Obama's national appeal rallies an army of backers
By Jeff Zeleny
Chicago Tribune national correspondent
November 20, 2005
chicagotribune.com
OMAHA -- Warren Buffett sits on the edge of a soft brown sofa, closely watching as Barack Obama navigates the well-appointed living room. He moves his square glasses closer to his face, unfolds his arms and springs to his feet when the time comes to welcome his guest to Nebraska.
"There he is," Buffett says with a wide grin, pulling Obama toward him with a hearty handshake. "You're the hottest ticket in town today."
The sage of money and finance, America's second-richest man, seldom becomes invested in politicians. But he has made an exception for the junior senator from Illinois, which is precisely why Obama has arrived here on a frosty fall morning, without an overcoat or an entourage.
No television cameras record the moment. No oversize crowds gather. Rather, a mere 16 people--most of whom Obama was meeting for the first time--finish a breakfast of eggs and fresh fruit in the home of Warren Buffett's daughter, Susie Buffett.
"I've got a conviction about him that I don't get very often," Warren Buffett explained later in an interview. "He has as much potential as anyone I've seen to have an important impact over his lifetime on the course that America takes.
"If he can do an ounce better with me," Buffett added, "fine."
Had the billionaire investor delivered such a glowing appraisal of a stock, his words surely would have sent shares soaring on Wall Street. But unlike the world of finance, where he never succumbs to speculation, Buffett is placing faith in Obama well before the senator establishes a record of performance.
Following his lead, the men and women sitting near a grand piano have come to hear Obama's prescription for the Democratic Party. And while he had come to accept their contributions, he also had hopes of cultivating some long-term investors in his political future.
By year's end, Obama will have collected about $1.2 million as he builds a coast-to-coast army of backers. At a seafood lunch in Beverly Hills, Calif., a dinner in Austin, Texas, or through events in more than a dozen other cities, Obama is creating a network unlike any other freshman senator since Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Celebrity cachet
While many politicians spend several hours a week on the phone, dialing through lists of party contributors in hopes of winning them over, Obama's celebrity cachet enables him to avoid such mundane aspects of the job.
Whether on a book tour in New York, attending a college reunion in Boston or taking a family vacation to Phoenix, his fundraising apparatus is in tow. His staff makes the telephone calls and sets up events where the promise of an Obama visit attracts donors with checks of up to $5,000 for his political action committee, the Hopefund.
It's not altogether clear, at least now, what an investment in Obama might yield. There is no long-range prospectus, no true sense of the risk.
Yet the transaction offers an early benefit: Obama gains exposure and passes along a share of the contributions to like-minded Democrats running for office, who then are indebted to him. At the same time, contributors gain ground-floor entry into the path of a senator on the rise.
Buffett, who at 75 still runs Berkshire Hathaway Inc., was captivated by Obama's speech last year at the Democratic convention. After the election, Buffett wanted to meet Obama, so he and his daughter, Susie, invited him to Omaha for lunch.
Occasionally, Buffett tears out a newspaper article and sends it to Obama, accompanied by a note or comment. But he doesn't flood the senator with thoughts, saying: "I am not one of these guys that thinks that every thought in the morning I have I must convey to the U.S. Senate."
Still, their friendship has provided Obama entree into at least a slice of Buffett's vast and influential circle, including a dinner this year with Bill Gates, a close Buffett friend.
And among those in the Omaha living room was Donald Graham, chairman of The Washington Post Co. Graham and his wife were visiting Buffett (a major shareholder of The Washington Post Co.), and they seized the opportunity to hear one of Washington's newest politicians speak--1,150 miles west of the capital.
As guests continued to sip their coffee, Buffett and Obama stepped into an adjoining room. For the next hour, as they both recounted later, they discussed the federal deficit, tax policy and other economic matters.
That meeting underscores "the most important aspect" of their relationship, Obama said, because only a rare few can offer such insight.
"Warren Buffett's $2,000 is no different than anyone else's. There are a lot of people who can give me money," Obama said. "The wonderful thing about Warren Buffett--similar to my relationship with Oprah--it's somebody who doesn't need anything from me."
If Buffett sits atop the class of his financial investors, Oprah Winfrey leads the class of emotional investors. When Obama appeared on her talk show earlier this year, she delivered a tacit endorsement, telling millions of her viewers: "He's really more than a politician. He is the real deal."
"He is the man of the moment and a man for our time," she said. As the audience of women erupted in applause, she added: "He is fast becoming America's favorite son."
If the Oprah seal of approval can catapult unfamiliar authors to best-seller lists and make household names of unknown psychologists, who can say what it could do for Obama?
Someone to believe in
While the constellation of celebrity endorsers grows, it is perhaps the interest of average Americans that makes the 44-year-old senator distinct.
"I don't like to even think that he's like a celebrity. There's something else that's going on here," said Donna Bailey, who grew up in Ohio but has lived in New York for 30 years. "We don't have anybody to believe in."
Bailey discovered Obama by reading his autobiography, "Dreams from My Father." It is in its 18th printing, with 554,484 copies in circulation. She came to see him at a book signing in Manhattan, she said, simply to see if he was real.
In addition to his book, rereleased after its original publication in 1995, he has embraced newly powerful forms of media. Through weekly podcasts, Web logs and appearances on programs including "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," his exposure multiplies, and so do his investors.
Some of the attention, though, is far from spontaneous. Before he appeared on Stewart's popular Comedy Central program earlier this month, his staff dashed off an e-mail to supporters, urging them to tune in to the show.
Beyond entertainment, Obama devotes considerable time to generating discussion among Democrats, particularly in grass-roots Internet venues. In the flourishing world of political debate on the Web, Obama is seen as almost a cultlike figure, with people praising him as the hope and future of their party.
The chatter isn't always as kind, though, for other senators. So when some liberal enthusiasts were harshly criticizing other Democrats, Obama posted an essay of his own on the popular political Web log Daily Kos, challenging the activists to tone down their rhetoric and not "exaggerate or demonize."
"It generated a lot of attention," said Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the site. "It was because he actually challenged the community to act differently."
The political acclaim has helped Obama accumulate power that otherwise would have been unthinkable for a senator who is 99th out of 100 in seniority. It has even reached the point that colleagues elected before he was born seek his assistance.
When Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) appeared to be struggling to raise money for re-election to his ninth term, Obama was asked to step in earlier this year. In days, he raised nearly $1 million through Internet donations.
Eclipsing the candidate
Earlier this month, Obama campaigned for Sen. Jon Corzine's bid for New Jersey governor. But as he traveled from rally to rally, voters seemed more pleased to see Obama than their own candidate.
"Wait a second!" Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) told the crowd, his words barely audible over the thundering applause for Obama. "Don't give away all that applause--he's from out of state."
There were no such concerns one morning last week when Ethel Kennedy invited Obama to deliver the keynote address at a ceremony commemorating the 80th birthday of Robert F. Kennedy. She said she had carefully followed the career of the Illinois senator, whom she referred to as "our next president."
"I think he feels it. He feels it just like Bobby did," Kennedy said, comparing her late husband's quest for social justice to Obama's. "He has the passion in his heart. He's not selling you. It's just him."
Kennedy is among the more famous of those articulating their visions for his future. The senator, however, has yet to declare his ambitions.
His itinerary through 11 months in the Senate, though, offers at least a broad outline.
A freshman senator without higher aspirations isn't likely to be stepping out of a black sport-utility vehicle on the Avenue of the Stars in Los Angeles. He walked inside to meet prospective supporters, after finishing a fundraising lunch at Crustacean restaurant, only steps off Rodeo Drive in nearby Beverly Hills.
On the same weekend trip to California in March, Obama shared a private dinner with the founders of DreamWorks Productions. Jeffrey Katzenberg, David Geffen and Steven Spielberg all have contributed $5,000--as much as federal law allows--to the Hopefund.
High-profile investors
When Obama is asked about his relationship with his most prominent investors, he downplays their significance and influence.
"One of the benefits of being a U.S. senator is there aren't too many people I can't get to," Obama said. "I really value them for the information and the insights they provide me."
In late October, Obama invited his leading contributors to the inaugural Hopefund Symposium in Chicago. Nearly 100 people, all of whom had donated at least $2,500 to his political action committee, gathered in the Grand Ballroom of the Hyatt Regency to share ideas and spend time with Obama and his wife, Michelle.
Obama, sitting as moderator, presided over a daylong session of discussions about foreign policy, economics and values. Democratic experts served as panelists, taking questions from the senator and his supporters.
"They are all very drawn to him, very loyal to him, very excited about his political future," said panelist Rev. Jim Wallis, the author of "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It." "He manages to be passionate and principled without being ideological."
The symposium was designed to strengthen the community of Obama investors that has been growing steadily since he launched his Senate candidacy.
While most of his contributors did not sign on until after he had seized the Democratic nomination, longtime Chicago friend Peter Bynoe was an exception.
At a fall reunion of African-American graduates of Harvard Law School, Bynoe recounted the story of how Obama had such a knack for soliciting financial contributions that Bynoe started calling him "Money," borrowing Spike Lee's nickname for Michael Jordan.
"When his name pops up on caller ID on my cell phone, I know it's going to cost a lot more than 2 cents a minute, but I'm compelled to take the call," Bynoe told the crowd, which erupted in laughter. "I pride myself on saying no to politicians, but I can't say no to Money."
In addition to individual donors, the Hopefund has received contributions from corporate political action committees that have business pending before Congress. Obama has received $26,500 from an array of PACs, from BellSouth Corp. to General Electric Co. to the Chicago Board of Trade.
Hopefund's goals
The goal of the Hopefund, though, is not merely to raise money.
Rather, it is to begin building a set of contacts from across America who can make a financial, emotional or intellectual investment in his future. And it is to put Obama--and his ideas --before new audiences in different parts of the country.
So on that October morning in Omaha, after Obama had finished his private meeting with Buffett, he set off for the city's downtown convention center. His official reason for coming to Nebraska was to deliver a luncheon speech to benefit a local charity, Girls Inc., as a favor to Susie Buffett.
After inviting him, Susie Buffett said she searched for smaller venues, not sure how big a draw an out-of-state senator would be in a place where Republicans strongly outnumber Democrats. She hoped to draw 700 people, but when word spread that Obama was the speaker, 1,500 tickets sold out within days, and a waiting list began.
"People all across the country are starting to know who he is and paying attention to him," Susie Buffett said. "It's all about him."
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jzeleny@tribune.com
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