The Wall Street Journal
For Obama, Chicago Days Honed Tactics
By JONATHAN KAUFMAN
April 21, 2008; Page A1
CHICAGO -- In his first run for public office in 1996, Barack Obama faced an unexpected obstacle. A liberal black incumbent had encouraged him to run for the Illinois state senate seat she intended to vacate. Then she changed her mind, deciding to run again. Mr. Obama hired a fellow Harvard Law School graduate, challenged the validity of signatures on her nominating petitions, and got her thrown off the ballot. He eventually ran unopposed, launching the career that has made him the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president. In his books and speeches, Mr. Obama has cast himself as an underdog and an unconventional politician -- a stance that has spawned criticism in advance of Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary that he lacks the political skill and stamina to get elected. A look at his years in Chicago, based on interviews with friends, advisers, rivals and political strategists, reveals a shrewd combatant from one of the nation's toughest political arenas.
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For many decades, Chicago has been one of the nation's most distinctive political landscapes. Under the longtime leadership of Mayor Richard J. Daley, it became synonymous with one-party rule. Loyal Democrats were rewarded with jobs and services. Neighborhoods seen as politically disloyal sometimes faced problems such as unplowed winter streets. Many blacks felt shut out of the system altogether. When Mr. Obama arrived in 1985 at the age of 23, the city's political and racial landscape was changing. The city of Mayor Daley and his predominantly white Democratic machine was becoming the city of Michael Jordan and Oprah Winfrey. Harold Washington became the first black mayor in 1983 by reaching out to white voters. When Mayor Daley's son, Richard M. Daley, was elected mayor in 1989, he appointed numerous blacks to high positions, including Mr. Obama's girlfriend and future wife, Michelle.
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Mr. Obama had lived much of his life as an outsider: a biracial boy raised by a white mother and grandparents, an American in Indonesia, a Hawaiian native in New York. "He had never encountered blue-collar and lower-class African-Americans," says Mr. Kellman. "If he couldn't be comfortable emotionally with them, he couldn't build a political career." Mr. Obama organized poor and working-class blacks to lobby for a jobs center and for the removal of asbestos in a local housing project. "He was so young, but we followed him," says Margaret Mabry, who worked with him. "He found a way to be part of the black community and live beyond the black community," says Mr. Kellman. "He discovered he could live in both worlds."
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Mr. Obama sounded many of the themes he uses now. "The political debate is now so skewed, so limited, so distorted," he told a Chicago newspaper. "People are hungry for community; they miss it. They are hungry for change." In the Illinois State Senate, some Democrats and Republicans tagged Mr. Obama as an elitist who looked upon the state legislature as a political stepping stone. Chicagoans who knew him frequently offer stories of his intimidating intellect and sometimes chilly manner -- a counterpoint to the widely circulated stories about his skills as a listener and his ability to connect with people of different views.
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But Mr. Obama was aiming for higher things. Against the counsel of many of his advisers, he decided to run in the primary against Democratic Congressman Bobby Rush, a popular former Black Panther who represented a largely black district that included Hyde Park. Mr. Obama lost by 30 percentage points... Mr. Obama next set his sights on the 2004 Senate race. Several white Democrats were planning to run. If Mr. Obama could win the black vote and attract liberal whites, he figured he could get 30% of the vote, enough to win in a crowded field, according to his aides on that campaign. Learning from his prior defeat, he visited three black churches every Sunday, delivering his stump speech in the cadence of black preachers. He raised money furiously. Most importantly, Mr. Obama persuaded Mr. Axelrod, one of Chicago's most powerful political strategists, to run his campaign. Mr. Axelrod specialized in electing black candidates who could cross over and win white votes, emphasizing themes of unity and change. He also worked for Mayor Daley... Mr. Obama sailed to victory. By the end of the campaign, his aides were sending workers into Iowa, the first Presidential caucus state, to begin developing contacts among Democrats there, according to Al Kindle, an Obama campaign aid at the time.
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