220 Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized BiographyMr. Obama proved unusually good at raising money. He raised more than $500,000 — less than
Mr. Rush but impressive for a newcomer — tapping connections at the University of Chicago,
Harvard Law School, law firms where he had worked, and a network of successful, black,
Chicago-based entrepreneurs who have played an important role in subsequent campaigns. He
was also catching on among whites in the district thanks to Thomas J. Dart, then a popular state
representative who is now Cook County sheriff. But President Clinton’s endorsement of Mr.
Rush, an early supporter of Mr. Clinton, dealt a final blow. According to Mr. Adelstein, Mr.
Clinton — after a personal request from Mr. Rush — overrode his own policy of not endorsing
candidates in primaries. Mr. Rush won the primary with 61.02 percent of the vote; Mr. Obama
had just over 30 percent. Mr. Obama was favored by whites but lost among blacks, Mr. Lester
said. Looking back, some say the magnitude of the loss reflected Mr. Obama’s failure to
connect with black, working-class voters. Mr. Mikva said, “It indicated that he had not made his
mark in the African-American community and didn’t particularly have a style that resonated
there.” (Janny Scott, “In 2000, a Streetwise Veteran Schooled a Bold Young Obama,” New York
Times, September 9, 2007)
Clinton’s endorsement for Congressman Rush may account for some of the bitter hatred towards
the former president shown by Obama during the 2008 primary season. Obama, ever the
megalomaniac, had apparently gotten it into his head that his work on Project Vote in 1992 had
been decisive in delivering Illinois for Clinton in the 1992 presidential election. In 2000, Obama
evidently thought that Clinton owed him, and that the endorsement of Congressman Rush was
therefore a betrayal. Look for a President Obama to continue making emotional blunders of this
sort because of his hyper-inflated sense of his own importance.
A DEBUT FOR OBAMA’S DEMAGOGY OF “HOPE”
It was apparently in this race that Obama made the empty abstraction of “hope” into the
workhorse of his rhetorical arsenal. From a demagogic point of view, the multiple advantages of
using such a vacuous construct should be immediately evident. By using hope as his main slogan,
Obama was able to avoid specific commitments to concrete improvements in the living standards,
working conditions, and public infrastructure of the people he was appealing to. Hope is green, and
so is the chameleon most of the time. By talking about hope, Obama was able to skirt the issues of
how any new programs would be paid for, a touchy topic that would always grate on the ears of
greedy bankers who wanted to make sure that the bonded debt of the city of Chicago always came
first, since these were the payments which were flowing into their own pockets. We should also
note that the appeal to hope also presupposes very high levels of despair in the target community,
which apparently was indeed the case. One Obama backer from 2000 recalled:
“There was a gradual progression of Barack Obama from thoughtful, earnest policy wonk/civil
rights lawyer/constitutional law expert to Barack Obama the politician, the inspirer, the
speaker.” Denny Jacobs, a friend of Mr. Obama and a former state senator, agreed. “He
stumbled on the fact that instead of running on all the issues, quote unquote, that hope is the real
key,” he said. “Not only the black community but less privileged people are looking for that
hope. You don’t have to talk about health care, you have to talk about ‘the promise’ of health
care. Hope is a pretty inclusive word. I think he is very good at selling that.”’ (Janny Scott, “In
2000, a Streetwise Veteran Schooled a Bold Young Obama,” New York Times, September 9,
2007)