buy their prescription drugs, or is having to choose between medicine or paying the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandparent. If there is an Arab-American family that is being rounded up by John Ashcroft without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties, even if I’m not Arab-American. So, it’s that idea that we have a set of mutual obligations toward each other. That I am my brother’s keeper. That I am my sister’s keeper. That I am not an island unto myself. It is that concept that makes this country work. It is why all of us can be in this room together. Black folks and white folks. Men, women, gay, straight, Asian, Hispanic, poor, well-to-do. The reason we can share this space is because we have a sense of mutual regard, and that’s the basis for this country. E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.
Obama was a fight announcer, a preacher, and a motivational speaker, all in the same lean frame. Full of conviction, he drove his words into his listeners’ ears like a carpenter shooting nails. The white folks loved Obama because he was a reformer, and because a multiracial candidate appealed to their ideal of black and white coexistence. The black folks loved him because the white folks loved him.
“We need someone who can reach beyond the race,” one woman said after the speech. “He can go to Washington and speak their language.”
Axelrod had brought a camera crew to the Heartland Café. (Footage from the speech would be used in some of Obama’s ads.) He was thrilled with the turnout.
“When I felt the enthusiasm in that room,” Ax later told the local ward committeeman, “that was when I felt the tide had turned for Obama.”
Thanks to a quirk of geography and the presidential primary schedule, the Quad Cities are very appealing to an Illinois politician who’s already thinking about where he can go from the U.S. Senate. Moline and Rock Island, Illinois, lie across the Mississippi River from Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa. The towns may be in different states, but they’re all in the same media market. The big newspaper—the Quad-City Times—and the big TV station, WQAD, are both in Davenport, but they cover Illinois news.
With Denny Jacobs at his side, Obama campaigned in union halls and picnics all over Illinois’s half of the Quad Cities. As a state senator from Chicago, he wasn’t drawing big crowds, but those who showed up felt the same star power Jacobs had sensed when Obama first walked onto the state Senate floor.
“I don’t know what the hell it is about you,” Jacobs complained to Obama, “but when we walk into a room, they look at you like you’re the greatest, and they look at me like, ‘Get out of here, prick.’ ”
Obama would lose Rock Island County to Hynes, but he got his face on WQAD, and he was endorsed by the Quad-City Times. Four years before winning the Iowa caucuses, he introduced himself to Iowa voters, without even leaving his home state.
If Obama could win the primary, he was bound for the Senate. Of that, he was certain. Illinois was a blue state, hostile to George W. Bush’s reelection. The Republican front-runner, Jack Ryan, had earned millions as an investment banker but lacked political experience.
“This is my election,” Obama told campaign volunteers. “I’m not worried about the Republicans. This is the battle.”
To anyone who picked up the Chicago Tribune on February 23, the battle must have looked hopeless. According to the paper’s latest survey, Blair Hull was now leading the field, with 24 percent. His TV ads were omnipresent. Every hour, on every news channel, Hull was talking about his army service or his plan to improve schools. It was beginning to look as though the Senate seat that had gone for $14 million to Peter Fitzgerald was about to be sold to the man with thirty mil.
Obama was in second place, with 15 percent, but he had the lowest name recognition of any major candidate. Only a third of the voters knew who he was. A year before, Hull had been even more obscure, but he had bought his way into the public consciousness. Maria Pappas was Cook County treasurer, Dan Hynes was comptroller, Gery Chico had run the school district. Those jobs all had bigger constituencies than a state senator.
Once again, though, the disciplined, dispassionate Obama benefited from another politician’s