behalf of working people,” but Dan Hynes angrily took offense. “This is the second time Blair Hull has suggested that Barack and I are beholden to special interests. I resent that. I mean I think that is offensive. You don’t know me, you don’t know Barack. I know Barack to be an honest person, and I know I’m an honest person. Just because we don’t have millions of dollars, and we have to fund our campaigns through the generosity of others, does not give you a right to suggest that we are dishonest or beholden to anyone, and I think that’s wrong.”

  Hull again said “we need to separate the money from the decision-making process. That’s why we need public funding of campaigns.” Barack cited working with Paul Simon to pass the 1998 campaign reform bill and then seconded Hynes. “We can’t self-finance, and the reason Dan and I can’t self-finance is because when we graduated from school, we made a decision, that my wife has to deal with and my two small children have to deal with, which was we were not going to pursue wealth because we were going to engage in public service.” As the hour drew to a close, Ponce asked Barack why Bobby Rush and other black figures had not backed him, and Barack did not respond directly but again cited his “track record” regarding racial profiling and job opportunities for ex-offenders.58

  Brenda Sexton did not like what she heard during the debate, and she issued a statement saying she was “shocked and hurt” by Hull’s comments about her. Hull’s campaign returned the fire with a press conference featuring Terry Forrest, the Sexton friend who had first introduced her to Hull, as well as Hull’s three daughters and his former wife Kathy. Forrest recounted Sexton’s comments to her in 1998 following the tussle with Hull. “It was all about ‘I’ve got to get a lawyer and get some money.’ I believed it was all an embellishment and a positioning in an effort to get more money.”

  With only nine days left, Dan Hynes spent the weekend campaigning downstate while Barack told the Chicago Defender, “We have enough money to stay on TV until the end of the campaign. The main task is to see that our organization is adequate to capture the enthusiasm we see on the ground.” For months Jim Cauley, Nate Tamarin, and Kevin Watson had been preparing an extensive field operation for the run-up to Election Day. Staffers like David LeBreton were organizing phone banks and get-out-the-vote operations in collar counties like Lake, McHenry, and DuPage, taking advantage of the scores of volunteers who were offering their free time to Barack’s campaign.

  An even more extensive Election Day operation was planned for the city of Chicago and suburban African American areas. Michelle’s former colleague Kevin Thompson had joined the campaign to handle both the North Side and outreach to gay and lesbian supporters, but it was the three offices in the largely black West and South Sides and south suburbs that saw the most activity. On the West Side, Barack was astounded to learn that longtime nemesis Rickey Hendon’s significant organization was going all-out on his behalf. “Hendon got so enthusiastically involved that it was a puzzle to Barack,” Emil Jones Jr. remembered. “Barack called me and said, ‘What did you do to Hendon? He’s so overwhelmingly involved. How’d you get him?’ I jokingly said to Barack, ‘I made him an offer, and you don’t want to know.’ That’s how it went down.”

  Jones also put the hammer down on lobbyists who had no choice but to back Dan Hynes but who still needed to stay in the Senate president’s good graces. As the race entered the home stretch, Jones summoned “some of Hynes’s financial backers” and told them, “‘I want you to raise me some money for Barack.’ Of course they would say to me, ‘You know we’re with Dan Hynes.’ I say, ‘I know that, but that doesn’t preclude you from raising some money for Barack.’ And they would go out there and raise me the money.” One young Irish lobbyist experienced “Emil’s old school, brass-knuckle politics” at Petros Diner in the Loop. “‘You need to get off of the Hynes bandwagon and come with Obama, and don’t do it because you want to, do it because I’m asking you. Don’t do it for Barack, do it for me,’” Jones told him. Barack’s increasing lead in the polls lent further weight to Jones’s demand. “This is going to happen. You’ve got to be with this guy. . . . We’ve got to do this for him. . . . If you needed something from him, I would ask him to do the same thing for you, and he would do it, not for you but for me.’” As the young lobbyist realized, “Emil was holding all the cards at the time as Senate president,” and that gave Jones decisive leverage over many Springfield players. “He did that, I think, with a lot of people that Barack didn’t even know about,” as Emil “just totally took it upon himself” to do it. “That’s the power of the presidency,” Jones proudly but matter-of-factly explained.

  The near-disaster of Barack being late for the debate caused David Axelrod and Jim Cauley to insist on greater discipline in Barack’s travel. With Lyndell Luster unable to drive Barack full-time, Kevin Watson recruited Mike Signator, a forty-six-year-old south suburban police officer, as another driver, and Tom Crane, a supportive donor who owned Tri-State Auto Auction, provided a Denali SUV. In several South Side wards, Watson could count on Al Kindle to run Barack’s Election Day ground game, but to cover the balance of the huge South Side, Jim Cauley reached out to David Axelrod’s Washington-based former partner, Tom Lindenfeld, who was well known to national Democrats as the best GOTV operative in the country. “Get your ass out here,” Cauley told Lindenfeld, and with $150,000 budgeted for Election Day efforts, Lindenfeld was able to bring several dozen experienced operatives from around the country for the campaign’s final week. His top deputy, Greg Naylor, was from eastern Pennsylvania, where a local magazine said he “has attained near-mythic status in Philadelphia politics.” Lindenfeld housed his crew downtown, and first he established a working relationship with Kindle and other South Side honchos. “Al was very helpful,” Naylor recalled, and Lindenfeld began implementing his ground game. A large parking lot on the west side of Stony Island Avenue at 76th Street, across from Jackson Park Hospital, was secured, and Lindenfeld began renting scores of fifteen-person vans. On March 16, the vans would spread out across the South Side with paid day workers going block by bl
ock, knocking on doors, and if no one was home, leaving an Obama door hanger on the knob.59

  On Sunday, March 7, Barack completed his Chicagoland newspaper trifecta when the suburban Daily Herald joined the Sun-Times and Tribune in endorsing him. While praising Dan Hynes as “a sincere, thoughtful candidate,” the Herald was bowled over by Barack’s “evident sense of decency and justice” as well as “his intellect, confidence, ease in accepting challenges and compassion. Very few candidates for public office have impressed us in this way. Paul Simon comes to mind.” The Joliet Herald-News joined the Bloomington Pantagraph in endorsing Dan Hynes, and the Aurora Beacon News surprisingly backed Gery Chico. That Sunday Barack also received the support of the Peoria Journal Star and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which many in Metro East read.

  A new Tribune poll showed Barack leading Dan Hynes 33 to 19 percent, with Blair Hull dropping to 16. Sixty-two percent of African Americans now supported Barack, and in Paul Harstad’s third tracking poll for Barack’s campaign, the numbers were even better: Barack led Hynes and Hull 36–21–13, with 67 percent of black Democrats backing Barack and only 12 percent still unfamiliar with him. Two-thirds of downstate voters still did not know Barack, but Blair Hull’s negative rating had risen to 30 percent statewide. Hull’s own tracking polls were even more dire: Hull still led downstate with 35 percent, but Barack’s black support was more than 70 percent, boosting his statewide share to better than 40.

  Campaigns’ direct-mail efforts usually flew beneath journalists’ radar, but the Hull campaign had three new mail pieces out. One featured Hull’s issue stances and said the divorce allegations were “only about money . . . Brenda wanted a ten million dollar settlement.” The two others targeted Barack. One rebutted Barack’s claim that “he ALONE opposed Bush’s war in Iraq,” quoting the late Steve Neal calling Hull “an early and outspoken critic” of the war. The second lambasted Barack’s “present” votes on antiabortion bills. “When Barack Obama had the chance, he refused to take a position on a woman’s right to choose . . . seven times!” That flyer then stated inaccurately that those votes involved “legislation pushed by pro-choice extremists,” but the Tribune’s Eric Zorn quickly knocked down the Hull campaign’s misrepresentation of what a “present” vote meant. Illinois Planned Parenthood’s Pam Sutherland explained that “the idea is to recruit a group to vote ‘present’” that would include “Democrats who were shaky on the issue in an effort to convince them not to vote ‘yes.’” Barack stated that “no one was more active to beat back those bills than I was.”

  Barack’s direct-mail program, handled by Pete Giangreco and Terry Walsh’s Strategy Group, featured different pieces targeted at different voters. The first flyer, aimed at white progressives, featured Pete’s “Finally, a chance to believe again” phrase and quoted the Sun Times’ report that Paul Simon had viewed Barack as a “rising star.” Inside, headlines described Barack’s “courage,” “unmatched qualifications,” and “real record.” A second piece featured a photo of Paul Simon and the headline “Illinois Had a Senator Who Stood for Something Special.” Only upon opening it did the recipient realize it was promoting Barack, as the left page featured a photo of him and Simon in early 2003. On the right was a photo of Sheila Simon, and her quote that “I know Barack Obama will be a U.S. Senator in the Paul Simon tradition.” A third flyer, designed for black voters, stated “Our Cause Is Progress. Our Voice Is Barack Obama.” His bills “requiring videotaping” and “ending racial profiling” were highlighted, as was his 1992 Project VOTE! work that “helped elect Carol Moseley Braun and Bill Clinton.” A family photo caption said the Obamas “are active members of Trinity United Church of Christ,” and another tag line said, “On March 16, we have the power to make Barack Obama the only African-American in the U.S. Senate.”

  Barack’s urban radio ads also ramped up. In a sixty-second one entitled “Faith,” Rev. Jeremiah Wright declared, “now more than ever, we need those rare leaders who will stand up for what’s right, what’s just and good. Barack Obama is such a leader.” In the state Senate, Barack had “led the fight to bring health care to our children, tax relief for low-income workers, and new laws to stop racial profiling and the execution of the wrongly accused,” Wright stated. “I’ve known Barack as a parishioner in my church. I’ve seen his devotion to his wife and two young daughters. I’ve been witness to his faith. Imagine what it would mean for our state and our nation to have Barack Obama bring that sense of moral mission to the floor of the U.S. Senate!” An announcer recited the closing refrain: “Join the movement. On March 16th, vote Barack Obama, Democrat, for U.S. Senate.”

  Another, entitled “Assault,” featured two of black Chicago’s best-known lawyers. “This is attorney R. Eugene Pincham with an urgent message for our community. From the Bush White House to the local courthouse, our rights are under assault, but we can fight back by electing Barack Obama to the United States Senate. In the state Senate, Barack Obama led the battle for a law requiring the videotaping of interrogations in murder cases to stop the railroading of the innocent. Obama will bring a voice to Washington they need to hear, a voice for change, hope, and justice.” Then “This is James Montgomery, city corporation counsel under Mayor Harold Washington. And like Mayor Washington, Barack Obama’s a fighter for fairness” who “passed a new law to stop racial profiling by police,” was “the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review,” and “is a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago.” A female announcer ended with the now-familiar phrase: “Join the movement. On March 16th, vote Barack Obama.”60

  As Barack’s poll numbers strengthened across the board, campaign contributions skyrocketed, including big dollars from out-of-state Democratic donors like billionaire George Soros. Marty Nesbitt, Jim Reynolds, Peter Bynoe, and John Rogers remained the mainstays of Barack’s rock-solid support in Chicago’s black business community, but Valerie Jarrett also became increasingly involved in the campaign. “A week, two weeks before primary election night, then she became a constant in my life,” one finance staffer recalled. One finance committee colleague believed that once Valerie “realized that this could happen, she got more involved.” Another perceptive staffer thought that with Jarrett, it was “the mayor releasing her to be more engaged.”

  As money poured in, Jim Cauley and the consultants realized that they could expand the television advertising to downstate markets like the Quad Cities; Paducah, Kentucky; and even St. Louis. The Moline Dispatch endorsed Dan Hynes, saying it wished Barack “had more first-hand knowledge of the Quad-Cities area,” but Barack racked up endorsements from several African American Chicago weeklies and from a suburban chain of more than two dozen local papers. Those publications praised Barack’s “reputation for intelligence and effectiveness,” and a few days later both the Rockford Register Star and the Chicago Defender added their backing. Barack’s “exemplary personal qualifications” plus his “character and demonstrated ability as a legislator make it a privilege to endorse him,” a front-page Defender editorial declared.

  The Chicago Tribune zinged Barack with a story detailing how his Senate staff had mailed out more than seventy thousand copies of a “Legislative Update” newsletter to constituents just forty-eight hours before a deadline banned such state-funded preelection advertisements. In a telling reflection of how the race had turned, Capitol Fax’s Rich Miller noted “persistent rumors that Mayor Daley’s folks may be leaning towards Obama now.” Daley’s inner circle was “extremely paranoid” and “Obama is doing so well in the polls and on the campaign trail that he is being seen as a threat to hizzoner’s hold on the city and Cook County. Better to send him to D.C. than have him looking for another office to seek if he loses.”

  Wednesday night, March 10, was the campaign’s final debate, with now-underdog Dan Hynes contrasting his own role as state comptroller to bills Barack had backed in the state Senate. “When George Ryan and the General Assembly refused to curb their pork spending, I fr
oze the pork. I often stood alone—that’s what leaders do,” Hynes declared. “Barack Obama chose a different course. He stayed silent. He didn’t do anything.” Hynes asserted that “for four years there was a feeding frenzy in Springfield,” and “Barack Obama played a part in it.” Instead of a direct rebuttal, Barack said, “Dan has been a fine comptroller, but the role of the comptroller is to stand on the sidelines and comment.” Only afterward did Barack complain that “it’s a little disingenuous” for Hynes “to suggest he somehow was this warrior” during Springfield’s spendthrift years.

  That evening Barack’s campaign got an additional boost when the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) launched its own thirty-second television ad that endorsed his candidacy. Entitled “Rising Star,” it featured LCV president Deb Callahan praising Barack for one bill he had introduced and a second he cosponsored at the behest of the Sierra Club, neither of which ever reached the floor. “There’s one candidate for Senate who’s won the tough fights for a cleaner and healthier Illinois—Barack Obama,” Callahan declared. “Obama took on the polluters and President Bush for cleaner power plants. And he led the fight to reduce Illinois’s record rates of asthma. The Sun-Times calls him a rising star, and the Tribune endorses him too. And the League of Conservation Voters is responsible for this message because we believe Barack Obama is the best candidate to protect our environment.”