"Obama is a mere state senator from the South Side of Chicago..."

[Bluebear]

October, 2004: It seems so long ago, and yet just like yesterday. The story of our President-elect is inspiring beyond all reason!


New York Times October 27, 2004: "Where to Catch a Rising Political Star? Try Illinois"

...Here is the puzzling part: Mr. Obama is a mere state senator from the South Side of Chicago, and many people, even here in Illinois, would not have recognized him a year ago. At the moment, too, he is a candidate in a contested race for the United States Senate, someone unlikely to be brimming with spare time to wander other states, hand out money or dabble in other campaigns....

As he stepped to the stage in Milwaukee, Mr. Obama drew screams of approval and flashes from snapshot cameras. "This young man has set Illinois on fire and set America on fire," Gwendolynne Moore, a state senator from Wisconsin, called out, as she introduced a man the crowd already knew. "He's all of us! He's not black! He's not white!"

As Mr. Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother, left the stage that morning, he was swept off in a sea of people pleading for autographs - on their copies of "Dreams From My Father,'' his best-selling memoir; on the issue of Black Enterprise magazine with him on the cover; on anything at all. One of the many who missed out on a signature called after him, "There's not enough Obama to go around."

Just months ago, Mr. Obama was seen as a relative long shot, even for the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat being vacated by Peter G. Fitzgerald, a Republican. Against a wide field, Mr. Obama won the primary in March, before a summer of peculiar twists unfolded in a plot no political consultant could have dreamed up....

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/politics/campaign/27illinois.html?pagewanted=1&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Organizations/C/Congress

[tabbycat31]

1. what a difference 4 years makes

from state senator to President-elect.

I knew he was a rising star when I saw his 2004 DNC speech, and I knew he would run for president one day. I just didnt think it would be this soon.

[Pirate Smile]

2. Fun article to read now. More from October 2004: "There's not enough Obama to go around."

"As Mr. Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother, left the stage that morning, he was swept off in a sea of people pleading for autographs - on their copies of "Dreams From My Father,'' his best-selling memoir; on the issue of Black Enterprise magazine with him on the cover; on anything at all. One of the many who missed out on a signature called after him, "There's not enough Obama to go around."

-snip-
But Mr. Keyes, whose campaign literature lists him as one of "our greatest orators" along with Abraham Lincoln, dismisses the latest poll results as "fabricated, manipulative nonsense." In an interview in Springfield, he also dismissed Mr. Obama's sudden fame, saying, " It's a manufactured, artificial hype like the Wizard of Oz."

-snip-
"I'm mistrustful of our celebrity culture," he said in an interview, as he waited for an airplane. "I think it's fickle. What's lasting is the work." Among those he said he hoped to seek advice from was Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

-snip-
"He seems to be more about the person than about the race," Nelda Pogue, 72, who is white, said after Mr. Obama spoke to a room of Democrats in Decatur. "He's a young man who's going to go a long way - very polite, very nice."

In Alton, not far from St. Louis, Mr. Obama was giving a speech on a Saturday night before a mostly white crowd at the local Democratic Party dinner. This county did not pick Mr. Obama in the primary, and the Democratic chairman here sheepishly whispered to Mr. Obama that he would never lose it again."

[Mnemosyne]

3. A total inspiration. Hope, at least a glimmer of it until January, has been such

a rarity for so terribly long.

I will breathe much easier on January 21.

Thanks for this article, Bluebear. I admire Mr. Obama more all the time.

[Lefty-Taylor]

4. Yabbut, the South Side of Chicago is the baddest part of town ...

and if ya go down there you better just be aware of a man named Leroy Brown.

(Okay, I'm old, aren't I?)

[Profprileasn]

5. That's okay...

I remember Jim Croce too. Dating me too.