especially if they wanted to win among the wider electorate. It was time to follow the American way of politics. The ministers could be a source of money, but not the leading source. Let them focus on the clergy role, while businesses took over the financial role.
Throughout 2002, Obama held a series of lunches and meetings with black professionals. He told Hermene Hartman he was thinking of running for the Senate but would step aside if Jesse Jackson Jr. or Carol Moseley Braun decided to run. Both had bigger followings in the black community, and Obama didn’t want to be part of another primary in which the “black enough” issue might come up.
John Rogers first heard about Obama’s Senate plans during a Sunday brunch at the home of Valerie Jarrett, who had been close to the Obamas for a decade. As Mayor Daley’s chief of staff, she hired Michelle to work in city hall. Jarrett, who went on to become chairwoman of the Chicago Transit Authority and vice president at the Habitat Company, wasn’t just well connected in the black professional world, she was its center. When Obama told Jarrett, “There’s something I want to bounce off you,” she also invited Rogers and Nesbitt to the meeting, knowing that he was going to entertain them all with his fool dream of being a United States senator. Obama came to Sunday brunch at Jarrett’s house, with Michelle in tow.
Jarrett thought running for the Senate was a terrible idea—Obama just lost to Rush, he was broke, he had two toddlers at home, and Michelle didn’t like him traveling all over the state. So Obama went to work on the small gathering, begging for one last chance to satisfy his addiction to politics. This race would be different from the last, he promised.
“I’ve talked to Emil Jones,” Obama said. “He’s a huge political force, and he’s prepared to support me. When I ran for Congress, I didn’t have that kind of support. And if I lose, then, Michelle, I’ll give up politics. If I can’t do it this time, I promise I’ll get a normal job in the private sector, so this’ll be the last time I ask you to do this, unless I win. And money’s a problem, so, Valerie, I think you should help me, because you’re in the business community, you and John. You two should think about helping me do this.”
“So what if you lose?” Jarrett challenged him.
“If I’m not worried about losing, why are you?” Obama said. “If I lose, I lose. But I think I’ll win.”
Jarrett wasn’t convinced Obama could win, but she was convinced she should support him. Rogers was an easier sell. His friend was about to take a huge chance, so how could he do anything but throw all his personal and financial resources behind the campaign?
Rogers’s first task was to get Carol Moseley Braun out of the race. He’d been finance chairman of her successful Senate campaign, so he could tell her the truth: She didn’t have the support to run again. Black Chicago’s excitement over Moseley Braun’s 1992 victory—she was the first African-American Democrat in the Senate’s history—had turned to disappointment during her six years in Washington. Carol had been given the chance to become the most respected black politician in America, and she’d blown it. Paul Simon, her Senate seat mate for four years, summed up Moseley Braun’s problems in one sentence: “She fell in love with the wrong person.” Her campaign manager/boyfriend, Kgosie Matthews, earned $15,000 a month while other staffers weren’t getting paid. After the election, Moseley Braun and Matthews jetted off on a monthlong trip to Africa. Worst of all, he took her to visit Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, a trip she made without informing the State Department.
Obama insisted, publicly and privately, that if Moseley Braun was in, he was out. How could he win? Her name recognition in Illinois was 92 percent. His was 18 percent. And they would both be competing for black votes, which would be decisive in a primary sure to be full of white politicians.
“If Carol runs, I won’t run,” he told a reporter. “I just won’t have a chance. We’re too similar, or we’re seen as too similar: two potentially nonthreatening black politicians from the South Side of Chicago.”
To give Moseley Braun a reason not to run, Rogers called Jamie Dimon, CEO of Bank One, and asked if he would give her a job. Dimon wouldn’t. Obama invited Moseley Braun to his