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like the daughters of a future president than making sure they looked like they at
least had a mother. Finally, on what was probably my third outing, I found some
—two knit hats, white for Malia and pink for Sasha, both in a women’s size
small, which ended up fitting snugly on Malia’s head but drooping loosely around
Sasha’s little five-year-old face. They weren’t high fashion, but they looked cute
enough, and more important they’d keep the girls warm regardless of what the
Illinois winter had in store. It was a small triumph, but a triumph nonetheless, and
it was mine.

nnouncement day—February 10, 2007—turned out to be a bright, cloudless
morning, the kind of sparkling midwinter Saturday that looks a lot better than it
actually feels. The air temperature sat at about twelve degrees, with a light breeze
blowing. Our family had arrived in Springfield the previous day, staying in a
three-room suite at a downtown hotel, on a floor that had been rented out
entirely by the campaign to house a couple dozen of our family and friends
who’d traveled down from Chicago as well.

Already, we were beginning to experience the pressures of a national
campaign. Barack’s announcement had inadvertently been scheduled for the same
day as the State of the Black Union, a forum organized each year by the public-
broadcasting personality Tavis Smiley, who was evidently angry about it. He’d
made his displeasure clear to the campaign staff, suggesting that the move showed
a disregard for the African American community and would end up hurting
Barack’s candidacy. I was surprised that the first shots fired at us came from
within the black community. Then, just a day ahead of the announcement,
Rolling Stone published a piece on Barack that included the reporter making a visit
to Trinity Church in Chicago. We were still members there, though our
attendance had dropped off significantly after the girls were born. The piece
quoted from an angry and inflammatory sermon the Reverend Jeremiah Wright
had delivered many years earlier regarding the treatment of blacks in our country,
intimating that Americans cared more about maintaining white supremacy than
they did about God.

While the profile itself was largely positive, the cover line of the magazine
read, “The Radical Roots of Barack Obama,” which we knew would quickly get
weaponized by the conservative media. It was a disaster in the making, especially
on the eve of the campaign launch and especially because Reverend Wright was