In March 2004, Mr. Obama won the Democratic primary for the United States Senate with nearly 67 percent of the vote, racking up huge totals in wards he had lost to Mr. Rush in 2000. (Mr. Rush, still stung by Mr. Obama’s challenge to him, endorsed a white candidate in the race, Blair Hull, a former securities trader.) Mr. Obama won the general election with the biggest margin ever in an Illinois Senate race.
A fascinating account of Obama's 2000 Congressional Challenge to Bobby Rush. Obama, feeling frustrated in the state senate and anxious to aim higher totally misread all the signs with a staff that was not very experienced like he had in his senate and now, presidential race with Axelrod, ect.
Rush, an icon in the black community in chicago, was the incumbant and very popular.
obama was advised not to do it. Obama got kicked badly in that race. but, from that dark time, Obama learned some good lessons, became a much better politician and it turned out to be more fortunate for him a few years later.
this is from the end of the article where Rush comments on the insurgent challenge from an obscure state senator.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/us/politics/09obama.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1&hpToday, Mr. Rush, a practicing Baptist minister in his eighth term in Congress who is backing Mr. Obama’s presidential candidacy, still seems to be ruminating about the Obama phenomenon with grievance and wonder. Mr. Obama’s ambition has found its audience, he said. In a Congressional race, your neighbors “hold you to a different standard.”
“For what he’s doing now, he didn’t need to march against police brutality,” Mr. Rush said, invoking his own record. “He didn’t need to demonstrate against poor meat in substandard grocery stores. He didn’t need that kind of stuff because obviously his audience was at a different level.”
Mr. Rush has an explanation for Mr. Obama’s emergence after the dark days of 2000 as a political star four years later. He vanquished a field of multimillionaires, some more experienced and better known, and benefited from fortuitous domestic scandals that sidelined two opponents and left him facing a Republican widely seen as unable to win.
“I would characterize the Senate race as being a race where Obama was, let’s say, blessed and highly favored,” Mr. Rush said, chuckling. “That’s not routine. There’s something else going on.”
What was he suggesting?
“I think that Obama, his election to the Senate, was divinely ordered,” Mr. Rush said, all other explanations failing. “I’m a preacher and a pastor; I know that that was God’s plan. Obama has certain qualities that — I think he is being used for some purpose. I really believe that.”
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