Rising Star

by David J. Garrow

  One evident problem was Barack’s lack of entrée into the South Side’s rich and complex network of black churches. Neither Dan Shomon nor Cleveland-born Will Burns knew that world. Young Gamaliel organizer John Eason, who was volunteering on weekends, introduced Barack to clergymen he knew, and another regular volunteer, African American UCLS 3L Nat Piggee, was married to Summer Samuels, whose father was a South Side pastor. Selling a Bobby Rush challenger to most churchmen was a daunting task, but by mid-January, Summer became the Obama campaign’s fifth full-time staffer. Her godmother, Lula Ford, was a prominent, recently retired school administrator whose political mentor was Emil Jones Jr., and after getting Jones’s approval, Ford hosted a reception at a nightclub called Honeysuckles, where African American educators met Barack. A writer from the weekly Chicago Reader listened to Barack’s pitch to the black educators. “When Congressman Rush and his allies attack me for going to Harvard and teaching at the University of Chicago, they’re sending a signal to black kids that if you’re well-educated, somehow you’re not ‘keeping it real,’” Barack rightly argued.

  Like John Eason, Nat and Summer Piggee realized that Barack “wasn’t as familiar with some of the customs in the black church” as an African American politician should be. Nat went with Barack to one church appearance and was disappointed when he mangled Martin Luther King’s well-known declaration that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Nat remarked afterward that “You may want to check that King quote,” but Barack brushed it off. “Nat, come on, you’re the only guy in there who knew it.” That dismissiveness reflected arrogance on top of ignorance. “No, dude, you’re the only guy in there who didn’t know it,” Nat accurately replied.

  On Monday, January 17, Barack held a press conference to declare that “drastic and immediate action is needed to stem the dramatic increases in the cost of prescription drugs.” Drug pricing “shows why our entire health care system needs reform” and Barack said he would introduce legislation to require drug companies to sell medications to everyone at the lowest possible price. “This is one step . . . in the movement towards universal health care where all people have insurance.” That evening Barack attended a candidates’ forum at a field house in the Chatham neighborhood and told the small crowd, “I’m impatient for change. Too often we settle for second best in terms of our political officials. The First Congressional District can do better, but right now we don’t have as good a representation as we could have. We don’t have a congressman who’s effective as a leader at the national as well as the local level.”

  Bobby Rush did not attend such events, which left plenty of time for Barack to face challenging questions. One man raised the missed gun vote. “If you initiate a lot of ideas, and at the time of a vote you’re not there, how can we count on you?” Barack responded curtly. “If you look at my record in Springfield, I don’t miss votes. I missed one as a result of my daughter being sick. That’s an exceptional situation that doesn’t arise often.” Afterward the questioner told the Chicago Reader reporter, “If you tell me this is one of your issues and then you miss the vote, that concerns me. With that in mind, I’m very reluctant to support him for anything. I think he’s biting off a little more than he can chew. He’s got some good issues, but he’s too green.” But when Rashid and Mona Khalidi hosted a small event for Barack, one Palestinian friend, Ali Abunimah, was impressed that Barack was willing to say that the United States needed a more “even-handed” approach toward the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. “He was very aware of the issues,” Abunimah remembered, and “critical of U.S. bias toward Israel and lack of sensitivity to Arabs.”

  Overviews of the Obama–Rush face-off appeared in both highbrow Illinois Issues and in Residents’ Journal, a monthly written and read by Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) tenants. Obama “speaks eloquently for coalition building,” the former reported, with Barack arguing that “Rush engages in divisive politics that promotes his name but doesn’t deliver the goods. The question here is not policy disagreements, but who can create coalitions.” Barack “may be hurt” by the missed vote, and aging black nationalist Lu Palmer declared, “I don’t like Obama. He has large Hyde Park liberal backing. He’s barely been in the state Senate. Let him get his feet wet.” Barack told the CHA magazine, “I’m somebody who believes that politics is a mission,” and said Rush had been too passive about CHA’s demolition of its notorious high-rises. “If we are providing replacement housing, we need to make sure that public housing residents have a wide range of choices of neighborhoods not just in the city but throughout the region,” Barack said. Barack also argued that first-time criminal offenders deserved a second chance. “Too many of our young people think that a gun is a toy and feel that they can intimidate or hurt other people.” But “if you haven’t been in trouble with the law after a year, then they should take the felony off your record,” Barack contended. Yet gun control was imperative. “I think that if you have to take a test to drive a car, a safety test, then there should be no reason it shouldn’t be the same way for a gun.”12

  By the third week of January, Barack was back in Springfield at least two evenings a week. Beverly Helm recalled that on their first day together Barack summoned her into his office to make one firm request: “I have people that come in with HIV. I have people come in that have disabilities. I have people come in that are homeless. I never want to see you treat them any differently than you would treat a director or anyone else that walks through these doors.” Beverly immediately embraced Barack’s point and knew they were “going to get along fine,” and “that was day one. We got along fine.”

  Barack introduced a passel of new bills: higher payments to child support recipients, increased Medicaid eligibility for public aid clients, expanding KidCare into FamilyCare by offering health care coverage to low-income working parents, and stricter regulation of predatory home loan and payday loan vultures. But Barack’s primary concern was his congressional campaign, and especially its strained finances. On January 31, all three candidates reported their contributions and expenditures for calendar year 1999: Barack’s campaign had raised $266,000 and had spent $250,000, leaving only $16,000 on hand. Staff salaries ate up $4,500 per week, with health benefits and payroll taxes on top of that, and upcoming radio ads would cost another $29,000. But fund-raising had slowed, and on January 25 Barack had loaned the campaign $2,000 of his and Michelle’s personal funds. Barack had outraised Bobby Rush, who had taken in $209,000, but a preexisting balance and expenditures of only $147,000 left Rush with $153,000 available. While Barack had received only one single PAC contribution, $3,300 from his poker buddy Dave Manning’s Community Bankers Association, a majority of Rush’s contributions—$137,000—came from PACs. Donne Trotter had received only $46,000 in contributions and personally loaned his campaign $20,000; with roughly $60,000 in expenses, Trotter had only $8,000 on hand. Barack told reporters, “We’re very proud of the fact that we’ve been competitive with Rush in fund-raising, despite the fact that 99 percent of our fund-raising comes from individuals, while most of Rush’s comes from PACs. The fact that we’ve been competitive indicates the degree of enthusiasm and support that we’ve gotten in the district.” Yet as Barack knew, and as stories in the Hyde Park Herald and Washington, D.C.’s Roll Call highlighted, his campaign lacked the funds necessary to make any significant push in the race’s final six weeks. Illinois political observer Paul Green told Roll Call that Barack’s challenge “hasn’t caught on like I thought it would” and said the contest “looks fairly good for Rush.” Progressive former alderman Dick Simpson told the Herald that “Obama’s done well that he’s out-raised the incumbent,” but needed “at least another $150,000 to $200,000” to make the race competitive. Barack signaled his own realism in telling the Herald that “if we can establish more name recognition” before March 21, the outcome would be “very tight.”

  Media consultant Eric Adelstein had crafted a perfect slogan for Rush’s reelection eff
ort: “We’re sticking with Bobby.” But Rush’s campaign was also trying to deploy President Bill Clinton on their candidate’s behalf. Rush secured an aisle seat for the president’s January 27 State of the Union address, allowing him to hurriedly ask Clinton to cut a radio ad boosting his campaign. On January 31, Governor George Ryan announced he was imposing an open-ended moratorium on the state’s death penalty. Citing Illinois’s “shameful record of convicting innocent people and putting them on death row,” Ryan said there would be no further executions “until I can be sure with moral certainty” that capital defendants are “truly guilty.” Even conservative Republican state senator Chris Lauzen hailed Ryan’s move, and Barack too praised Ryan for making “a morally correct” decision. Some reacted cynically to Ryan’s move, for it had been known for days that one of his closest aides from his time as secretary of state was about to be federally indicted as the commercial-driver’s-license bribery scandal crept closer to Ryan himself. Those charges came just twenty-four hours after Ryan’s landmark announcement, but those who knew the governor best had no doubt that Ryan’s change of heart on capital punishment was utterly sincere and not politically calculated.13

  Barack had little choice in February but to spend three days each week in Springfield, and he introduced nine additional bills. The first, banning the sale of certain flavored cigarettes, won coverage in the Defender; another was the drug pricing measure that had received press attention two weeks earlier. He reintroduced the state earned-income tax credit bill he had first put forward three years earlier, and he also proposed a measure requiring the Department of Human Services to provide domestic violence training for its employees who worked with families on public assistance.

  During a long interview in early February with Ted McClelland of the Chicago Reader, Barack said the four things of which he was most proud were his 1997 work on welfare reform, his 1998 efforts regarding juvenile justice and campaign finance reform, and his consistent championing of tax justice issues like the earned-income credit, which he now had persuaded Republican Revenue Committee chairman Bill Peterson to cosponsor. They revisited the missed gun bill vote, and Barack admitted that “politically, I took a big hit.” He also acknowledged that “any ambivalence that I feel about my life in politics basically revolves around my family.” Since entering the congressional race, “I’m out the door by seven, and I’m home at nine, including weekends.” He estimated that over the previous six to eight months, he had spent no more than three or four full days with his wife and daughter. If he won, “ultimately I would move my family to Washington,” because seeing his daughter only on weekends was “no way to raise a child.”

  Citing Jesse Jackson Jr. and North Shore progressive Jan Schakowsky as Illinois’s two best members of Congress, Barack said that serving in Springfield had taught him that “you can have an enormous influence on the process through the power of your ideas even if you don’t get your name as the chief sponsor of a bill.” He and Jesse Jr. were the two black elected officials whose credentials would allow them to do well in the private and nonprofit sectors too, so “it makes sense for the community to take advantage of those talents and those gifts,” Barack told McClelland. “We need to attract more people like myself and Jesse Jr. into politics in the African-American community.” Regarding public service, “I really had to want to be here,” for “at every juncture in my life I could have taken a . . . path of least resistance but much higher pay.” Barack additionally pointed out that “being president of the Harvard Law Review is a big deal.”

  Finally climbing down off his high horse, Barack said that “before this congressional campaign I was a big pick-up basketball player” and had often enjoyed “some terrific games” at the courts “right off Lake Shore Drive” in Jackson Park. But “right before a big fund-raiser near the beginning of the campaign, I walked in with a big black eye,” and so “my staff has banned me from basketball.” McClelland asked what books had most influenced Barack’s political thinking, and a long pause followed. “My political philosophy is probably more influenced by fiction than it is by . . .” and then pausing again before finally naming “James Baldwin’s essays,” including The Fire Next Time; The Autobiography of Malcolm X; and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. The only nonfiction work Barack named was The Power Broker, Robert Caro’s biography of New York urban planner Robert Moses, a “wonderful book” that “really focuses on the intricacies of power in an urban environment.” Reaching for a better response, Barack explained that “a lot of times what moves me politically are themes that I find in fiction, themes of people overcoming great obstacles and great odds and creating communities . . . and discovering one’s roots and feeling a sense of place,” he added.

  Barack emphasized to McClelland that he had “raised more money from African Americans than either of the other two,” and that “half of my Finance Committee is made up of African American businessmen, most of them under the age of fifty.” That wording overlooked Judy Byrd, who, along with Jim Reynolds and Craig Robinson’s good friend Marty Nesbitt, was one of Barack’s three most dedicated advocates. Barack gave no names, but “I think that part of what they’re looking for is a transition in political leadership that reflects their growing sophistication and their involvement in all levels of the economy.”14

  Soon after that, Barack had painful occasion to consider “driving while black” when he was pulled over and given a $75 ticket for going 62 in a 45 mph zone, yet as scheduler Cynthia Miller knew, “Barack does drive fast.” On Monday, February 14, media consultant Chris Sautter’s new second pair of radio ads started airing on African American stations. The first one began with an announcer introducing “state senator Barack Obama, candidate for Congress, speaking with a group of frustrated South Side seniors.” A woman remarked, “Senator Obama, the cost of prescription drugs has gotten so high, sometimes I can’t afford the medicine I need.” A man added, “You know, I’ve always backed Bobby Rush, but I don’t see him doing anything about these high prices.” Then Barack responded: “Let me tell you something. The profits of drug companies are at record levels. Meanwhile we’ve got seniors who are having to choose between their food, their rent, and their prescription drugs. That’s not right. I’m running for Congress to fight for First District families and our seniors on prescription drug and HMO reform.” Then the announcer: “Barack Obama. Civil rights lawyer, the head of Project Vote. As our state senator, Barack Obama has taken on the drug and insurance companies with his fight for affordable health care.” Barack reentered: “America’s health care system locks out too many people. I’m fighting to change that.” The woman questioner declared, “Barack, we need a congressman like you who would do more than talk,” and a crowd applauded. The announcer returned: “Barack Obama. Democrat for Congress. New leadership that works for us.” Barack himself closed with “Paid for by Obama for Congress 2000.”

  The second new ad began with background noise of a police radio before a white male’s voice ordered, “Hand over your driver’s license.” A black woman replied, “But officer, I wasn’t speeding.” “Don’t talk back to me. Get out of that car,” the officer instructed. “But what did I do?” “I’ll worry about that. Now open the trunk,” and the woman sighed. Then the announcer: “It could happen to you. Or to someone you love. Stopped by the police for no apparent reason, except that you fit a racial profile secretly used by police. It’s called racial profiling, and it’s an unethical and dangerous practice that needs to end. Now, state senator Barack Obama, candidate for Congress in the First District, is leading the fight to end racial profiling.” Then Barack spoke: “This is state senator Barack Obama. Racial profiling is not only wrong and degrading, it’s dangerous and can lead to unexpected confrontations. Not only that, it erodes confidence in law enforcement. That’s why I’ve introduced legislation to address the problem of racial profiling and protect you from those who would abuse your rights.” Again the announcer, and then Barack, finished as before: “Bar
ack Obama, Democrat for Congress. New leadership that works for us.” “Paid for by Obama for Congress 2000.”

  In a Hyde Park Herald column on racial profiling, Barack called it a “growing concern to many minority citizens” and “a serious problem in many Illinois communities.” During an interview with the Chicago Weekly News, he talked up his welfare reform and juvenile justice efforts in Springfield and said he had helped direct $20 million toward crime prevention. As a congressman, his top priority would be “figuring out how to retool and revamp our public education system to provide the skills to our young people that allow them to compete in the new global economy.” In addition, “ultimately we should provide some basic health care to all citizens through programs designed at the federal level, even if some of the implementation takes place at the state level.”15

  In mid-February Barack, Michelle, and Malia attended the seventy-fifth birthday party of his granduncle Charles Payne, who had retired five years earlier from the U of C’s library. Maya and Madelyn, who was now seventy-seven years old, flew from Honolulu; Madelyn’s sister Arlene and her lifelong companion Margery Duffey came from North Carolina, and their younger brother Jon came from Colorado. It was the first time the four siblings had been together since their mother’s funeral thirty-two years earlier. Maya was months away from entering a Ph.D. program at the University of Hawaii, and it was a more relaxed family gathering than the brief and troubled visit Barack, Michelle, and Malia had made to Honolulu seven weeks earlier.