Obamaas caravan arrived at the compound, but Samson and Delilah and most of the American reporting gaggle had not. When Obama exited the vehicle to greet his grandmother, media and relatives swarmed around the two. (His grandmother is not actually a blood relative. She is the woman who raised his father. The circ.u.mstances surrounding his blood grandmotheras disappearance from the family are murky.) Obama embraced aGranny,a as she is known, while reporters and photographers and security and other official staff pushed and shoved each other, either to protect Obama or to doc.u.ment the moment, depending on the job they held. Kenyan photographers were particularly aggressive. They threw elbows to open a clear shot at Obama and his grandmother.
Amid the frenzy, Obama and his grandmother strode slowly up a slight grade toward the main house, which had a new tin roof and fresh coats of blue and white paint, thanks to Obamaas recent financial help from afar. About halfway up the small hill, Obama stopped in midstride and recognized that he was missing his own companions. aWhere are my wife and children?a he asked plaintively. They had fallen behind the ma.s.s of marchers surrounding him. Sasha then appeared before him and he scooped her into his arms. With chaos all around, she looked frightened and grabbed her father tightly around the shoulders and neck. aI have you, Sasha,a her father said soothingly. Obama started walking again and I noticed that Pete Souza, the Chicago Tribune photographer, had finally made it to the compound. Souza had missed Obamaas arrival because the media buses were fighting the crowds, just as Gibbs predicted, and he was exasperated. aThis is out of control! Just absolutely out of control!a he observed. aI mean, I barely got one shot.a As for myself, I was busily taking notes and endeavoring, once again, not to get trampled by the pack.
Reaching the main house, Obama and his grandmother disappeared inside for their first visit in nearly fourteen years. The family reunion was initially scheduled to last nearly two and a half hours, after which Obama was to get some time alone at his fatheras and grandfatheras gravesite, located on the compound. But because of the unforeseen events and chaotic atmosphere, after about forty minutes Obama emerged from the house and stood, arm in arm, between his eighty-three-year-old grandmother, Sarah Hussein Obama, and Auma. They all fielded questions from the press. He said the family had eaten porridge and chicken. Asked if his grandmother had given him any words of wisdom, Obama answered without hesitation: aDonat trust reporters.a When the questions were over, an American television correspondent based in Africa asked Obama to autograph his copy of Dreams. This drew disapproving stares from print journalists, who considered such a request to reveal a severe lack of objectivity.
Obama was then supposed to visit his fatheras grave, the site of his emotional climax in his Dreams memoir. But such a private moment was unattainable in this atmosphere. Instead, aides pulled him away from the press and guided him into the SUV for the trip back to the Kisumu airport and then Nairobi. A U.S. military liaison, who was part of Obamaas traveling entourage, surveyed the madness and shook his head. aItas a f.u.c.king circus,a he said. aI feel bad for Obama.a CHAOS WOULD FOLLOW OBAMA INTO THE NEXT DAY, WHEN THE CODEL would take us to one of the bleakest places on the planet.
Kibera (p.r.o.nounced Kee-bear-a) is recognized as the largest single slum in all of Africa, and thus in all the world. Between seven hundred thousand and a million impoverished souls are packed into a tract of urban land that is just two-and-a-half square kilometers. Situated in the southwest quadrant of Nairobi, Kibera was first settled extensively in the 1920s when British colonizers allowed a group of soldiers from what is now Sudan to establish homes on a wooded hillside on the outer reaches of Nairobi. The ethnic group, called Nubians, had fought for the Allies in World War I as part of the Kingas African Rifles. Even though the British allowed the Nubians to live on the land, the English never gave the group official t.i.tle to the territory. The Nubians established a community that they called Kibra, meaning ajunglea or abushes.a Nevertheless, with no legal claim to the territory, they were essentially squatters.
This lack of recognition of Kibera followed through the entire twentieth century. Even after independence from Britain in the 1960s, the Kenyan government never officially recognized the community. No t.i.tle deeds were issued. No sewage or water lines were constructed. No real power was bestowed upon the poor, who despite their privation swelled the population of Kibera. Most residents moved there from rural villages to seek better schooling in Nairobi or find jobs in the large city. Even as the population surged, however, the community remained in the shadows of Nairobi. Much like poor neighborhoods in the United States, Kibera was rarely visited by Kenyan politicians save for election time when they are seeking votes from all const.i.tuencies. Interestingly enough, Illinoisas senior U.S. senator, d.i.c.k Durbin, had toured Kibera several months before. Durbinas visit, however, attracted none of the fanfare that Obama would, even though Durbin at the time held much greater power in the Senate as a.s.sistant minority leader. When I mentioned to a Kenyan journalist that Durbin had recently visited Kibera, he said that Durbinas visit had garnered virtually no media attention.
Kibera was every bit as distressed as it had been billed. Many residents lacked basic services, such as clean running water and plumbing. Sewage and garbage were dumped into the open; dwellings were made of canvas and tin with corrugated roofing; and some children appeared less than fully nourished. The inhabitants, however, were positively gleeful at Obamaas visit. And like elsewhere, they turned out in droves. The motorcade could only move at a snailas pace through the densely populated community because people had filled the streets and swarmed around the vehicles. A colorful mural painted on a wall on the village outskirts paid homage to Obama. It featured a man sitting on a barstool at an aObama joint.a Accompanied by Mich.e.l.le, Obama attended two organized events in the slum: one that discussed a program involving microfinancing of small businesses in Kibera and a second that outlined a program to educate young people about HIV/AIDS prevention. But it was outside the events where Obama made the biggest media impact. Crowds had flooded around the small tin-roofed building housing the first event, and authorities had to push open a walking path for Obama and his wife to reach their motorcade afterward. As he stepped outside onto a dirt path leading to his SUV, Obama grabbed a bullhorn and raised it to his mouth, but the overzealous crowd drowned him out. He looked down, smiled and began again. ah.e.l.lo!a he screamed in Luo. aEverybody in Kibera needs the same opportunities to go to school, to start businesses, to have enough to eat, to have decent clothes,a he told the residents, who madly cheered his words. aI love all of you, my brothers, all of you, my sisters. I want to make sure everybody in America knows Kiberaa. Everyone here is my brother! Everyone here is my sister! I love Kibera!a Obamaas next morning opened with a tree-planting ceremony for the sake of the environment. Shovels in hand, Obama, his wife and his daughters dropped an African olive tree and surrounding dirt into the middle of Freedom Park, a wide-open downtown Nairobi green s.p.a.ce. Throughout the short event, a handful of photographers edged in front of their peers, jockeying for position, drawing the ire of Obamaas two-man security crew from the U.S. government because the photographers initially resisted moving back. As the disagreement subsided, one security man complained to the other, af.u.c.kina a.s.shole journalists, man.a His partner nodded in agreement. The park had been cordoned off to outsiders, and another crowd of about five hundred Kenyans had ama.s.sed outside the fencing to see Obama. He grabbed another bullhorn and gave them a quick h.e.l.lo before ducking back into his dark SUV and being whisked back to the Serena Hotel for lunch. A fatigued-looking Gibbs shrugged. He turned to a few reporters and said, aLetas walk back to the hotel. You know, you never see the real streets of a country when you go on these kinds of things. Iad like to feel the real streets of Kenya for ten seconds.a The moral here: Even ruthless political operatives have a softer side and want to experience the real world on occasion.
That afternoon, after all the spectacle of the tripa"the staged events, the press-the-flesh moments, the trite banter with reportersa"Obama stepped into perhaps his most comfortable environment, a situation that almost always inspires him. He gave a speech at a college. Obamaas address before a crowd of about a thousand students and academics at the University of Nairobi was carried live on the countryas largest television network and rebroadcast twice. The setting was a large, rather prosaically designed campus auditorium that Souza, the Tribuneas photographer, immediately saw as having limited artistic potential. Instead, Souza left the room and captured images of students who had stopped whatever they were doing to listen in rapt attention to Obama. Loudspeakers carried Obamaas words into courtyards and cafeterias and study rooms, where students appeared transfixed by the American senator. As for Obama, his timing was perfect, his voice was as rich as ever and thus his performance was at peak level. It was hard not to witness this kind of speech by Obama and not envision a presidential run. His presence, confidence and moral clarity filled the room.
His address was a call for Kenyansa"in particular, young Kenyansa"to work toward ending the countryas culture of corruption and ethnic politics. He a.s.serted that positive change is almost always brought about by idealistic youths rather than older adults who have internally reconciled societyas injustices. In calling for an end to corruption, Obama spoke in generalities about who was responsible for this ill, and he sidestepped a.s.signing specific blame to a political party or leader. aHere in Kenya, it is a crisis, a crisis that is robbing an honest people of the opportunities they have fought for, the opportunity they deserve,a he said. aCorruption has a way of magnifying the very worst twists of fate. It makes it impossible to respond effectively to crisis, whether itas the HIV/AIDS pandemic or malaria or crippling drought.a The senator received warm and occasionally enthusiastic applause during the speech. But this audience of Nairobias most well-educated youth was clearly more discerning about Obama than the roaring crowds in the streets. Some students with whom I spoke after the address said they could sense a definite charisma about Obama, but they were disappointed by his lack of specific remedies for Kenyaas endemic problems. They wanted him to take a harder line on the current political leadership. aThere are people here with so much hatred toward the government that they wanted a direct attack,a said Dennis Onyango, a senior writer for the East African Standard. aThey wanted him to name names.a But Obama was diplomatic about the source of the countryas corruption problems, which was on message in his mission for the trip. He strove to voice a strong anticorruption stance, and yet he did not want to point fingers and be dragged into local tribal politics. This is ground he has trod before in the United Statesa"providing an overarching voice of moral authority without stepping into the fray and choosing sides. aHe sounded very much like a politician,a one student told me. aHe was eloquent, but it was a politicianas talk.a This, effectively, was the end of my African excursion with Obama. For the next two days, Obama and his family went on safari in the Masai Mara region of Kenya, again with the American media entourage in tow. Obamaas staff had initially tried to keep the safari a private family outing, either to protect the image of Obama as continually working on the trip, or to give him some downtime with family. But as Obama was discovering more each day, the press was not going to let go of him anytime soon, so he relented and, despite occasional discomfort with the prying media, he even showed a bit of mercy for the weary American journalists. aBarack figured the reporters had traveled all this way and they were ent.i.tled to some relaxation and fun, too,a Auma said.
After the safari, Obama was off to Chad to speak with refugees of the horrific civil war in bordering Sudan. He had tried to visit Sudan itself, but he has always been outspoken about the atrocities occurring there, and the Sudanese government would not grant him a visa. At that point, more than two hundred thousand people had been killed in the Darfur region and two million more had been dislocated in the fighting between rebels and the government.
Beyond the sheer human misery before him, Obama would find the visit to the refugee camp wholly disheartening. One traveling journalist said Obama was afuriousa with his aides because he had been allotted only ninety minutes to speak to the refugees. The refugeesa stories were translated from Arabic to French to English, consuming a great deal of time and making it difficult for reporters to hear. Obama, who had studied the Darfur situation intensely, learned only so much from the interviews. While the event most likely produced good television and newspaper copy, it did little to advance Obamaas knowledge about the conflicta"and this was what apparently infuriated him. In his days as a community organizer, he was accustomed to listening to poor South Side residents pour out their troubles for hours on end. But here, he didnat even receive the Cliffs Notes version. In a post-Africa interview, Obama told me that he found the entire African journey both awonderfula and, in characteristically diplomatic terms, aa little bit frustratinga: It was a little bit frustrating that, you know, now that rather than taking trips, I have to take CODELs, which means a lot of official business, a lot of pomp and circ.u.mstance, a lot of press. Which, you know, means that I canat sort of wander off and explore these countries in the way that sometimes are the best ways to learn. But, you know, obviously, the Kenya portion of the trip, in particular, evoked a response that I hadnat expected, to that magnitude. But on the other hand, it spoke maybe to, you know, the influence that I can exercise. Thatas gratifying, in the sense that, like, when Mich.e.l.le and I took that AIDS test, you know, the CDC said maybe half a million people might now take an AIDS test as a consequence of you taking it. When I gave the speech on corruption, you know, it was broadcast nationally, I think two or three times. I think I changed the debate inside Kenya for weeks after my visit. And so, you know, it was, I think, gratifying to feel as if I had used my bully pulpit effectively while I was there.
In the end, Obamaas trip to Africa was a learning experience for hima"and for his family. It was yet another example of just how pervasive and intrusive the media will be in the life of a politician who maintains a profile of this stature. It was also yet another lesson in the enormous expectations of devoted followers not only in the United States but in Kenya. It brought to light that America remained the focal point of the world for many nations like Kenya. But even though Obama had risen to great heights in American politics as a senator, his power to aleave the world a better placea was still limited.
Upon her return to Chicago, Mich.e.l.le admitted that she was aoverwhelmeda by the amagnitude of everything.a She and Obama tried to leaven the enormous outpouring on their behalf with humor. aBarack and I joked the whole way that we have an armed escort now, and when we went in before, we just walked around from shop to shop. To have it elevated like this was kind of surreala. There is part of you that is embarra.s.sed by the scene of it. Part of you just wants to say, aCan we tame this down a little bit? Does it have to be all this? This is out of hand.a That is my instinct and I know that is his instinct tooa"do we really need all this?a For Auma, now a social services worker outside London, the madness of the trip and the intense idol worship from the Kenyans raised great concern. She still fears that her brother might be headed down a path littered with all the same land mines that contributed to her fatheras premature death. To her, the restless life journeys of father and son have eerie parallels. After receiving an elite American education, her father returned to Kenya with incredible expectations thrust on him by his family and the Luo tribe. Ultimately, Barack Sr. could not satisfy all these intense desires and was overwhelmed by them. Obama certainly has studied his fatheras life in depth and he appears to have learned from that story, Auma told me. But she is still concerned. aMy father tried to live up to all of those expectations and I think Barack needs to learn from my fatheras mistakes,a Auma said. aI think he is learning, but he just needs to set realistic goals for himself and set out to achieve them. Barack is like my father in that he is driven to perfection with regards to his work and he just needs to give himself a little slack. I am proud of Barack and I love him. But I worry about him.a
CHAPTER.
26.
Lebron Revisited.
People have always had a tendency to give Obama a pa.s.s. Itas like no other politician Iave seen. They feel like he is on this important mission. And maybe he is.
a"FORMER AIDE DAN Sh.o.m.oN.
Within weeks of his return from Africa, Barack Obama began thinking seriously about running for president in 2008. The reception he had received and the publicity he had generated back home was exhilarating, if not intoxicating. aHow bad can you feel when everybody is telling you that you should be president?a observed Nate Tamarin, a former aide. A White House bid this early was not the timetable that Obama would have chosena"he still had two young daughters at home whom he adored and misseda"but there was such a strong political wind at his back that he and his ambitious advisers simply had to give a presidential run serious consideration. aWe definitely looked at it as something that was now plausible,a Robert Gibbs said. aIt would not be a whimsical thing.a Obama had been in the public eye through most of 2006, receiving almost universally glowing treatment in the national media. Earlier, in March, he had appeared at the annual Gridiron dinner, where Washington journalists and politicians gather to make light of each other. In typical fashion, he impressed reporters with wit, intelligence and poise. Even President Bush took note of the Washington love affair with Obama. aSenator Obama, I want to do a joke on you,a the president told the Gridiron audience. aBut doing a joke on you is like doing a joke on the pope. Give me something to work with. Misp.r.o.nounce something.a After seeing him at the Gridiron, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, one of the countryas touchstone liberal columnists, suggested that Obama should think about the White House. She opined that the Democrats should not cast him aside because of lack of national experience. aThe Democrats should not dismiss a politically less experienced but personally more charismatic prospect as aan empty vessel,aa she wrote. aMaybe an empty vessel can fill the room.a The idolatry and flattery from the mainstream media in 2006 was constant, unlike anything that politicians generally experience for a day, much less months or years on end. Menas Vogue put Obama on the cover, and, to the magazine writer, the senator let slip his thoughts of the Oval Office and his overabundance of confidence. aMy att.i.tude is that you donat want to just be the president,a Obama said. aYou want to change the country. You want to be a great president.a Profiles of him appeared everywhere, from New York magazine to the national newsweeklies to a spread of him and Mich.e.l.le in Ebony. The media could not get enough of him, and neither could his growing legions of followers. A Washington political consultant called Obama the aBlack Jesus.a Even his drug use as a teenager became a laugh line and won him praise for candor. Asked about smoking pot by the Tonight Showas Jay Leno, Obama said casually, aI inhaled; that was the point.a His supporters seemed to forgive him for this and much morea"for his unbridled ambition, for raising millions in campaign dollars from established interests, for tacking to the center, for speaking mostly in the same broad, general themes. aPeople have always had a tendency to give Obama a pa.s.s,a former aide Dan Sh.o.m.on said. aItas like no other politician Iave seen. They feel like he is on this important mission. And maybe he is.a Up to now, The Plan had been working to near perfection.
So after Africa, Obama began talking to people earnestly and deliberately about an Oval Office bid. His first round of discussions came with his immediate inner circle of Mich.e.l.le, David Axelrod and Gibbs. Then he branched out to others, such as Jeremiah Wright and Jesse Jackson, Newton Minow and Abner Mikva, Penny Pritzker and Valerie Jarrett, Ca.s.sandra b.u.t.ts and Marty Nesbitt. In all these discussions, Obama heard little to discourage him from pushing forward. aThere are an awful lot of people urging him to go,a Axelrod told me over breakfast. aThere arenat too many people waving yellow caution flags.a In September, when Obama was the main speaker at Senator Tom Harkinas annual steak fry fund-raiser in Iowa, the first presidential caucus state, the future became clear to Minow. By happenstance, the former counselor to Adlai Stevenson and John F. Kennedy had watched Obamaas speech to more than three thousand Iowans on the C-Span public affairs network. He soon called Obama. aI saw John Kennedy and now I have seen youa"and I havenat seen anything quite like it in between,a Minow told Obama. aYou ought to go for it now.a This was perhaps all the more interesting because, in truth, Obama had not performed well in Iowa. When he arrived at the Indianola fairgrounds, it was typical Obama-mania, as adoring fans engulfed him everywhere. Gibbs made sure to alert reporters that a aDraft Obama for President in 2008a pet.i.tion was circulating in the crowd. But when Obama spoke, he left some of these veteran Democratic activists a bit bored. After years of red-meat speeches from hard-charging Democrats such as John Edwards and Howard Dean and home-state hero Harkin, Obamaas lecturing manner and professorial prose more evoked the cerebral Adlai Stevenson. Obama also made the same mistake as he had on his election nighta"failing to prepare a speech ahead of time and instead letting it all come to him on the stage. When his crescendo lines failed to draw the appropriate responses, he reached back for another crescendo line. This made his speech wander from anecdote to anecdote without tying all the themes into a coherent whole. It also made the speech, at nearly forty minutes, far too long. aWhen it comes to leaders of the Democratic Party, I think he is up there,a said sixty-two-year-old Irene Wesley of Ames. aBut he just needs to be maturing a little bit, learn to relate to a crowd a little bit more and come up with some positive accomplishments in the Senate. He just needs a little maturity and he will be there.a Others, however, gushed over Obama. The influential Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen opened his column the next day, aOh Oh Oh Obama.a Yepsen later wrote, aThis guy looks like a winner.a And overall, most of the Iowans seemed to adore him. So if Obama could get this kind of positive reaction in Iowa after a sub-par performance, his advisers mused, what would happen if he brought his A-game?
In October came the much-antic.i.p.ated release of Obamaas second book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. A major publicity campaign was undertaken, with Obama launching a national two-week book tour and appearing on seemingly every major network talk show, capped by an appearance with Mich.e.l.le on Oprah. Book sales boomed, and Audacity eventually dislodged John Grishamas latest work from the top of the New York Times bestseller list. This satisfied Obamaas stridently compet.i.tive nature. He had asked his advisers, aWhat can we do to make it number one? I want to be number one.a The bookas content was not nearly as raw as that of Dreams from My Father. After all, Audacity was a work from a man in his mid-for-ties who, by this time in life, had made concessions and reconciliations to an imperfect world, both for his own survival and his own advancement. In fact, much of the book wrestles with how a politician can hold on to his ideals amid a scrutinizing press, a media culture that feeds on conflict and a political system that makes it necessary to raise big money from special interests and wealthy donors. In this way, for a book from a politician with presidential aspirations, Audacity was rather candid, and it again put Obamaas uniquely personal writing voice on vivid display. Obama acknowledged internal struggles, including an insecurity about his role in his own family; he even took the blame for most domestic problems. He fretted about losing his own voice because a politician can fall victim to aa committee of scribes and editors and censorsa who atake residence in your head.a He said that he sometimes worried that his idealism was overcome by personal vanity. And he conceded that, as a consequence of modern political necessity, he now spent far more time in a rarefied world of moneyed and intellectual elites and much less time with ordinary people.
This was very different from the wandering, occasionally angry young man in Dreams. aThere was more of an edge to me back then, I suppose,a Obama said of the angst-ridden prose found in Dreams. aYou grow a little older, you know, and become more forgiving of yourself and others.a In Audacity, Obama provided a somewhat sentimental vision for the future of America, a vision that, of course, called for more civility and unity in our culture. Much like his political rhetoric, however, the book lacked detailed, real-world specifics about how to accomplish that. Overall, it received positive reviews, something that his staff had worried about before its release. They did not want him to come across to the East Coast media elites judging his political future as an unserious, self-serving politician.
But it was the monster sales of the book that provided the linchpin for Obamaas next move. As Obamaas book hit the top spot in sales, books written by the major Democrats considering the presidency, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, languished far down on the bestseller lists. Also, Obamaas book tour was pure madness. Thousands gobbled up tickets for the events in all corners of the country. At a book signing in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, after Obama delivered a centrist-oriented speech, fifty-two-year-old Penny Reynolds wasnat sure if Obama was ready to lead the nation, but she said his message of unity and bipartisanship made her an instant fan. aHeas not really saying anything different than anybody else except that we should all try to work together, enough of this partisan stuff,a she said. aAnd itas sad to say, but thatas really refreshing right now.a Obamaas advisers took this kind of talk as confirmation that, beyond his physical and emotional appeal, Obamaas message of political consensus was striking a lasting chord with people. With a widely unpopular Republican president in the White House who had governed in a rigidly ideological manner, Obama the good-natured consensus-builder seemed to be the antidote for these faithful Democrats. aThe combination of the book, the reaction he got campaigning and the election resultsa"it all sort of validated his message,a Gibbs said. aIt made [running for president] something that we could no longer avoid thinking about.a THE DAY AFTER THE NOVEMBER ELECTION, IN WHICH DEMOCRATS took control of Congress, Obama and his advisers began meeting in Axelrodas office in Chicagoas West Loop to discuss seeking the Democratic nomination for the presidency. Vital to these discussions was Mich.e.l.le. In a Chicago Tribune interview at the end of 2005, Mich.e.l.le had complained that because of her husbandas onerous work schedule, she often felt like a single mother and she worried about an erosion of Obamaas paternal connection to his daughters. Axelrod and Gibbs knew that these kinds of press quotes would be highly damaging to a presidential candidate. They also knew that Obama would need full support from home if he were to run. So Mich.e.l.le was brought into the discussions as a full partner. Her voice carried as much resonance as that of anyone in the room. By December, the Mich.e.l.le hurdle had been cleared. She asked only that, as a prerequisite for her approval, Obama quit smoking, which he agreed to do. aIf Barack really wants this, Mich.e.l.le will support him and do whatas necessary,a said Ca.s.sandra b.u.t.ts, Obamaas friend from Harvard. aThatas always been their relationship.a In an interview in December 2006, Mich.e.l.le sounded very much as if she had weighed the pros and cons of the decision, as well as the consequences of that decision on her family. She had risen out of the fog of the overwhelming African adventure, yet still marveled at the American publicas yearning for more of her husband. aYou keep waiting for people to be like, okay, you are tired of him now, right? Youave had enough.a When I said the public seemed to want even more, she said only, aI know.a By now, an image of Mich.e.l.le was evolving in the media, and it was not entirely positive. Obama had consistently portrayed her as both a solidifying force (amy rock at home,a he would say) and the scolding wife who kept his ego in check. She also gained a spate of publicity and raised some eyebrows for being promoted to a lucrative vice presidential position at the University of Chicago Hospitals, where she was now earning more than a quarter of a million dollars a year. In addition, she sat on the board of a food supplier to Wal-Mart Stores Inc., a position that earned her another fifty thousand dollars a year, although her husband had been a critic of the labor practices of the megaretailer, giving the appearance of hypocrisy. So if she were to be considered as First Lady material, a more three-dimensional, positive image of Mich.e.l.le would be necessary. And she would also need to hit the campaign trail with and without her husband. aI know that my caricature out there is sort of the bad-a.s.s wife who is sort of keeping it real, which is fine,a Mich.e.l.le said, adding that her husbandas career pressures on the family remained an issue. aThere is still the part of me that, if we do something this big, our kids are still really little, and what I am not ready to sacrifice is their livelihood. ButaI am going to be the person who is providing them with the stability. So that means my role with the kids becomes even more important. What I am not willing to do is hand my kids over to my mom and say, aWeall see you in two years.a Thatas not going to happena. There has to be a balance and there will be a balance. You just have to make your mind open to it, in some way, shape and form.a (As the campaign kicked off, Mich.e.l.le would quit the food supplieras board and cut back on her hours at the university.) Mich.e.l.le indicated that she had thought deeply about the prospect of losing her husband, presumably to an a.s.sa.s.sin. I mentioned to her that a newspaper editor in Nairobi had asked me, aDonat you worry that as a black man in America the skinheads will kill him?a She confided that he was now in a fragile spot as a major black politician. aI donat worry about it every day, but itas there. And itas a nonstarter,a she said. aSo if we take this next step, there would have to be a comprehensive security plan in placea. It only takes one person and it only takes one incident. I mean, I know history too. So itas still an issue.a She said that her own career ascension has been tied to this possibility. Mich.e.l.le worried, for example, that if something happened to her husband she would lose her prime means of financial and emotional support. aI do think about the fact that my husband is in a high-risk sort of position right now. And I need to be able to take care of myself and my kids. I have to be in a position that if anything unexpected or unfortunate happens, where are all those people who are being critical of my credentials or my ability to serve on boards, where are they going to be if I have to take care of my kids? There would be great sympathy and outpouring if something were to happen, but I have to maintain some level of professional credibility not only because I enjoy it, but I donat want to be in a position one day where I am vulnerable with my children. I need to be in a position for my kids where, if they lose their father, they donat lose everything.a A COUPLE OF WEEKS BEFORE INTERVIEWING MICh.e.l.lE, WHEN Obama was still being coy about his final presidential decision, I asked Obama how he viewed the 2008 election cycle. In his typical understated way, he said that the trend of the countrya"its severe antipathy toward the Bush administrationa"had given the Democrats a agreat opportunitya to win the White House. aI think the Democratic nomination in a08 is worth something. Yeah, I do. But I think that over the next two years, the Democrats have to show the country that they are listening and that they are interested in crafting a set of commonsense practical solutions.a Obama gave little indication that he was anywhere but on the path toward running for president. If there were any doubt left, his visit to the early-primary state of New Hampshire in December erased it. He was the main speaker at a fund-raiser that drew more than fifteen hundred guests. That visit effectively pushed at least one other potential candidate out of the race, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, who had drawn just a couple of dozen people to an event the preceding weekend. This was similar to what followed the Harkin steak-fry in Iowa, where former Virginia governor Mark Warner witnessed firsthand the Obama phenomenon. As Warner spoke from the stage, a good number of the attendees had their heads turned backward to watch Obama wend his way through the fawning crowd. Soon thereafter, Warner announced that he would not run.
But as the wheels were in motion to launch a campaign, Obamaa"coincidentally or nota"was. .h.i.t with the most damaging news story of his career. With his newfound wealth, in 2005, he and Mich.e.l.le had purchased a mansion in Hyde Park for more than one million six hundred thousand dollars. Mich.e.l.le, in particular, had wanted a good-sized home because, she said, the couple wanted a roomy refuge from the public trappings of fame. But purchasing a piece of property right next door, on the very same day, had been the wife of Antoin aTonya Rezko, an old friend and financial contributor of Obamaas who had been indicted just months before on federal fraud charges. Reporters for the Tribune, where the story broke, also found that Obama and Rezkoas wife engaged in a series of financial transactions to redivide the properties and improve their parcels. The relationship between Rezko and Obama went back twenty years. Obama had met him when Obama was in law school and Rezkoas development partners had tried to hire him. At his north suburban home, Rezko had hosted a fund-raiser for Obama in 2003 that helped fund early parts of his Senate candidacy. Since then, Rezko had been a regular contributor to Obamaas campaigns. The two had also been social friends, with the Rezkos dining out a few times a year with the Obamas.
As soon as the story was aired, Obama expressed contrition and openly conceded bad judgment, calling the transaction aboneheaded.a His radar with Rezko had broken down, he said, and if he had to make the deal again, he would not have. aLook, I came up through politics in Chicago and Cook County and Illinois,a Obama said. aAnd this is the first time that Iave ever, in ten years, having risen from knowing n.o.body to being a U.S. senator, where people suggested anything that Iad done was inappropriate. And so, Iad have to say that, you know, that would indicate that I must have a pretty good radar, because thatas a pretty good track record.a Back at the Tribune, reporters saw the hand of Obamaas shrewd political advisers in the dealas sudden uncovering. The paper had gotten hold of the story through an anonymous tip. As the Blair Hull experience showed, itas always better to get any negative press for your candidate out of the way as early as possible so it does not break at the height of the election season. Obama had been bloodied for a few days in the Chicago media, and surely future political opponents would point to the Rezko deal as untoward, but the story was out there for all to seea"and Obama seemed little the worse for it.
WITH MICh.e.l.lE ON BOARD, WITH AXELROD AND GIBBS a.s.sEMBLING a national political operation, with Democrats across the country in thrall over Obama, the decision was made. In January, Obama announced on his Internet website that he was forming a presidential exploratory committee and would announce his final plans in early February. This methodology gave the candidate two media hits surrounding his announcement, two for the price of one.
Top aides were not without concerns about Obamaas preparedness. The speed of his ascendancy has been unprecedented and it was uncertain how that would affect him in the long run. He neared burnout in his first months in the Senate. And his life had not slowed from warp speed since he first decided to run for the Senate in 2003. Could this breakneck pace be sustained through a bruising presidential contest? aHe is in fantastic shape, but I wonder about his physical stamina,a said one of his consultants, Pete Giangreco. aIt takes just an incredible amount of physical stamina out there.a Indeed, running for president is like no other experience a human can endure. It is so bizarre and so surreal that journalists Mark Halperin and John F. Harris have dubbed modern presidential politics athe Freak Show.a In their book The Way to Win, the two posited a theory that advanced modern technology and the breakdown of old media like newspapers and network television have made presidential contests into a ruthless blood sport in which referees no longer exist. This, in turn, exacerbates partisan fighting and is largely responsible for the polarization of the voting public. aThe supreme challenge for any presidential candidate is keeping control of his or her public image in the face of the Freak Showas destructive power,a the authors wrote.
I asked Axelrod in December whether he thought Obama was ready for this Freak Show. His message, after all, was conciliation. What happens if things devolve into a muddy free-for-all? Axelrodas candor was surprising. aI donat know,a he said. aWhat do you mean?a I responded. aDo you think he can handle it?a aI donat know,a Axelrod said again. aOne thing about running for president is thata"and he knows thisa"itas like putting an X-ray machine on yourself twenty-four hours a day, becauseaat the end of the day, the American people know who you are. But with Barack, heas kind of a normal guy in a lot of ways. He likes to watch football on Sundays. He treasures his time with his kids and Mich.e.l.le. I think he has an inner toughness, and that is reflected in the road he traveled to get where he is, because you know, he didnat exactly start off in an optimal place. And he has, I think, struggled through a lot of challenges to make himself what he is. I think thereas this impression that hereas this Harvard-educated, stem-winding intellectual, but he is a guy who was raised by a single mother who wasnat there to help all the time because she couldnat be. And you know, he fought his way through a lot.a I wasnat sure whether Axelrod was trying to sell me or himself with this speech. And I am not sure it even mattered. There was no turning back. Axelrodas young political talent had cast himself in the Freak Show.
LESS THAN TWO MONTHS LATER, ON A FRIGID FEBRUARY DAY OUTSIDE the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, I stood on a grandstand riser filled with newspaper, wire service and television photographers waiting for Barack Obama to tell the world he was running for president of the United States.
Two more risers were equally jammed with media. And big-name national journalists were scattered throughout the crowd of fifteen thousand true believers a.s.sembled down below. As I put pencil to paper, my thoughts rambled back over the past three years that I had spent following this likable, idealistic yet utterly mercurial politician, and I couldnat help but recall the small moment when Obama showed me off to a stranger who honked at him as we walked down Martin Luther King Drive in Chicago. Just three short years ago, Obama seemed proud to have a single reporter interested in him. Now, on this day in Springfield, he had thousands of journalists worldwide ready to listen, and examine, his every word. And he had thousands more enthused spectators overjoyed at viewing this small slice of American history.
Perhaps the only moment that came close was that keynote address in Boston, when I had been sitting in a vast arena wondering how Obama would perform. On this day, I had to admit, I had no wonder. Having watched him deliver impa.s.sioned speeches to blacks on Chicagoas South Side, to Latinos on its Near West Side, to rural whites in downstate Illinois, to people in cities across the United States and to poor villagers in remote Africa, I knew exactly what to expect. A call for mutual citizenship, a call for a new generation to lead, a call for an end to the Iraq War. Obama had stayed up into the wee hours the night before, crafting and rehearsing these words. It was twelve degrees outside, but this was the Hawaii nativeas true elementa"preaching to the ma.s.ses the gospel of Barack Obama; the gospel of a common humanity, the gospel that, if everyone would just join together behind him, he could be the one to make the world a better place.
As his friend Marty Nesbitt told me that day in Boston, Obama is like that basketball player on his high school team back in Ohio, always able to elevate his game when the situation demanded it. With Mich.e.l.le on his arm, a supremely confident-looking Obama strode onto a long black catwalk that led to a wooden podium, situated front and center. The handsome couple, each in black winter overcoats, held hands as they walked forward, waving to the cheering crowd and stoking the electrified atmosphere. Nearing the podium, Obama let go of Mich.e.l.le, who stepped down to allow her husband to take the stage by himself. The crowd heaved into a chant, aO-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!a The senator walked up to the podium, his most natural setting, and I couldnat help but say to myself, aHere comes LeBron, indeed.a
NOTES.
CHAPTER 1: THE ASCENT.
reference to article on red and blue America: Thomas Edsall, Washington Post, April 2003.
aHe definitely has thisa,a: Robert Gibbs discussion with author, December 2006.
aHeas always wanteda,a: Valerie Jarrett interview with author, May 2005.
aHours before he gavea,a: Clarence Page interview, The Chris Matthews Sho NBC News, October 2006.
aItas like nothinga,a: Julian Green interview with author, January 2007.
aWe originally scheduleda,a: John Lynch at Manchester, New Hampshire, fund-raiser, December 2006.
aI canat, for example, walka,a: Barack Obama interview with author, December 2006.
aFor usahe hasnata,a: Auma Obama interview with author, August 2006.
aItas like you are carryinga,a: David Axelrod interview with author, December 2006.
aDavid always worriesa,a: Axelrod confidante in discussion with author, January 2007.
aLet us transforma,a: Obama at a presidential announcement in Springfield, Illinois, January 2007.
aPeople donat comea,a: Bruce Reed quoted in aDestinyas Childa article by Ben Wallace-Wells, Rolling Stone, February 2007.
CHAPTER 2: DREAMS FROM HIS MOTHER.
aAfter all, you donata,a: Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (New York: Random House, 1995).
aI wrote four hundreda,a: Obama discussion with author, January 2004.
aWhen my tearsa,a: Obama, Dreams from My Father.
aThereas still a great deala,a: Mich.e.l.le Obama discussion with author, February 2004.
aNew-fangled gadgetsa,a: Madelyn Dunham interview with author, October 2004.
aInternational lawa,a: Dunham interview with author, October 2004.
aHis mother wasa,a: Ibid. 24 aItas always hard to talka,a: Obama interview with author, August 2005.
aEverything that is gooda,a: Obama during Momas Rising event in Washington, D.C., September 2006.
aI think sometimesa,a: Obama, Dreams from My Father.
aIt was this desirea,a: Ibid.
aShe was extremely brillianta,a: Dunham interview with author, October 2004.
aI remember one timea,a: Maya Soetoro-Ng interview with author, October 2004. 26 aHer feet nevera,a: Dunham interview with author, October 2004.
avaguely liberal,a: Obama, Dreams from My Father.
aIt wasnat at alla,a: Soetoro-Ng interview with author, October 2004.
aWith her friendsa,a: Obama interview with author, August 2005.
aShe was not exactlya,a: Dunham interview with author, October 2004.
aI a.s.sumea,a: Soetoro-Ng discussion with author, October 2004.
aI am a little dubiousa,a: Dunham interview with author, October 2004.
athe first large wavea,a: Obama, Dreams from My Father.
aWhat my father becamea,a: Auma Obama interview with author, August 2006.
Obama speech reference: University of Nairobi in Nairobi, Kenya, August 2006.
aA lot of grandiosea,a: Dunham interview with author, October 2004.
CHAPTER 3: JUST CALL ME BARRY.
aHawaii was heavena,a: Obama interview with author, August 2005.
aI learned how to eata,a: Obama, Dreams from My Father.
aI think [Indonesia]a,a: Obama interview on Fresh Air, National Public Radio, August 2004.
aMen take advantagea,a: Obama, Dreams from My Father.
aThe world was violenta,a: Ibid.
aTo be blacka,a: Ibid.
aWe never suffereda,a: Dunham interview with author, October 2004.
aHawaii is sucha,a: Soetoro-Ng discussion with author, October 2004.
aMy fatheras absencea,a: Obama interview with author, December 2003.
aEvery man is tryinga,a: Obama interview with author, December 2003.
aHe wasnat thisa,a: Keith Kakugawa, Nightline, ABC News, April 2007.
aHe was justa,a: Bobby t.i.tcomb interview with author, August 2004.
aYou know, in Hawaiia,a: Ibid.
aI suppose I provideda,a: Dunham interview with author, August 2004.
aI was tryinga,a: Obama, Dreams from My Father.
aSome of the problemsa,a: Obama interview with author, October 2004.