Obama will run for president.
What most people don’t understand about Obama is that he has a history of taking political risks. He took a big political risk when he ran against Bobby Rush, a four term Congressman, in the 2000 Democratic primary. At that time he had only four years of experience in the Illinois State Senate, and in Illinois, particularly Chicago, relatively inexperienced state senators don’t challenge incumbent Congressmen unless they have the backing of Mayor Daley, which he didn’t. At least publicly. Rush, who by the way is a former Black Panther, had challenged Daley in the 1999 mayoral primary, and my guess is that Obama had some private encouragement from Daley. Daley takes names and gets even. Interestingly enough, Bill Clinton endorsed Rush and cut a radio spot for him. (Wait until the national media focuses on that little tidbit.) Obama did get 31% of the primary vote, a very respectable showing that almost makes one think that democracy could break out in Chicago someday, though I do believe that Baghdad will be holding cleaner elections than Chicago ten years from now.
I found the following article on the primary on Jesse Jackson Jr.’s website, of all places. It originally appeared in the Chicago Sun Times. Jackson, of course, is the future (in his mind, at least) mayor of Chicago.
jessejacksonjr.org
Obama took another big risk when he ran for the Senate in 2004. While he ended up winning both the primary and the general election by substantial margins, he did get a couple of very fortunate breaks.
When Obama announced his candidacy, he was given only a minimal chance of success. If I am not mistaken, he made his announcement after Gary Chico announced his candidacy for the Senate. Chico was a Hispanic who had been the Chicago School Board President, where he had actually done a good job (with strong financial support from a GOP governor and legislature). Chico was very close to Mayor Daley. Conventional wisdom in Illinois suggests that if there are two minority candidates running in a statewide election, both are doomed. Daley did not endorse anyone in the primary and Chico’s candidacy never caught fire. He ended up with less than 5% of the primary vote.
Obama was blessed with two strong white candidates. Conventional wisdom in Illinois also suggests that a minority candidate can only win a statewide election (at least their first statewide election) if there are two strong white candidates on the ballot. That is how Illinois got saddled with Carol Mosley-Braun.
One of the white candidates was Dan Hynes, the Illinois Comptroller. The charisma and rhetorically challenged Hynes, who actually looked younger than his 35 years, was the son of a long-time Cook County based old school Democratic politician. Hynes was backed by John Daley, Mayor Daley’s brother and a very powerful politician in his own right, and John Stroger, who at the time was the most powerful African-American politician in Cook County. To the extent that there is a statewide Democratic machine in Illinois, Hynes was the machine guy. His poll numbers were running in the high 20s until about a week before the election. He ended up with 21% of the primary vote.
The other white candidate was Blair Hull, a multimillionaire businessman who dumped $30 million of his own money into the primary. Two or three weeks before the election, when Hull held a modest lead in the polls, someone managed to unseal his divorce papers, which contained allegations of spousal, drug and alcohol abuse. Whether or not the allegations were true, Hull’s candidacy imploded and he ended up with 9% of the vote.
Obama ended up with close to 60% of the primary vote.
Obama was supposed to face Jack Ryan in the general election. Ryan was a moderate Republican who had quit his very lucrative investment banking position to teach in an inner city high school. He had a great back-story, assuming that it was true. It should also be noted that the Illinois GOP has a history of nominating hard-core conservatives for the Senate, where they then get slaughtered in the general election. Ryan, who really was a moderate Republican, actually had a legitimate chance to get elected, until the Chicago Tribune (or its sister paper, the LA Times) went to court and managed to unseal the divorce records from Ryan’s first marriage. While they were not as entertaining as Hull’s records (except for the allegation that Ryan had asked his wife to perform some gymnastic moves at a public sex club), they were enough to force him out of the race. The GOP then proceeded to nominate the totally reprehensible Alan Keyes, who did not even live in the state. The rest is history.
There are two lessons here for potential Senate candidates. First, wait until you are elected before you get a divorce. Secondly, a “seal” is not a “seal.”
As for Obama’s Senate race: Right place, right time. He was not really tested, though I do believe that he would have beaten Jack Ryan. |
