Obama: How He Learned to Win

[DeepModem Mom]

TIME: Thursday, May. 08, 2008
Obama: How He Learned to Win
By Michael Weisskopf/Chicago

Barack Obama had not been in politics for long when he got his tail whipped by a veteran Chicago Congressman in his own backyard. For a brief period that followed, Obama seemed a bit unsure about what to do with his life--the same kind of unsettling early stumble made by others who went on to seek--and often win--the presidency. Yet within four years, Obama had won a seat in the U.S. Senate. Less than four years after that, he has all but clinched the Democratic nomination for President.

How did the man who is virtually certain to face John McCain in the fall come so far so fast? Much of the answer can be traced to the lessons of his first thumping. It was after that brief race in 2000, say dozens of aides and associates who spoke with TIME, that Obama learned how to be a politician. He jettisoned his Harvard-tested speaking style for something more down-home. He learned how to cultivate those in power without being defined by them. And he learned how to be different things to different people: a reformer groomed by an old-fashioned machine boss, an African American heavily financed by white liberals, a Harvard lawyer whose bootstrapping life story gained traction with white ethnics. Abner Mikva, a former federal judge and Congressman from Chicago, credits Obama with figuring out "how to appeal to different constituencies without being inconsistent."

At various points during Obama's bid for the Democratic nomination, all those skills have been on display. This is the story of how he mastered them.

Gambling--and losing

In the great midcentury heyday of Chicago's Democratic machine, politics was open only to those with a sponsor--"We don't want nobody nobody sent," a ward boss famously said. By the time Obama got into the game in the 1990s, it was no longer an exclusive club. The centrally controlled party organization had splintered into a loose group of ward committees that operated like autonomous fiefs. Still, old practices died hard; the same virtues of loyalty and familiarity were rewarded by new bosses who expected political newcomers to pay their dues--and wait their turn.

One exception was Hyde Park, a small, integrated, partially gentrified neighborhood of professionals and University of Chicago professors, with a long tradition of independent politics. Obama moved there as a newly minted lawyer specializing in civil rights cases and lecturing at the university's law school. In 1996 he won his first political election to represent Hyde Park in the state senate, using legal challenges to keep rivals off the ballot. But after three years in the state capital of Springfield, he got restless and turned an eye to the seat for the First Congressional District of Illinois....

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1738494,00.html

[pscot]

1. Great background piece

I'm committed to the guy, but I know precious little about him.I found this helpful.