The Bridge: The Life And Rise Of Barack Obama Part 14

In the early spring of 2002, Obama went to see Emil Jones. Since 1997, Jones had been his mentor in the persistent realities of Illinois politics. He had helped soothe the friction between Obama and antagonists like Hendon and Trotter. Jones, a former sewer inspector and an old-school Party regular, could see that Obama was a new breed: He said to me, he said, "You're the Senate president now, and with that, you have a lot of pow-er pow-er."... And I told Barack, "You think I got a lot of pow-er pow-er now?" And he said, "Yeah, you got a lot of now?" And he said, "Yeah, you got a lot of pow-er." pow-er." And I said, "What kind of And I said, "What kind of pow-er pow-er do I have?" He said, "You have the do I have?" He said, "You have the pow-er pow-er to make a United States to make a United States sen-a-tor sen-a-tor!"I said to Barack, "That sounds good!" I said, "I haven't even thought of that." I said, "Do you have someone in mind you think I could make?," and he said, "Yeah. Me." The most most interesting conversation. And so I said to him, "Let me think about this." We met a little later that day, and I said, "That sounds good. Let's go for it." interesting conversation. And so I said to him, "Let me think about this." We met a little later that day, and I said, "That sounds good. Let's go for it."

Before he became president of the Senate, Emil Jones had not yet gained great respect in the legislature. People looked on Michael Madigan, the Democratic speaker of the House and Lisa's father, as the Party's pillar. "The truth is, Emil was always underestimated," Will Burns, who worked for Jones before joining Obama's congressional campaign, said. "It was thought he didn't have the same political ac.u.men as Madigan or Richie Daley. But he was underestimated, really, because he was black. No one would say it, but as an African-American I can't easily dismiss the effect of race on people's perceptions. There was the sense that he was just an old pol and that's it. So, for Emil, the challenge of helping Barack, using his position and leverage, to elect him to the Senate, was good for Barack and it was also good for him."

The most important thing that Jones could do now for Obama was to provide him with an increasingly substantive legislative docket--something that no Democrat could boast while languishing in the minority. Obama, like many others in the Senate, had been in the habit of dodging controversial votes (including on abortion measures) by voting "present" rather than "yea" or "nay." This was a well-known tactic that could be adopted to avoid being drawn into a vote whose only purpose was to expose the opposition in one way or another, but, still, Obama's frequent use of it--a hundred and twenty-nine times--allowed opponents to criticize him for lacking the courage of his convictions. A "present" vote has variously been described as "a soft 'no'" and "'no' with an explanation." But Emil Jones, of all people, was not interested in idealistic flameouts. Such creatures were alien to him. After their meeting, Jones started to funnel bills to Obama, some of which had lain dormant in committee for years. Jones knew that Obama had developed a penchant for compromise. He could work with Republicans and downstate Democrats with far greater finesse than most of his colleagues. When the bills pa.s.sed, they would have Obama's name on them, as sponsor, and potentially help him in a run for higher office.

"We attained the majority in the seventh year and I pa.s.sed twenty-six bills in a row," Obama told me. "In one year, we reformed the death penalty in Illinois, expanded health care for kids, set up a state earned-income tax credit. It wasn't that I was smarter in year seven than I was in year six, or more experienced; it was that we had power.... You can have the best agenda in the world, but if you don't control the gavel you cannot move an agenda forward."

Eventually, Jones was known around the Senate chamber as Obama's "G.o.dfather." (And when Obama became a national political phenomenon, Jones set the ring tone on his cell phone to play the opening bars of Nino Rota's theme for the "G.o.dfather" films.) Donne Trotter said that there were days when nearly every bill had Obama's name on it. Jones, for example, let Obama be the main sponsor of a bill insisting that police videotape interrogations as a check on brutality cases and false confessions. Obama was able to bring on board not only Republicans but also police a.s.sociations that had initially balked at such legislation. Even Blagojevich had initially opposed the measure, which was the first of its kind in the country. In May, 2003, it pa.s.sed the Senate unanimously and Blagojevich withdrew his objections. "I had reservations "I had reservations about supporting it without the partic.i.p.ation of law enforcement," the Governor said. "But Senator Obama ironed out some of the practical challenges that concerned me." about supporting it without the partic.i.p.ation of law enforcement," the Governor said. "But Senator Obama ironed out some of the practical challenges that concerned me."

Obama also co-sponsored legislation banning ephedra, a diet supplement that had led to the death of a Northwestern University football player. He won a ban on the use of pyrotechnics in nightclubs after scores of people were killed in two tragic incidents. Forging a compromise between police a.s.sociations and civil-liberties organizations, he crafted a series of racial-profiling measures that demanded that police record the race of every motorist they pulled over and send the records for a.n.a.lysis to the Department of Transportation. ("Driving while black, driving while Hispanic, and driving while Middle Eastern are not crimes.") He sponsored a bill that allowed twenty thousand children to be included in Kid Care, a program for kids without health insurance. And he pa.s.sed legislation that provided added tax relief for low-income families with the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Working with health-care providers, insurance lobbyists, and other interest groups, Obama led a commission that studied expanding care to more citizens of the state. He had repeatedly expressed support for single-payer health care, but the commission was limited to modest reform. Obama, who had played poker with lobbyists and taken legal campaign contributions from insurance lobbyists, said in a debate during the U.S. Senate campaign that he had "worked diligently with the insurance industry" and with Republicans after concerns were raised about across-the-board state health coverage. "The original presentation of the bill "The original presentation of the bill was the House version, that we radically changed--we radically changed--and we changed in response to concerns that were raised by the insurance industry," he said. was the House version, that we radically changed--we radically changed--and we changed in response to concerns that were raised by the insurance industry," he said.

Jones also extracted promises from black politicians like Hendon and Trotter, who had not shown Obama much love, to endorse Obama. They agreed only after many loud discussions. "I made them an offer," Jones recalled telling Obama. "And you don't want to know."

As he grew more experienced, Obama was also recognizing that, in order to rise in Illinois politics, in order to transcend the hermetic, somewhat independent base of Hyde Park, he needed to play ball with people higher up than Jones: in particular, with Richard M. Daley. To remain pristine in Chicago politics--to follow the path of someone like the independent alderman Leon Despres--was to put a cap on ambition. To advance, to have the means to win a statewide election, meant navigating the murky politics of Chicago. The city under the Daleys had avoided the fate of other industrial Midwestern cities like Detroit. Just as his father had built highways, O'Hare Airport, the convention center, parks, and countless office buildings, Richard M. Daley had transformed the Loop, building projects like Millennium Park, complete with its magnificent Frank Gehry-designed bandsh.e.l.l. Daley the Younger had been a far better mayor than his father when it came to schools, allowing more experimentation and building magnet schools and charter schools; he also leveled many of the city's horrendous high-rise projects, which housed tens of thousands of people and had become centers of gang violence. Daley showed no predilection for ama.s.sing a personal fortune. But Daley, also like his father, failed to transform the political culture of legalized bribery, the routine funneling of huge city contracts to friends of City Hall--the reality known as "pay to play." Millennium Park may be a source of civic pride and a great tourist attraction, but it was also millions over-budget. Chicago is no less a one-party political city than Beijing; only one of the fifty aldermen is a Republican. And so the impulse to reform these practices is minimal. Stories of corruption, enormous and ba.n.a.l, regularly appear in the Tribune Tribune and and Sun-Times Sun-Times, but the citizenry kept increasing Daley's margins of victory.

Sooner or later, any ambitious Chicago politician had to do business with the Mayor and had to think many times before criticizing him. In 2005, in the midst of a series In 2005, in the midst of a series of corruption investigations, which had been described at length in the of corruption investigations, which had been described at length in the Sun-Times Sun-Times, Obama told the paper that the articles gave him "huge pause." An hour later, though, he called the paper back and told the reporter that he wanted to clarify his remarks. Daley, he now said, was "obviously going through a rough patch" but the city "never looked better." To talk about endorsing Daley, or not, was "way premature." In January, 2007 In January, 2007, Obama endorsed Daley, praising him as "innovative" and "willing to make hard decisions."

When Obama was not in Springfield or teaching or spending time with his family, he was back to networking. Sometimes that meant making more trips downstate. Sometimes it meant attending the myriad events going on in Chicago: lunches at the business clubs, cultural events, fundraisers on the Lakefront and in the suburbs. After losing so badly to Rush, he started mending fences with black community leaders, clergy, Democratic committeemen, aldermen, and city officials. He attended a regular discussion group at Miller Shakman & Beem, a law firm where Arthur Goldberg and Abner Mikva had practiced. There Obama would talk politics with Abner Mikva, David Axelrod, Newton Minow, Don Rose, Bettylu Saltzman, and various other Democratic activists. Obama wanted to re-establish himself as a Democrat independent of the Daley circle and organization, but also as someone who would not wage an overtly anti-Daley race. He was willing to make common cause with the activists on the South Side as well as with Party regulars like Emil Jones. "This was a guy who was a quick learner," Don Rose said of that period between the congressional and Senate races. "When Obama makes a mistake, he only makes it once." was not in Springfield or teaching or spending time with his family, he was back to networking. Sometimes that meant making more trips downstate. Sometimes it meant attending the myriad events going on in Chicago: lunches at the business clubs, cultural events, fundraisers on the Lakefront and in the suburbs. After losing so badly to Rush, he started mending fences with black community leaders, clergy, Democratic committeemen, aldermen, and city officials. He attended a regular discussion group at Miller Shakman & Beem, a law firm where Arthur Goldberg and Abner Mikva had practiced. There Obama would talk politics with Abner Mikva, David Axelrod, Newton Minow, Don Rose, Bettylu Saltzman, and various other Democratic activists. Obama wanted to re-establish himself as a Democrat independent of the Daley circle and organization, but also as someone who would not wage an overtly anti-Daley race. He was willing to make common cause with the activists on the South Side as well as with Party regulars like Emil Jones. "This was a guy who was a quick learner," Don Rose said of that period between the congressional and Senate races. "When Obama makes a mistake, he only makes it once."

The return of the Democrats to power in 2002 also helped Obama in a more subtle way. Like that of many other state senators, his district--the Thirteenth--was reconfigured. In the spring of 2001, antic.i.p.ating a Democratic sweep, Obama had gone to see a Democratic Party consultant named John Corrigan in a room at the Stratton Office Building, in Springfield, known as the "inner sanctum." The room is locked down; to get in it was necessary to use a fingerprint scanner and tap a code into a keypad. Inside was an array of computer monitors. The Senate Democratic caucus in the legislature had hired Corrigan to look into the details of re-aligning districts in the state to the Party's advantage. This was perfectly legal. The majority party has the right, within legal guidelines, to rearrange legislative borders. The Republicans, of course, preferred to maximize the percentage of African-Americans in a particular district. Because blacks voted almost solely for Democrats, it was better to have one district be close to a hundred-per-cent black and a neighboring district have a minimum number of blacks. The Democrats preferred to spread out their black voters. As Corrigan showed Obama on a computer screen, the best thing that could happen to his district would be to retain the Hyde Park base, along with Englewood and other black neighborhoods, but to push the district north toward the Loop rather than west into poorer black neighborhoods. The district would remain reliably majority African-American and Democratic, but it would also provide more black voters for another district. For Obama, there was an added bonus as he looked forward to a race for the U.S. Senate: his const.i.tuency would now include many more wealthy, liberal whites--many of them Jewish--along Lake Michigan. As far as Corrigan could tell, his friend was no longer depressed about the loss to Bobby Rush. He was preparing for the next act.

"I have seen people who have run for lesser office than Congress and just disappear after losing," Corrigan said. "Barack has always been calm, cool, and collected. Nothing seems to faze him. He doesn't get mad. He is always creative when someone presents a barrier to get through. He can always think or talk his way through things."

In October, 2002, Obama was touring downstate with Dan Sh.o.m.on again. One evening, they were standing beside Route 4 in Carlinville, a town of about seven thousand in Macoupin County. The town was known for houses ordered from the Sears catalogue. The two men, who were heading to a political dinner, were discussing what effect a Senate race would have on Obama's family. Sh.o.m.on knew that Obama was the kind of person who tends to feel guilty, and he thought the race would end up making him feel guilty for the pressures it would put on Mich.e.l.le. He was already feeling bad that he was missing so much of his little girls' childhood. When they pulled over When they pulled over to the side of the road, Sh.o.m.on said, "I don't think you should run." to the side of the road, Sh.o.m.on said, "I don't think you should run."

"I'm running anyway," Obama replied.

Chapter Ten.

Reconstruction In the generation after the Civil War, men of color--some born free, some born into slavery--began to fight their way into statehouses and the halls of Congress. These were, in the main, men of intelligence and bravery: There was Robert Smalls, who stole a Confederate ship in Charleston Harbor and handed it over to Union forces; in Philadelphia, after the war, he caused a sensation when he was thrown off an all-white streetcar and then led a black boycott of the city's transit system. In 1875, Smalls was elected a member of the South Carolina delegation to the House of Representatives. There was Hiram Revels, of Mississippi, a brilliant seminarian and itinerant minister, who had been imprisoned in 1854 in Missouri for preaching to blacks; in 1870, the Mississippi State Senate voted to send him to Washington to serve out the term for a U.S. Senate seat left vacant during the war. Revels, the first African-American in the Senate, served just one year. And there was Blanche Kelso Bruce, a wealthy landowner in Mississippi, who was born to a slave in Virginia. In 1875, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he fought for open immigration and the rights of Native Americans; at the 1880 Republican National Convention, Bruce received eight votes for Vice-President. after the Civil War, men of color--some born free, some born into slavery--began to fight their way into statehouses and the halls of Congress. These were, in the main, men of intelligence and bravery: There was Robert Smalls, who stole a Confederate ship in Charleston Harbor and handed it over to Union forces; in Philadelphia, after the war, he caused a sensation when he was thrown off an all-white streetcar and then led a black boycott of the city's transit system. In 1875, Smalls was elected a member of the South Carolina delegation to the House of Representatives. There was Hiram Revels, of Mississippi, a brilliant seminarian and itinerant minister, who had been imprisoned in 1854 in Missouri for preaching to blacks; in 1870, the Mississippi State Senate voted to send him to Washington to serve out the term for a U.S. Senate seat left vacant during the war. Revels, the first African-American in the Senate, served just one year. And there was Blanche Kelso Bruce, a wealthy landowner in Mississippi, who was born to a slave in Virginia. In 1875, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he fought for open immigration and the rights of Native Americans; at the 1880 Republican National Convention, Bruce received eight votes for Vice-President.

For black men and women, however, Reconstruction was a short-lived interregnum between slavery and Jim Crow, between iron subjugation and the rise of insidious voting restrictions and the lynching parties of the Ku Klux Klan. The ability of blacks to run for, and hold, higher office faltered miserably after neo-Confederate insurrection and terror in the mid-eighteen-seventies finally forced Washington to withdraw federal protection of blacks from white violence; by 1900, Southern states began to deny blacks, de facto de facto and and de jure de jure, their right to vote. As Eric Foner, the leading historian As Eric Foner, the leading historian of Reconstruction, points out, the resistance to black political empowerment was well and cruelly embodied by one of the country's greatest filmmakers and a best-selling historian: D. W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" (1915) and Claude Bowers's best-seller of Reconstruction, points out, the resistance to black political empowerment was well and cruelly embodied by one of the country's greatest filmmakers and a best-selling historian: D. W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" (1915) and Claude Bowers's best-seller The Tragic Era The Tragic Era (1929) depicted black office-holders as flamboyantly corrupt mountebanks and helped justify disenfranchis.e.m.e.nt of black citizens and the brutality of the Klan. (1929) depicted black office-holders as flamboyantly corrupt mountebanks and helped justify disenfranchis.e.m.e.nt of black citizens and the brutality of the Klan.

On January 29, 1901, a black representative from North Carolina, George H. White, stepped forward to give his last speech in the Capitol--and what proved to be the last speech of any black lawmaker in Washington for a generation. White had initiated anti-lynching legislation, but his efforts had come to nothing. The racism that he now faced at home was unbridled. The Raleigh The Raleigh News and Observer News and Observer expressed parochial shame that "North Carolina should have the only n.i.g.g.e.r Congressman." The paper's anxieties were soon relieved. expressed parochial shame that "North Carolina should have the only n.i.g.g.e.r Congressman." The paper's anxieties were soon relieved.

"This, Mr. Chairman, is perhaps the Negroes' temporary farewell to the American Congress," White told his congressional colleagues, "but let me say, Phoenix-like he will rise up some day and come again. These parting words are in behalf of an outraged, heart-broken, bruised and bleeding, but G.o.d-fearing people, faithful, industrious, loyal people, rising people, full of potential force.... The only apology I have for the earnestness with which I have spoken is that I am pleading for the life, the liberty, the future happiness, and manhood suffrage for one-eighth of the entire population of the United States."

The next time an African-American was elected to Congress was in 1929--this was Oscar De Priest of Chicago. There were no black Southerners in the House until 1973, with the arrival of Barbara Jordan, of Texas, and Andrew Young, of Georgia. The first African-American senators elected in the modern era were Edward Brooke, a Republican from Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1966, and Carol Moseley Braun, a Democrat from Illinois, in 1992. It was Carol Moseley Braun who was very much on Barack Obama's mind in the fall of 2002. to Congress was in 1929--this was Oscar De Priest of Chicago. There were no black Southerners in the House until 1973, with the arrival of Barbara Jordan, of Texas, and Andrew Young, of Georgia. The first African-American senators elected in the modern era were Edward Brooke, a Republican from Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1966, and Carol Moseley Braun, a Democrat from Illinois, in 1992. It was Carol Moseley Braun who was very much on Barack Obama's mind in the fall of 2002.

Moseley Braun had served only one six-year term in the Senate--a term troubled by allegations of financial impropriety and by an unsanctioned meeting with the Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha. Moseley Braun lost her bid for re-election in 1998 to the wealthy conservative Republican Peter Fitzgerald, who spent fourteen million dollars of his own money on his campaign. When that race was over, she accepted an offer from Bill Clinton to serve as an amba.s.sador--to New Zealand. Fitzgerald's career, it appeared, would be just as brief as Moseley Braun's. After battling for six years with his own state party organization and the Bush White House, Fitzgerald was rumored to be going back to private life and his career as a banker. After losing in 1998, Moseley Braun had said that she would never return to elective politics--"Read my lips. Not. Never. Nein. Nyet."---but she was anything but predictable. Now, in late 2002, Obama was waiting to see if she would attempt to return to the Senate. Operatives in the Democratic Party organization tried to find her a lucrative job offer, but that went nowhere. And Moseley Braun, for her part, cared no more for Obama than, in the end, Alice Palmer did.

Obama's dilemma was plain: in the 1992 Democratic primary, Moseley Braun won a narrow victory against two white candidates--the inc.u.mbent Alan Dixon and a personal-injury lawyer, Albert Hofeld. The way for Obama to win a primary in a crowded field would be to dominate the black and progressive votes in Chicago and the suburbs and to get at least some votes among the more conservative electorate downstate. Moseley Braun's presence in the race would be problematic and probably prohibitive. "Our bases overlapped so much "Our bases overlapped so much--not just that she was African-American, but that she came out of the progressive wing of the party ... and our donor bases would have been fairly similar," Obama said. "So it would have been difficult, I think, to mobilize the entire coalition that was required for me to run." If Moseley Braun decided to run, he said, "I would probably have stepped out of politics for a while."

Obama had been traveling the state, alone and with Dan Sh.o.m.on, from Rockford to Cairo, from East St. Louis to Paris, for many months as an undeclared candidate, but he had not yet sold his closest circle of friends and advisers--much less his wife--on the wisdom of running. Both Valerie Jarrett, who had become a close and trusted friend of the Obamas, and David Axelrod, who was now advising Obama informally, told him that after his loss to Bobby Rush, to lose in a Senate race would finish him in politics. Jarrett and Axelrod felt that Obama would be better off waiting for Richard M. Daley, who had been mayor for more than twelve years, to retire and then run to replace him. He could transform Chicago in a way that Harold Washington hadn't. After all, Obama had been thinking about City Hall since his days as a community organizer.

Jarrett conspired with Mich.e.l.le Obama to organize a breakfast at her house and, together with two other friends, the investor John Rogers and the parking-lot magnate Martin Nesbitt, they planned an intervention. Jarrett said that she carefully "stacked the deck" to tell Obama the disappointing news: "We were all against him. We all thought it was a big mistake for his career and that he shouldn't do it.

"But unlike what he normally does, which is to go around the room and say, 'Tell me what you think,' Barack started out by saying, 'I want to run, and let me explain to you why,'" Jarrett recalled. "We were all kind of taken a little bit aback, because we thought the purpose was to talk about it, not that he'd made a decision. He went through all of his logic. He said, 'I didn't have a big political supporter when I ran for Congress. Now I have Emil Jones. I've already lined him up. I think I can get the necessary aldermanic support. I think it's going to be a crowded field, and that will work to my advantage.'"

Obama said that he had learned from the mistakes he'd made against Bobby Rush. In that race, he had challenged a powerful black politician with deep roots in a heavily black district--an act of impiety without sufficient justification. Congressional campaigns are waged door-to-door; they are neighborhood battles that often hinge on longstanding name recognition, ethnic solidarity, and personal connections. In a Senate race, Obama's particular talents--his ability to reach out to white suburbanites as well as to blacks and Hispanics; his increasingly evident talent to project on television--would be crucial, especially if he could raise enough money. Obama believed that if Moseley Braun stayed out of the race, he had a chance. According to Jarrett, Obama said, "I told Mich.e.l.le if I lose, I'm out of politics. That would make her happy." He added, "If what you're worried about is fear, if I'm not afraid to fail, then you shouldn't be afraid to fail. And I need you in order to be successful. So why don't you step up and decide you're going to help me raise some money, because that's the one piece that I don't have worked out."

By the end of the breakfast, Jarrett had agreed to chair Obama's finance committee. Rogers and Nesbitt agreed to donate both time and money. Nesbitt, in addition to running a parking-lot management company, was a vice-president of the Pritzker Realty Group, a division of the Pritzker empire, one of the biggest fortunes in Chicago. Not long after the breakfast Not long after the breakfast, in the summer of 2002, Nesbitt got the Obama family invited to Penny Pritzker's country house, on Lake Michigan. After talking with the Obamas, Pritzker and her husband, Bryan Traubert, went for a run near their house and, along the way, decided to play a key role in financing Obama's race. They were soon joined in the campaign by other wealthy Chicagoans: John Bryan, the head of the Sara Lee Corporation, James Crown, and old friends of Obama's like Newton Minow and Abner Mikva.

Mich.e.l.le also agreed to go forward, though her anxieties were hardly allayed. "The big issue around the Senate for me "The big issue around the Senate for me was, how on earth can we afford it?" she said. "I don't like to talk about it, because people forget his credit card was maxed out. How are we going to get by? O.K., now we're going to have two households to fund, one here and one in Washington. We have law-school debt, tuition to pay for the children. And we're trying to save for college for the girls.... My thing is, is this just another gamble? It's just killing us. My thing was, this is ridiculous, even if you do win, how are you going to afford this wonderful next step in your life? And he said, 'Well, then, I'm going to write a book, a good book.' And I'm thinking, 'Snake eyes there, buddy. Just write a book, yeah, that's right. Yep, yep, yep. And you'll climb the beanstalk and come back down with the golden egg, Jack.'" was, how on earth can we afford it?" she said. "I don't like to talk about it, because people forget his credit card was maxed out. How are we going to get by? O.K., now we're going to have two households to fund, one here and one in Washington. We have law-school debt, tuition to pay for the children. And we're trying to save for college for the girls.... My thing is, is this just another gamble? It's just killing us. My thing was, this is ridiculous, even if you do win, how are you going to afford this wonderful next step in your life? And he said, 'Well, then, I'm going to write a book, a good book.' And I'm thinking, 'Snake eyes there, buddy. Just write a book, yeah, that's right. Yep, yep, yep. And you'll climb the beanstalk and come back down with the golden egg, Jack.'"

John Rogers, who had helped Moseley Braun re-establish herself in Chicago after she returned from Auckland, thought that he could sound her out about her plans. "My role was to talk to Carol and determine whether she was going to run and to even nudge her away from it," he said. But Moseley Braun was infuriatingly inscrutable. All Obama could do was continue to make contingency plans, travel around the state speaking at one event after another, and wait.

Finally, on February 18, 2003, Moseley Braun ended her indecision and announced that, in fact, she was running for office. The office was President of the United States.

Eric Zorn, an influential liberal columnist for the columnist for the Tribune Tribune, was among the dumbstruck, writing that Moseley Braun was "ethically challenged" and was now "making reservations for fantasy land." In any event, the Senate race, for both parties, was absolutely open with no inc.u.mbent and not a single dominant candidate on the horizon. Obama called David Axelrod for advice and planned a press conference. He was in.

Obama's intentions did not yet impress everyone as entirely serious. Some of his colleagues at the University of Chicago still thought that he could be persuaded to give up politics for good and accept a tenured teaching position. At a fundraiser for Bill Clinton's charitable foundation, Obama's law-school colleague Geoffrey Stone watched his friend work the room. Stone felt pity for Obama. "After the defeat by Bobby Rush, people here thought Barack's political career was over," Stone recalled. "At the reception, I saw Barack in the crowd, and he was doing the politician thing, shaking hands, looking people in the eye, and I was thinking, What a waste! What is he doing this for? Twenty minutes later, we were at the shrimp bowl. I said to him, 'As your friend, I tell you, I was watching you work the room and I can't believe you're doing this. Why not settle down and be a law professor?' He says, 'Geoff, I appreciate that, but I really have to do this. I think I can make a difference. I've got to try.' As he disappeared into the crowd, I thought, What a putz. What a waste."

Luck is not the least of the many factors that figured into the rise of Barack Obama. First came the unseemly fall, in 1995, of Mel Reynolds, which led to Alice Palmer's decision to run for Congress and Obama's subsequent decision to succeed her in the Illinois State Senate. As a candidate for the statehouse, Obama enjoyed an easy path to office: he faced nominal compet.i.tion in his first two campaigns and none at all in his third. Following the decisive loss to Bobby Rush--a campaign in which everything that could go wrong did--Obama was, in his run for the U.S. Senate, the beneficiary of one fantastic stroke of fortune after another. The first was Moseley Braun's unforeseen decision to run for President. of the many factors that figured into the rise of Barack Obama. First came the unseemly fall, in 1995, of Mel Reynolds, which led to Alice Palmer's decision to run for Congress and Obama's subsequent decision to succeed her in the Illinois State Senate. As a candidate for the statehouse, Obama enjoyed an easy path to office: he faced nominal compet.i.tion in his first two campaigns and none at all in his third. Following the decisive loss to Bobby Rush--a campaign in which everything that could go wrong did--Obama was, in his run for the U.S. Senate, the beneficiary of one fantastic stroke of fortune after another. The first was Moseley Braun's unforeseen decision to run for President.

At the press conference opening his campaign, Obama declared that Peter Fitzgerald had done "zilch" for the general welfare. "Four years ago, Peter Fitzgerald bought himself a Senate seat, and he's betrayed Illinois ever since," he said. "But we are here to take it back on behalf of the people of Illinois." But before he had to answer any return volleys Fitzgerald retired from the Senate. He had recommended Patrick Fitzgerald, a crusading prosecutor from New York, as U.S. Attorney--whose appointment led to the indictments of corrupt officials in both parties. Peter Fitzgerald's biggest opponents to that appointment had been the Republican Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, and George W. Bush. He had battled his own party on everything from environmentalism (he was for it) to the funding of the Lincoln Library. After six years, he had tired of bankrolling a life in politics. opening his campaign, Obama declared that Peter Fitzgerald had done "zilch" for the general welfare. "Four years ago, Peter Fitzgerald bought himself a Senate seat, and he's betrayed Illinois ever since," he said. "But we are here to take it back on behalf of the people of Illinois." But before he had to answer any return volleys Fitzgerald retired from the Senate. He had recommended Patrick Fitzgerald, a crusading prosecutor from New York, as U.S. Attorney--whose appointment led to the indictments of corrupt officials in both parties. Peter Fitzgerald's biggest opponents to that appointment had been the Republican Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, and George W. Bush. He had battled his own party on everything from environmentalism (he was for it) to the funding of the Lincoln Library. After six years, he had tired of bankrolling a life in politics.

In the nearly three years since losing to Bobby Rush, Obama had, like an athlete in training or a musician woodshedding, worked hard at his craft. Not only had he become a far more engaged legislator (especially after the Democrats came into the majority); he had also lost his diffident bearing when it came to retail politics. After countless speeches, c.o.c.ktail parties, panel discussions, fund-raising dinners, business lunches, and state fairs, after speaking in the pulpits of black churches in Chicago and in V.F.W. halls downstate, he had become a better orator, a smoother campaigner, a more disciplined fundraiser. Obama was beginning to develop his signature appeal, the use of the details of his own life as a reflection of a kind of multicultural ideal, a conceit both sentimental and effective. He was no longer straining to be someone he was not. Instead, he was among those politicians who were forging a new ident.i.ty for the next generation of black leaders, men and women with no direct connection to the civil-rights movement except in the ways the movement had helped them to gain greater access to the best colleges and law schools and other realms of American opportunity. Unlike the elder generation of black politicians, many Southern-born and educated at historically black colleges and seminaries, Obama navigated Harvard and Roseland, the Loop and Altgeld Gardens. He was adept at pitching his cadences one way in black churches, another way at a P.T.A. meeting downstate, and yet another at a living-room gathering in Hyde Park or the near North Side. Some of his critics took notice of these differences in intonation and body language and counted Obama as a phony, but there was no doubt that for the vast majority of his audiences he was developing into a fresh, compelling candidate. What was more, he was utterly aware of his shape-shifting capacities.

"The fact that I conjugate my verbs and speak in a typical Midwestern newscaster voice--there's no doubt that this helps ease communication between myself and white audiences," Obama said. "And there's no doubt that when I'm with a black audience I slip into a slightly different dialect. But the point is, I don't feel the need to talk in a certain way before a white audience. And I don't feel the need to speak a certain way in front of a black audience. There's a level of self-consciousness about these issues the previous generation had to negotiate that I don't feel I have to." and speak in a typical Midwestern newscaster voice--there's no doubt that this helps ease communication between myself and white audiences," Obama said. "And there's no doubt that when I'm with a black audience I slip into a slightly different dialect. But the point is, I don't feel the need to talk in a certain way before a white audience. And I don't feel the need to speak a certain way in front of a black audience. There's a level of self-consciousness about these issues the previous generation had to negotiate that I don't feel I have to."

Salim Muwakkil, the left-wing columnist who had come to know Obama in the early nineties, noticed that Obama had also become much more comfortable campaigning in the kinds of lower-income black communities where he had lost so badly in his 2000 congressional race. "One day, Barack was at Wallace's Catfish Corner on the West Side, an outpost where black politicians met, run by a former alderman, Wallace Davis," Muwakkil recalled. "His talk was interrupted by a radical group composed of ex-inmates who said, 'We're tired of you uppity Negroes treating us like trash. No one cares about ex-inmates. We're growing in strength and we want to be dealt with.' Barack acknowledged their plight. He gave a calm, well-grounded response, in words they could understand, how they were barking up the wrong tree if they thought this was aiding their cause. They didn't buy it all, but it was hard-won respect."

Obama was also proving to be an African-American politician who made white voters--white voters who could never have imagined themselves voting for a black man for senator--come around to him. Eric Zorn, of the Tribune Tribune, followed Obama into various receptions and marveled at his ease with everyone in the room. "Obama was somehow all about validating you," you," Zorn said. "He was radiating the sense that 'You're the kind of guy who can accept a black guy as a senator.' He made people feel better about themselves for liking Zorn said. "He was radiating the sense that 'You're the kind of guy who can accept a black guy as a senator.' He made people feel better about themselves for liking him him." Obama's manner, his accent, his pedigree, his broad approach to the issues, told white voters, among other things: I am not Jesse Jackson I am not Jesse Jackson. Jackson was a man of his time and place and history: he was born in the segregationist South, steeped in the civil-rights movement. Jackson certainly learned to navigate the broader world, but the difference in generation, psychology, speech, politics, and history was unmistakable. Jackson demanded painful change; the largest part of his history was one of heated rebuke, the rightful demand for redress. It was an illusion to think that all the victories were won, but Obama, so much younger, fluent in so many languages, possessed a manner of cool, yet winning embrace.

Obama seemed capable of making whites forget even the most alien detail about him--his name. Early on, Dan Sh.o.m.on had polled Obama's name, asking voters if they would not prefer "Barack (Barry) Obama." They did, by a small percentage. "From the start of Obama's career, a lot of people mistakenly thought he was a Muslim from his name, especially a lot of blacks," Sh.o.m.on recalled. "But Barack refused to change it. He was who he was and that was it."

Emil Jones, a creature of the South Side and the statehouse, accompanied Obama on one of his trips to southern Illinois and was amazed at the younger man's talent. "A little old lady said to me "A little old lady said to me, 'I'm eighty-six years of age. I hope I live long enough because this young man's going to be President and I want to be able to vote for him,'" Jones recalled. "It was a little old white lady! It was astounding. There were three thousand people there. There were three blacks: him, me, and my driver."

Obama was at ease even doing what he liked least--raising money. "I remember one of Barack's first fund-raisers," his direct-mail consultant Pete Giangreco recalled. "It was in Evanston in the backyard of Paul Gaynor, a left-leaning lawyer. He's from an old lefty family: his father was a big lawyer, Mickey Gaynor, and his mother, Judy, a great fund-raiser. Their block seceded from the United States of America during the Vietnam War; it was that kind of block in the People's Republic of Evanston. Anyway, the fund-raiser was packed with the old-time progressive establishment people--but regular people, not stars. It was a warm, late-summer night. And Obama gave that riff about how if there was a senior downstate who can't get her prescription drugs, it matters to me even if it's not my grandmother; if a kid on the South Side can't read it matters to me even if it's not my kid; if a Muslim is ha.s.sled unjustly at the airport it affects my freedoms, too. It was one of those rare moments: gooseb.u.mps. And to a person they all walked out of there saying, 'Sign me up.' It was not a high-dollar thing but the buzz was there. These were people who had memories of Paul Simon, Harold Washington, Bobby Kennedy, and they were waiting and wanting to believe again. The word went out: this was the guy."

David Wilkins, the Harvard Law School professor who grew up in Hyde Park, threw one of the earliest out-of-state fund-raising events for Obama at his house in Cambridge. "I had to beg beg people to come and pay a hundred dollars," Wilkins recalled. "We got about twenty-five people to come and I remember feeling so bad. Collectively, we probably got about ten thousand dollars. And Barack sat right over there, right against that window, and he talked with us for three hours. He was people to come and pay a hundred dollars," Wilkins recalled. "We got about twenty-five people to come and I remember feeling so bad. Collectively, we probably got about ten thousand dollars. And Barack sat right over there, right against that window, and he talked with us for three hours. He was dazzling dazzling. This was before he was a thing thing. It was like seeing Hendrix in a club before he was Hendrix."

To win, Obama needed top-level professional help. At first, his campaign manager was Dan Sh.o.m.on, who had a keen understanding of the state and long experience with the candidate. Al Kindle took a leave of absence from Toni Preckwinkle's staff to make sure that Obama had an effective ground operation in Chicago's black neighborhoods. Kindle, who had worked for Harold Washington and Carol Moseley Braun, was especially adept at get-out-the-vote operations on Election Day. But, much more important, Obama now had the guidance of David Axelrod, who had established himself as the leading Democratic political and communications strategist in the state. A shambling, easygoing personality, Axelrod was a great believer in the use of narrative and biography to put across a candidate to the public; he was also not at all reluctant to use negative ads if the situation required it. Axelrod had first met Obama through Bettylu Saltzman during Project Vote in 1992, and had spent plenty of time learning the details of Obama's story and his personality in preparation for a campaign.

Obama and Axelrod remained friends and talked frequently about politics, but when it came time to hire a staff, Obama did not immediately leap into Axelrod's embrace. Axelrod was unblemished, but he was also a close a.s.sociate of the Daley family, a certified member of the city's political establishment. Just as Obama wanted to meet Valerie Jarrett before Mich.e.l.le accepted her offer of a job at City Hall, he also wanted to think through signing on with David Axelrod. In the end, though, it was not an agonizing decision: Obama wanted to win. He liked and trusted Axelrod. Going with Axelrod made him less of an outsider, perhaps, but it also helped make him a serious candidate for the United States Senate.

Born in 1955, Axelrod grew up in Stuyvesant Town, a post-war middle-cla.s.s apartment development in Manhattan, just north of the East Village. His parents were liberal Jewish intellectuals and the household was full of talk about politics. Axelrod's mother was a reporter for the left-leaning newspaper P.M P.M. and his father was a psychologist. In 1960, when he was five, his parents separated; he remembered seeing John Kennedy make a campaign speech near his building to a crowd of five thousand people that same year. When he was thirteen, he and a friend sold campaign materials at the Bronx Zoo supporting Robert Kennedy's Presidential campaign. R.F.K.'s a.s.sa.s.sination in 1968 was, outside of his parents' separation and divorce, the most devastating memory of his childhood.

As an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, Axelrod became obsessed with the city's politics and managed to get a job writing a column called "Politicking" for the Hyde Park Herald Herald. In one fantastical column In one fantastical column published in 1974, he described having a dream about Chicago and then waking to see a headline in the newspaper: "Daley in 20th year as Mayor." In fact, Richard J. Daley died two years later; Axelrod eventually worked not only for political independents but for the resumption of the Daley dynasty. published in 1974, he described having a dream about Chicago and then waking to see a headline in the newspaper: "Daley in 20th year as Mayor." In fact, Richard J. Daley died two years later; Axelrod eventually worked not only for political independents but for the resumption of the Daley dynasty.

The year Axelrod started working for the Herald Herald, his father committed suicide. Soon afterward, Axelrod decided to make his life in Chicago. On the recommendation of the political strategist Don Rose, who lived in Hyde Park and read the Herald Herald, the Tribune Tribune gave Axelrod an internship right after his graduation, in 1976. After covering crime and other city stories for three years, Axelrod started working as a political reporter and soon became the paper's lead political writer. gave Axelrod an internship right after his graduation, in 1976. After covering crime and other city stories for three years, Axelrod started working as a political reporter and soon became the paper's lead political writer.

At the Tribune Tribune, Axelrod's favorite editors included an ex-Marine who had penetrated a crime syndicate for a story. "It was a real 'Front Page' cast of characters," he said, "and they could get you excited about your work. They made you feel that journalism was really a calling."

Axelrod was an aggressive reporter with a future at the Tribune Tribune, but, after a while, he started to lose his taste for the paper. "The news side became much more permeated by the business side," he said. "In other words you could see the warning signs of where the news business was going." Axelrod and his wife, Susan, have a daughter, Lauren, who suffered irreparable brain damage from years of seizures caused by epilepsy. "The H.M.O.s wouldn't cover a lot. We were paying eight, ten thousand dollars out of pocket, and I was making forty-two thousand a year. It was a lot. The only reason I could even think about leaving is because my wife is a saint. She basically said, 'You've got to be happy or otherwise what's the point?' ... Besides, I always thought that the only two jobs worth having at the paper were writer and editor. The rest was middle management."

Axelrod left the Tribune Tribune in 1984 and helped manage Paul Simon's successful Senate campaign against the inc.u.mbent, Charles Percy. The Simon campaign attracted a group of young people who soon became fixtures in Illinois politics, including Rahm Emanuel. After the election, Axelrod turned down a chance to work for Simon in Washington and set up his own political consulting business and worked for Democrats, both independents like Harold Washington and "organization" candidates, most notably Richard M. Daley. Axelrod turned down roles in both Bill Clinton's and Al Gore's Presidential campaigns--his daughter's seizures were still too severe for him to travel as often as would have been necessary--but his reputation grew as he helped with successful campaigns for African-American mayoral candidates in Detroit, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Houston, and Philadelphia. in 1984 and helped manage Paul Simon's successful Senate campaign against the inc.u.mbent, Charles Percy. The Simon campaign attracted a group of young people who soon became fixtures in Illinois politics, including Rahm Emanuel. After the election, Axelrod turned down a chance to work for Simon in Washington and set up his own political consulting business and worked for Democrats, both independents like Harold Washington and "organization" candidates, most notably Richard M. Daley. Axelrod turned down roles in both Bill Clinton's and Al Gore's Presidential campaigns--his daughter's seizures were still too severe for him to travel as often as would have been necessary--but his reputation grew as he helped with successful campaigns for African-American mayoral candidates in Detroit, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Houston, and Philadelphia.

Among the recent campaigns that Axelrod had worked on before joining Obama was that of Rahm Emanuel, in 2002, when he ran for Congress from the Fifth District, on the North Side--the seat abandoned by Rod Blagojevich when he was elected governor. Although Emanuel was born and reared in Chicago, he spent many years working in Washington, as an aide to Bill Clinton, and then making a fast fortune as an investment banker. When he ran for Congress, he faced accusations of being a "millionaire carpetbagger." Axelrod helped silence those charges when he did a television ad for Emanuel featuring a Chicago police sergeant named Les Smulevitz. The setting was a Chicago diner. "I've been a Chicago police officer "I've been a Chicago police officer for a long time, and I've seen it all--the guns, the gangs, the drugs," the officer said. Then he praised Emanuel's crime-fighting bona fides as an aide to Clinton. "That's why the Fraternal Order of Police and Chicago firefighters backs Rahm Emanuel for Congress. And I'd tell you that even if I weren't his uncle." for a long time, and I've seen it all--the guns, the gangs, the drugs," the officer said. Then he praised Emanuel's crime-fighting bona fides as an aide to Clinton. "That's why the Fraternal Order of Police and Chicago firefighters backs Rahm Emanuel for Congress. And I'd tell you that even if I weren't his uncle."

Axelrod was a magnet for first-rate help. With Sh.o.m.on, he brought in Peter Giangreco, the direct-mail expert, who had just advised Rod Blagojevich's successful run for governor; Paul Harstad, a polling expert who had helped Tom Vilsack, of Iowa, in his gubernatorial race; and, as deputy campaign manager, Nate Tamarin, who worked for Giangreco. Axelrod was Obama's chief strategist and media guru, but he could not manage the campaign. In the spring of 2003, he invited Jim Cauley, a tough, plainspoken political operative from the Appalachian territory in Kentucky, to talk with him and Obama about replacing Dan Sh.o.m.on as campaign manager. The relationship between Sh.o.m.on and Obama had grown more distant, and it was time, some in the campaign believed, to bring in someone with wider experience.

Cauley had impressed Axelrod when, in 2001, he helped Glenn Cunningham, an African-American and a former police officer and U.S. marshal, become mayor of Jersey City. The challenge of electing an African-American where blacks were not in the majority was something that Cauley had spent years thinking about and he had succeeded brilliantly with Cunningham.

When Cauley first met Obama at his modest campaign offices, he told him, "If you want to run an old-school African-American race, it's not my thing. I don't know how to do it."

But after listening to Obama talk for a while, Cauley could see that he was far less attuned to the generation of Jesse Jackson, Sr., and Bobby Rush. His natural cohort included younger African-American office-holders like Harold Ford, Jr., of Tennessee; Deval Patrick, of Ma.s.sachusetts; Artur Davis, of Alabama; and, eventually, Adrian Fenty, the mayor of Washington, D.C., and Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark. These were young men who had little, if any, direct memory of the civil-rights movement, but who possessed a distinct sense of debt to that past. Their experiences were hardly uniform: Ford, for instance, grew up in a prominent Memphis family and, as the son of a congressman, attended the St. Albans School for Boys and the University of Pennsylvania. Patrick was born in the Robert Taylor Homes projects on the South Side of Chicago and his father, a musician in the Sun Ra Arkestra, left the family. Patrick got a boost from A.B.C.--a nonprofit organization called A Better Chance, which helped send him to Milton Academy--and that led to Harvard College and then Harvard Law School. Cauley and Axelrod were eager to work with Obama. They agreed that he was not only individually gifted and politically progressive, but also that he was an exemplar of this new generation of black politicians who could potentially win elections--governorships, Senate seats--that had always been considered out of reach.

Even with Moseley Braun out of the Illinois Senate race, Obama faced a dizzying array of opponents in the Democratic primary. In more or less ascending order of importance: Braun out of the Illinois Senate race, Obama faced a dizzying array of opponents in the Democratic primary. In more or less ascending order of importance: Vic Roberts, a retired coal miner from southern Illinois.

Joyce Washington, an African-American health-care consultant from Chicago, who had once run for lieutenant governor.

Nancy Skinner, a liberal radio-talk-show host on WLS-AM, who had a degree in business from the University of Michigan but no experience at all in politics.

Gery Chico, a Hispanic former school-board president and top aide to Richard M. Daley.

Maria Pappas, the Cook County treasurer, whom the Tribune Tribune described as "known for such public eccentricities as twirling a baton and carrying a poodle in her purse." described as "known for such public eccentricities as twirling a baton and carrying a poodle in her purse."

Dan Hynes, the thirty-five-year-old Illinois comptroller, was a serious candidate and had the greatest name recognition in the field. Hynes had traditional union support and the endors.e.m.e.nt of establishment politicians loyal to his father, Tom Hynes, the former Cook County a.s.sessor and president of the State Senate, who was also the Democratic Party boss on the Southwest Side. With his father's connections, Dan Hynes had lined up the support of Democratic stalwarts including the Democratic Party chairman, Michael Madigan; the Cook County Commissioner (and the Mayor's brother), John Daley; and John Stroger, the Cook County Board president. (Richard Daley did not make endors.e.m.e.nts.) Hynes was earnest and decent, but he was also self-defeatingly cautious, a reluctant self-promoter, a poor campaigner, and irredeemably dull. In the Obama campaign's earliest poll, Hynes led the field by a wide margin, but that seemed mainly an indicator of name recognition.

Finally, there was Blair Hull. Of all Obama's opponents, he was the one whom Obama's team took most seriously. Hull was proof that, just when you believed that the politics of Illinois could get no stranger, there was always tomorrow. Hull grew up in Los Gatos, California. His father was a judge. After studying mathematics, computer science, and business, he taught high-school science and math for a year and then worked as a securities a.n.a.lyst. In the early nineteen-seventies, Hull took an interest in the blackjack theories of Ed Thorp, the author of Beat the Dealer Beat the Dealer, a cult cla.s.sic for card-counters. Visiting Las Vegas several days a month, Hull refined his technique. Using a method called the "Revere Advanced Point Count," an even more sophisticated system than Thorp's, Hull and some teammates started to make thousands of dollars each. The run came to an end in 1977, when one of Hull's teammates, Ken Uston, published a memoir called The Big Player The Big Player.

Hull used his winnings to start a computerized options firm. This proved more lucrative than blackjack. In 1999, he sold the firm to Goldman Sachs, for three hundred and forty million dollars. Living in Illinois, where there was no legal limit on the amount of money a candidate could spend on his own campaign, Hull figured that he could go far in politics--even though he never expressed any compelling reason for wanting to be elected. "He was rich and bored," one of his consultants said. "He thought being a senator might be cool. That was the whole thing."

Hull had thought first about running for the House of Representatives against Rahm Emanuel and Nancy Kaszak, in the Fifth District. According to Hull, Emanuel had made a fund-raising call to him and was so abrasive--"He was just being Rahm, which is why he is loved by so many people!"--that he decided to run himself. Hull paid to have some polling done, however, and he realized that he couldn't win. "So I went to see Richie Daley in City Hall and Daley wanted to be with Rahm," Hull said. "He says, 'You don't want to be in the House. It takes forever to get seniority and get anything done. You should be in the Senate. You don't have to work as hard.'... I would never have thought about the Senate. It was way above my league."

But the Democratic side of the race was so wide open and Hull's pockets were so deep that he decided to run. Like Michael Bloomberg in New York, or Jon Corzine in New Jersey, he would run as an "anti-politician," someone who lacked a political past but was so wealthy and accomplished in business that the voters might see him as incorruptible and somehow "above" ordinary politics. This was the traditional conceit of such candidates; to be "above" things. The problem was that Hull often came off as yet another in a long line of eccentric technocrat-businessmen who thought that all problems of policy and politics could be solved using the same equations with which they had made financial fortunes. When Joshua Green When Joshua Green, a writer for The Atlantic Monthly The Atlantic Monthly, asked Hull if he could devise an algorithm for political success, Hull said, "Sure! You'd create a persuasion model based on canva.s.sing that says 'The probability for voting for Hull is ... plus some variable on ethnicity ... with a positive coefficient on age, a negative coefficient on wealth, and that gives us an equation ... '" Hull then wrote down an equation in Green's notebook that he thought was a kind of mathematical map to victory: Probability = 1/(1 + exp ([?]1 x ([?]3.9659056 + (General Election Weight x 1.92380219) + (Re-Expressed Population Density x .00007547) + (Re-Expressed Age x .01947370) + (Total Primaries Voted x [?].60288595) + (% Neighborhood Ethnicity x [?].00717530)))) Then he said to Green, "That's the kind of innovation I will bring to problems in the United States Senate." Years later, when asked if he had been joking by providing a regression a.n.a.lysis for winning a seat in the Senate, Hull was quiet for a while, then said, "Well, no. That wasn't lighthearted."

If Hull had been a man of ordinary means, his bizarre reliance on probability theory and his utter lack of knowledge about policy would have been disqualifying. But in Illinois, there was fresh experience of a candidate purchasing his seat as if it were on a sale rack at Marshall Field's. In 1998, Peter Fitzgerald had spent fourteen million dollars of his family's banking fortune to defeat Carol Moseley Braun. Hull declared that he was ready to spend triple that amount.

Hull hired veritable armies of consultants: issues experts; direct-mail, media, and Internet gurus; a communications director in Chicago; a communications director downstate; two separate teams of pollsters--all for top-dollar fees. Few of them came to work for Hull because they believed in him. There was nothing to believe in. In the summer of 2002, Hull's advisers taped a mock interview with Hull and played portions of it for a focus group of potential voters. Hull struck everyone in the room as almost comically ba.n.a.l and unpolished. "One woman thought she was being punked for an episode of 'Candid Camera,'" Mark Blumenthal, one of Hull's pollsters, said.

Hull needed help. He had approached David Axelrod before deciding whether to run against Emanuel for a House seat or against Obama, Hynes, and the others for Senate. Axelrod, who had not yet signed on with Obama, was not immune to the charms of a rich, self-financing client; in 1992, he had helped run the woeful campaign of Al Hofeld, a wealthy attorney, who had spent a great deal of money trying to win the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate against the inc.u.mbent, Alan Dixon. Axelrod met with Hull several times. Like many others, Axelrod had heard rumors about Hull: that he had been treated for substance abuse, that he had been through an ugly divorce, in 1998, from a successful real-estate broker named Brenda s.e.xton (whom he had married twice). There were even rumors that Hull had hit s.e.xton. In long, frank discussions, Hull confirmed the rumors about his troubled divorce and admitted that he had also had a problem with alcohol and cocaine.

In the end, however, Hull decided to run for the Senate and Axelrod went to work for his friend Obama. Axelrod was already convinced that he had signed on with a "once in a lifetime" politician, though Obama had a less than even chance of getting the Democratic nomination.

"Into the teeth of those two winds, Hynes and Hull, stepped Barack Obama, whose only real electoral history was getting the s.h.i.t kicked out of him by Bobby Rush," Pete Giangreco said. "People who knew him loved him. The question was: Could we get his story out? Would we have the money? Could we get people to know him the way we knew him?"

Since many voters were unfamiliar with the candidates, the early focus in the 2004 primary race was on endors.e.m.e.nts, particularly among labor unions and the traditional political organizations. More than a hundred elected officials in Chicago and downstate came out for Dan Hynes, and, thanks to his family name, so did the most traditionally minded unions, including the A.F.L.-C.I.O. But Obama surprised the Hynes campaign by picking up the support of three activist unions, the Service Employees International Union (S.E.I.U.), the Illinois Federation of Teachers, and the American Federation of State, County, and Munic.i.p.al Employees (A.F.S.C.M.E.). Obama's reputation as a left-of-center politician skilled in the arts of compromise--especially his work on health care, child-care benefits, and judicial and ethics reform--appealed to the labor leaders, and he had courted them for years in Springfield and Chicago. were unfamiliar with the candidates, the early focus in the 2004 primary race was on endors.e.m.e.nts, particularly among labor unions and the traditional political organizations. More than a hundred elected officials in Chicago and downstate came out for Dan Hynes, and, thanks to his family name, so did the most traditionally minded unions, including the A.F.L.-C.I.O. But Obama surprised the Hynes campaign by picking up the support of three activist unions, the Service Employees International Union (S.E.I.U.), the Illinois Federation of Teachers, and the American Federation of State, County, and Munic.i.p.al Employees (A.F.S.C.M.E.). Obama's reputation as a left-of-ce