East St. Louis precinct captains were ignoring the party line by asking for Obama yard signs and instructing printers to place “Obama” on their palm cards instead of “Hynes.” In most elections, the voters followed the precinct captains. But this was shaping up to be a people’s election. The voters wanted Obama, so the precinct captains were following.
All over the South Side of Chicago, billboards were going up: Barack Obama and Jesse Jackson Jr., standing side by side, looking like a pair of cardboard cutouts. It was a message from the Jacksons to black Chicago: We’ve got him. Junior was developing one of the most powerful political organizations in the city—his wife would soon be an alderman—so Obama needed him for votes as well as cred.
Only one black congressman refused to support Obama: Bobby Rush. Still sore about 2000, Rush endorsed Blair Hull, assuring the millionaire that “blacks won’t vote for Obama.” The endorsement wasn’t motivated by payback, Rush insisted. After all, Rush was an independent, and Hull was the only candidate with the resources to beat the Machine’s boy, Dan Hynes. (Hull was also the only candidate with the resources to hire Rush’s half brother as a $12,000-a-month campaign adviser.)
Motivated by bitterness, Rush was misreading the black electorate as badly as Obama had done four years earlier. Elders who had supported Rush in 2000 were now behind Obama, for the very same reason: He was the black candidate with the best chance to win. Bishop Arthur Brazier endorsed Obama. So did historian Timuel Black, who publicly scolded the holdouts, asking, “Why can’t we support one of our own?”
The black politician who most worried Obama was his fellow Senate candidate, Joyce Washington. A health-care consultant who had never held office, Washington was polling in the low single digits. But all her support was coming from the black community. In a close election, 1 or 2 percent might cost Obama the nomination. At one point, Obama, Giangreco, and Axelrod held a conference call to discuss whether to challenge Washington’s petitions. Remembering Alice Palmer, Obama was reluctant. He didn’t want to look like he was bullying another black woman off the ballot. He was supposed to be the inspirational candidate in this race, not the hack. The ill will over a petition challenge might end up costing him more votes than Washington, an innocuous candidate with no money. After a long discussion of the pros and cons, Obama finally said, “Guys, we’re not gonna do it.”
Obama’s Senate campaign office was in a suite near the top of a low-rise office building on South Michigan Avenue. The view of Lake Michigan was inspiring, but the walls were nearly bare. Obama’s only adornments were a framed copy of his Chicago Reader profile and a poster of Muhammad Ali looming over Sonny Liston, which hung behind the candidate’s desk.
I visited the office in January 2004, to interview Obama for the Reader. I hadn’t seen him in four years, so I was expecting another preening, insecure performance. When I’d called to set up the meeting, Obama’s press secretary, Pam Smith, had expressed her displeasure with the “negative comments” in my article on his congressional campaign.
If Obama was still dissatisfied, he didn’t act that way. This was months before he became famous, so he was dealing with the press one-on-one. He greeted me outside his office.
“Good to see you again,” he intoned casually, gliding across the floor like Fred Astaire playing Abe Lincoln. His tie was firmly knotted, but he’d doffed his suit coat for shirtsleeves.
We walked into his office, where Smith sat by his side as note taker and timekeeper. I told him I’d seen a picture of Michelle in that morning’s Sun-Times. “She was looking awfully cute,” Obama said, grinning.
It was only January, but Obama was already developing the themes he would use at that summer’s Democratic National Convention. He gave me some of the same lines he’d used on the congregation at Liberty Baptist.
“There is a tradition of politics that says we are all connected,” Obama recited. “If there is a child on the South Side who cannot read, it makes a difference in my life, even if it’s not my child. If there’s an Arab-American family who’s being rounded up by John Ashcroft without benefit of due process, that threatens my civil liberties. Black folks, white folks, gay, straight, Asian—the reason we can share this space is that we have a mutual regard. That’s what this country’s all about: E pluribus unum. Out