Rising Star

by David J. Garrow

  Leaving the Senate floor that day, “Barack comes out and he gives me this big handshake and hug. ‘We did it man, we did it!’” Barack congratulated Keith. A few moments later, veteran SEIU lobbyist Bill Perkins, who had left AFSCME months earlier after a fierce run-in with Roberta, gave Kelleher an astonishing piece of news: “Barack didn’t vote for it.” Along with four other senators, Barack had voted present. Keith quickly accosted him. “‘Barack, Bill just told me that you voted present on this bill?’ ‘Yeah, man. You know Roberta was really working me, and you know, I’m running’” and did not want to risk losing AFSCME’s support. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Keith replied. “‘No.’ ‘Barack, you’re a sponsor.’ ‘Yeah, but you didn’t need my vote.’” Kelleher and his leaders were amazed and livid that a chief cosponsor had voted against his own bill because he was afraid it would cost him AFSCME’s endorsement.

  Behind the scenes, Democratic legislative leaders worked on an ethics act to respond to the federal investigation into campaign work being performed on state time. Barack told the Chicago Tribune the bill would be “a much-needed improvement,” especially in protecting legislative staffers. “These guys have been hung out to dry because they’ve been told to go do stuff politically,” Barack acknowledged. In private, Barack loyally followed Emil Jones’s lead, greatly disappointing advocates like Cindi Canary of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, who wanted stronger provisions barring lobbyists from paying for legislators’ golf games and the like. On the last day, Barack spoke in favor of HB 3412, stressing that “it’s absolutely imperative” to give staff members “a bright line” about “what is not allowable conduct,” and the bill passed almost unanimously. Later that day, when a bill modestly raising Illinois’s minimum wage came up for a vote, moderate Republican Adeline Geo-Karis noted it did not apply federally. Barack was quick to respond. “Senator Geo-Karis, I promise you, when I get to the federal level, I will make sure that at the federal level we raise the federal minimum wage. But until I get there, this appears to be the best we can do.”21

  While Barack was in Springfield, he received an unexpected gift when the host of WTTW’s Chicago Tonight, Phil Ponce, asked Jesse Jackson Sr. if he was going to make an endorsement in the U.S. Senate race. “Well, I support Barack Obama,” Jackson replied. “Have you already come out?” Ponce queried. “Well, not made an official endorsement, but he brings to the scene the quality of intelligence and freshness that’s appealing.”

  Barack’s team continued to prioritize fund-raising, with all eyes focused on the upcoming June 30 FEC reporting date. Attorney Stephen Pugh would host a major event on June 12, and a week later Women for Obama would hold a reception. Barack had been a top sponsor of twenty-six bills that had won passage, a third of which had political appeal: the videotaping and racial profiling measures, significant expansions of both FamilyCare and Illinois’s EITC, the ephedra ban and nightclub safety acts, plus the hospital report card and open meetings bills. At a Friday press conference and again on WVON’s Cliff Kelley Show, Barack called for the governor to sign a newly passed House bill he had championed that would allow ex-offenders to receive state professional licenses necessary for dozens of occupations. “Right now, you can’t get a barber’s license if you’re an ex-offender,” Barack stressed. Illinois at present “does not issue a license for a non-violent ex-offender to be a barber, a cosmetologist, to be a nail technologist, a real estate agent, a landscape architect, a court reporter,” Barack added. Such a barrier “doesn’t make any sense, particularly because for a lot of ex-offenders, one of their best opportunities may be entrepreneurial and starting a small business.” Whatever their choice, “it’s important that ex-offenders be able to find jobs and housing.”

  Barack made a two-day fund-raising trip to Manhattan, and one evening prominent attorney Vernon E. Jordan took Barack along to a book party being held in media power-couple Tina Brown and Harold Evans’s backyard. Newton Minow’s friend John Bryan, the CEO of Sara Lee, had introduced Barack to Jordan, a member of Sara Lee’s board, at a Chicago lunch, and Jordan was impressed. Yet at the Upper East Side book party, with former president Bill Clinton in attendance, Barack looked “as awkward and out-of-place as I felt,” a young journalist later explained. He was also “one of the few black people in attendance,” and “we spoke at length about his campaign” before Barack left. Only then did another guest approach to ask whom she had been chatting with. “Sheepishly he told me he didn’t know that Obama was a guest at the party and had asked him to fetch him a drink.”

  While Barack was in New York, Blair Hull’s campaign and Barack’s own reviewed their research into his record. “Whether it is because he is ethical or careful, we do not have a smoking gun against Obama,” a Hull campaign memo reported. “Much of the analysis of Obama’s legislative record has yielded proportionally little in the way of hits,” but a Freedom of Information request had been submitted requesting the details on Barack’s “member initiatives.” The memo noted that “there appears to be a strong connection between Obama and the developers in his district,” but that was not pursued. But the Hull campaign’s research on Gery Chico “has uncovered lots of negatives and problem areas in Chico’s public record.”

  David Axelrod and John Kupper had asked Joe Sinsheimer, a researcher whom they both respected, to undertake similar work for the Obama campaign. “I remember David calling me” and saying, “This guy is special,” after Joe expressed doubt that a black state senator could win. A Duke graduate who had been initiated into “an aggressive style of politics” while working under now-congressman Rahm Emanuel at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, by 2003 Sinsheimer had more than a decade of political research experience. By mid-June, Sinsheimer had completed a two-volume, thirty-one-chapter report on Barack that in form closely mirrored Kennedy Communications’ investigation of Barack’s record. Many chapters addressed particular issues, like abortion, or eight pages on the economy, and Sinsheimer’s “Executive Summary” about Barack as a legislator was decidedly upbeat: “an innovator who understands and works within the system . . . to forge a solution to important problems.” Barack’s breadth of recently passed bills represented “a record that will allow him to solidify his base vote” as well as “to make the argument to suburban voters that he is a new kind of Democrat—a leader that attacks problems with innovative solutions.”

  Sinsheimer’s defensively oriented chapters cataloged the “E2 Nightclub Stampede,” “Obama Finances,” “Law Firm,” “Forum Inc.,” “Citizenship Education Fund,” and especially “Present and Missed Votes.” Looking at the full record from an opponent’s perspective, the argument that “Obama did not have the courage of his convictions on abortion” again represented the top vulnerability. The missed vote on reenacting the Safe Neighborhoods Act in late 1999 also loomed large, but the member initiatives to Yesse Yehudah and Jesse Jackson Sr. just barely made Sinsheimer’s top ten. “I don’t think that I remember Tony Rezko’s name ever being uttered,” he later recalled. Kupper also asked Sinsheimer to take a thorough look at Maria Pappas and her husband, Peter Kamberos, and two impressive memos detailed their business activities.

  John Kupper immediately read Sinsheimer’s report, taking note of potential problems. At the top of his notes, Kupper wrote: “What is Electronic Knowledge Interchange?”—the Robert Blackwell enterprise that had paid Barack $112,000 in 2001 and early 2002. Sinsheimer had vacuumed up Barack’s exaggerated March 1997 claim to Crain’s Chicago Business that he could “knock down scotch and tell a dirty joke with the best of them,” but a trio of state Senate actions stood out too: “introduces legislation against zero-tolerance in school expulsions” because of Decatur, “votes to close child welfare office in Hendon’s district,” and “votes against extending death penalty to violent gang members” all had “oppo” potential.22

  When Barack returned from New York, downstate newspapers all reported Congressman Lane Evans’s endorsement. “There i
s one candidate who stands above the rest when it comes to his ability to lead, his knowledge of the issues, his proven record, and his ability to win in November,” Evans declared. “We’re absolutely thrilled,” Barack told the Quad-City Times, calling Evans’s support “an enormous boost.” That night Barack joined Gery Chico at a Democratic gathering in suburban DuPage County, and the next evening featured the big Loop fund-raiser hosted by African American attorney Stephen Pugh. A sustained effort had been made to encourage host committee members to raise “at least $10,000” apiece for the event, and one solicitation letter proclaimed that “very seldom is there an individual like Barack with the ability, will and determination to usher in a new era of progressive politics.” With individuals now able to contribute up to $12,000, and the June 30 reporting deadline looming, another letter told potential donors that “Obama is a top tier front runner in this race.” More than two hundred people attended, and the reception gave the biggest boost yet to the campaign’s goal of having more than $1 million in hand when candidate’s FEC reports were filed in mid-July.

  With Jimmy Cauley’s arrival still a few weeks away, Dan Shomon remained in charge of the campaign’s political strategy, and one major concern that remained was how many of Illinois’s major unions would support Dan Hynes. Some, like the Teamsters, were already in Hynes’s corner. Both SEIU and AFSCME, their internecine warfare aside, were expected to support Barack, but the state AFL-CIO and both teachers’ unions, the IFT and the IEA, were still in play. With them, Barack’s most powerful ally was Emil Jones, and Shomon knew that having “Jones start calling key labor individuals” was the most essential piece of Obama’s labor strategy.

  When former 1992 Project VOTE! colleague Bruce Dixon posted a critical essay titled “In Search of the Real Barack Obama” on an African American Web site, Barack wrote a reply and then followed up with a phone call and a second e-mail. Barack explained that his inclusion in a directory published by the avowedly centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which Dixon had targeted, was simply because he had filled out a brief questionnaire. “I’m proud of the fact that I stood up early and unequivocally in opposition to Bush’s foreign policy . . . and I continue to make it a central part of each and every one of my political speeches.” In his second message, Barack stressed his progressive stances on divisive issues: “I favor universal health care for all Americans” and “the current NAFTA regime lacks the workers’ and environmental protections that are necessary.” He declared that “I am not currently, nor have I ever been, a member of the DLC” while also volunteering that he opposed “the misogyny and materialism of much of rap culture.” Barack closed by stating, “I’ve always trusted my moral compass, and have thus far avoided compromising my core values for the sake of ambition or expedience.”23

  With the session over and no law school classes until late September, Barack’s schedule was a nonstop mix of public appearances, call time, and meetings with contributors. One June Saturday, Barack spoke at an SEIU rally; the next Saturday he was grand marshal at Bronzeville’s annual Juneteenth Parade. One Tuesday evening, Barack was working the crowd at a Clinton Foundation event at the W Hotel in the Loop when he encountered former U of C provost Geof Stone at the shrimp bowl. Geof chided Barack for investing so much time and effort in another political campaign. “The chances of success are so small. Why not become a real, full-time academic,” so “you can make a real contribution?” Barack “looked me in the eye,” Stone remembered, and said, “Geof, I really appreciate that, but I have a responsibility here, and I think I have an opportunity, and I just have to pursue it.” That Friday Barack met Tony Rezko at 8:00 A.M. in preparation for a big fund-raiser that night at Tony’s home in Wilmette, one that brought in more than $70,000 for Barack’s campaign. Two days later Barack faced a radically different crowd when he sat on the back of a red convertible as two young campaign volunteers drove him through Boystown in the annual Gay Pride Parade.

  Blair Hull’s campaign got everyone’s attention when it launched a two-week, $750,000 radio and television advertising campaign on June 23 in the six non-Chicago markets—Rockford, Quad Cities, Peoria, and Springfield, plus St. Louis, Missouri, and Paducah, Kentucky—that served Illinois residents. The first sixty-second TV spot described Hull as “a successful businessman who built an investment company from scratch.” Hull vowed that “we need to create jobs” and “provide affordable health care for our families” before the ad ended with the slogan “he’ll work for you.” Going “up” on the air nine months before an election was unheard of, but it coincided with Hull’s formal announcement of his candidacy on June 25 and visits to Carbondale, Springfield, Decatur, Quad Cities, and Rockford. Barack told the Chicago Sun-Times he found Hull’s move “pretty remarkable,” because “my impression at this stage is that people are not paying close attention to a Senate race that is going to take place in March.” But former U.S. senator Paul Simon remarked that given Hull’s unlimited funds and his complete lack of name recognition, “I think it’s a smart move on his part.”

  African American health care executive Joyce Washington had retained a well-regarded campaign consultant and a top researcher who examined Barack and Hull. Sun-Times political columnist Steve Neal reported that although Barack was “emerging as the consensus choice of the African-American community” and “has a very good chance to win the Democratic nomination,” privately Representative Bobby Rush was seeking “payback” by encouraging Washington “to challenge Obama” and helping “recruit allies to her cause.” But Washington’s challenges paled compared to those facing Gery Chico’s campaign. By mid-June operations director Megan Crowhurst had resigned, and Chico’s own call time dwindled precipitously even as the FEC’s end-of-June reporting deadline drew near. Frustrated finance director Kelly Dietrich gave notice, and then on June 27, Chico as chairman of Altheimer & Gray’s executive committee notified the law firm’s partners that three days later they would be voting to dissolve the firm. The Chicago Tribune reported that the closure “will put 700 administrative staff members out of work,” and the Sun-Times called the news “a potentially dramatic development” for Chico’s Senate candidacy. Campaign staffers heard this from the Tribune, not from Chico. “Oh, that’s why we haven’t raised any money for the past couple of weeks,” Dietrich realized. Several weeks later the Tribune followed with an embarrassing story detailing how in 2002 Altheimer had booked more than $6 million in uncollected fees as profit while at the same time borrowing more than $22 million into early 2003 to keep the firm afloat. Chico had been paid $800,000 in 2002, but mid-June efforts to merge Altheimer into a stronger firm were rebuffed just days before the collapse.24

  Barack spent the first two days of July touring downstate cities with Lane Evans to publicize the popular congressman’s endorsement. “If every voter in this primary could meet with Barack, he’d win by a landslide,” Evans told a Springfield press conference as virtually every downstate newspaper reported his remarks. Shomon and Barack’s consultants were also eager to draw attention to the fund-raising prowess that had produced $878,000 in contributions during the second quarter of 2003, giving Obama for Illinois a bank balance of $1,076,000 as July began. “We are going to have enough money to get on television,” Barack told downstate reporters, while emphasizing that “I have the track record behind me that doesn’t exist for any of the other candidates. I’m the only guy who’s ever passed a bill. I’m the only guy that’s ever cast a vote.” Ceremonies at which Governor Blagojevich signed first the FamilyCare expansion bill and then John Cullerton’s seat belt measure put Barack’s name in the news too, and on July 4, thanks to Nate Tamarin, Barack appeared at five different Independence Day parades. With Dan Hynes residing in his district, Cullerton explained to Barack over lunch at the Berghoff how he had to remain neutral in the Senate race but volunteered some fund-raising advice. Soon thereafter, when the Cullerton family’s 38th Ward Regular Democratic Organization unsurprisingly endorsed Hynes, “I get
a call from Obama, saying ‘I thought you said you were going to be neutral—your name’s on Hynes’s Web site.’ I said, ‘Barack, let me tell you something. I think you’re the only person in Illinois who’s looked at Dan Hynes’s Web site. Okay? But I’ll correct it, and I’ll call him and get it straight.’”

  At an Operation PUSH Saturday forum, Barack told the crowd, “we’ve got to have health insurance for every family” and “every child. We’ve got to have national health insurance.” At a nearby senior citizens’ center, Barack attacked President Bush’s prescription drug policies, saying they “create an illusion of providing relief” yet “look like they were written by the pharmaceutical industry.” He took the time to write a personal letter to Paul Simon citing his successful downstate swing with Lane Evans, pointedly adding that “your endorsement would mean more than any other.” Dan Hynes’s breadth of downstate support, with seventy-one out of ninety-six county chairmen already backing him, led wealthy Madison County attorney John Simmons to withdraw from the race and endorse Hynes just seven weeks after having entered.

  Absent Hynes, the other Democratic candidates all met for their first joint broadcast appearance on July 13 at a progressive IVI-IPO forum cosponsored by WBEZ radio. Barack devoted his one-minute opening statement to the war in Iraq. “I am the only candidate in this race to stand up and oppose this thing vehemently and vigorously,” noting that “I was in the Federal Plaza last fall clearly addressing this issue, and no one else was there.” When moderator Laura Washington asked the candidates what they would do to protect civil liberties, Barack responded that “I would introduce a bill that would revoke many of the provisions contained in the first Patriot Act,” and “I would absolutely oppose the second Patriot Act,” because what’s “most threatening are the ability of the Justice Department to obtain wiretaps without a warrant. They basically circumvented the judicial process, and the judiciary is our one check. They are the people that watch the watchers. . . . We need to require proper warrants that specify what the Justice Department is looking for and that is what the Patriot Act has stripped out.”