a couple. I had my high-powered mom posse, and Barack spent what little leisure time he had playing basketball with a group of buddies. We had some great friends who were couples, their children friends with our children, families we liked to vacation with. But Valerie was something different, a big sister to each of us individually and someone who helped us stand back and take measure of our dilemmas when they arose. She saw us clearly, saw our goals clearly, and was protective of us both.
She’d also told me privately ahead of time that she wasn’t convinced Barack should run for the Senate, so I’d walked into brunch that morning figuring I had the argument sewn up.
But I’d been wrong.
This Senate race presented a unique opportunity, Barack explained that day. He felt he had a real shot. The incumbent, Peter Fitzgerald, was a conservative Republican in an increasingly Democratic state and was having trouble maintaining the support of his own party. It was likely that multiple candidates would run in the primary, which meant that Barack would only need to command a plurality of the vote to win the Democratic nomination. As for money, he assured me that he wouldn’t need to touch our personal finances. When I asked how we’d afford living expenses if we were going to have homes in both D.C. and Chicago, he’d said, “Well, I’ll write another book and it’ll be a big book, one that makes money.”
This made me laugh. Barack was the only person I knew who had this kind of faith, thinking that a book could solve any problem. He was like the little boy from “Jack and the Beanstalk,” I teased, who trades his family’s livelihood for a handful of magic beans, believing with his whole heart that they will yield something, even if no one else does.
On all other fronts, Barack’s logic was dismayingly solid. I watched Valerie’s face as he spoke, realizing that he was quickly racking up points with her, that he had an answer for every “but what about?” question we could throw his way. I knew he was making sense, even as I fought off the urge to tally up all the additional hours he’d spend away from us now, not to mention the specter of a move to D.C. Though we’d argued over the drain of his political career on our family for years now, I did love and trust Barack. He was already a man with two families, his attention divided between me and the girls and his 200,000 or so South Side constituents. Would sharing him with the state of Illinois really be all that different? I couldn’t know one way or another, but I also couldn’t bring myself to stand in the way of his aspiration, that thing always tugging at him to try for more.
And so that day, we’d made a deal. Valerie agreed to be the finance chair for Barack’s Senate campaign. A number of our friends agreed to donate time and money to the effort. I signed off on all of it, with one important caveat, repeated out loud so that everyone could hear it: If he lost, he’d move on from politics altogether and find a different sort of job. If it didn’t work out on Election Day, this would be the end.
Really and for real, this would be the end.
What came next for Barack, though, was a series of lucky twists. First, Peter Fitzgerald decided not to run for reelection, clearing the field for challengers and relative newcomers like my husband. Then, somewhat oddly, both the Democratic front-runner in the primary and the ensuing Republican nominee became embroiled in scandals involving their ex-wives. With just a few months remaining before the election, Barack didn’t even have a Republican opponent.
To be sure, he’d been running an excellent campaign, having learned plenty from his failed congressional run. He’d beaten out seven primary opponents and earned more than half the vote to win the nomination. Traveling the state and interacting with potential constituents, he was the same man I knew at home—funny and charming, smart and prepared. His overly verbose answers to questions at town-hall forums and campaign debates seemed only to drive home the point that he belonged on the Senate floor. But still, effort notwithstanding, Barack’s path to the Senate seemed paved in four-leaf clover.
All this, too, was before John Kerry invited him to