VI. Grabbing a Senate Seat with a Little Help from his Trilateral Friends 217There were plenty of college-educated, white, “latte liberals” with whom Mr. Obama polls well.
But he was barely known outside his state Senate district, in the eastern part of Mr. Rush’s
district. To win, he would have to expand his support among blacks, including the older,
church-going, Rush loyalists who vote disproportionately in primaries. “Taking on Bobby Rush
among black voters is like running into a buzz saw,” said Ron Lester, a pollster who worked for
Mr. Obama. “This guy was incredibly popular. Not only that, his support ran deep — to the
extent that a lot of people who liked Barack still wouldn’t support him because they were
committed to Bobby. He had built up this reserve of goodwill over 25 years in that community.”
(Janny Scott, “In 2000, a Streetwise Veteran Schooled a Bold Young Obama,” New York Times,
September 9, 2007)
Congressman Rush had a strong base in the community, but he had exhausted some of his
resources by attempting to oust Mayor Daley from City Hall:
Mr. Rush had grown up in Chicago, enlisted in the Army, joined the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee and helped found the Illinois Black Panther Party in 1968. He
coordinated a medical clinic that pioneered mass screening for sickle cell anemia, which
disproportionately affects blacks. As an alderman in 1992, he had ousted a black political
legend — Representative Charles A. Hayes, a veteran of the civil-rights and labor movements
who was caught up in a scandal that year involving the House bank. In February 1999, Mr.
Rush lost the mayoral primary to Mr. Daley, getting just 28 percent of the vote. Toni
Preckwinkle, a city alderman, encouraged Mr. Obama to challenge Mr. Rush. ... Mr. Shomon
said he and Mr. Obama did an amateur poll to gauge his chances. They designed questions,
recruited volunteers to telephone 300 people, and concluded that Mr. Rush was vulnerable. Mr.
Shomon, who became Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, said, “Obama will tell you that this poll
was not the best poll in the world.” Asked why, he said, “Because the results didn’t turn out to
be correct.” State Senator Terry Link, a friend of Mr. Obama, said he advised him not to run.
“He tried to justify it: He didn’t feel Bobby was representing the area, he thought he could do a
better job,” Mr. Link recalled. “I think he misread it. He didn’t analyze the strength of the
congressman in that area, the will of the people.” Mr. Obama, in a brief telephone interview,
said, “In retrospect, there was very little chance of me winning that race. That was a good
lesson — that you should never be too impressed with your own ideas if your name recognition
in a Congressional district is only eight or whatever it was.” (Janny Scott, “In 2000, a
Streetwise Veteran Schooled a Bold Young Obama,” New York Times, September 9, 2007),
It was not to be the last time that inaccurate polling shows up in an Obama campaign. Today,
polls favoring Obama are deliberately and repeatedly fabricated.
DAVID AXELROD, HOPEMONGER
Obama’s 2000 attempt to oust Rush is also the point in his career where he becomes
permanently wedded to the sinister political consultant, David Axelrod. Axelrod, as we have seen,
worked on political campaigns, and also dedicated much of his time to refuting charges of
corruption against Mayor Daley and other members of the Combine. In Obama’s tirades against
Rush as a practitioner of the old politics, we can already hear the rhetorical notes which have
resonated ad nauseam during Obama’s 2008 campaign, and which are building towards a crescendo
in Obama’s match up with the geriatric Senator McCain.
Obama...entered the race in late September, six months before the primary. He told voters that
Mr. Rush represented “a politics that is rooted in the past, a reactive politics that isn’t good at