Obama: Those Illinois Senate days
Posted: Thursday, October 09, 2008 9:06 AM by Carrie Dann
The Washington Post profiles Obama’s days in the Illinois state Senate. “Just as he had before -- as an American child who moved to Indonesia, an Ivy League graduate who worked in housing projects on Chicago's South Side and a black student who enrolled at Harvard Law School -- Obama arrived in Springfield with limited knowledge of his environment and few friends to guide him. He left eight years later with the legislative accomplishments, political savvy and network of allies needed to win a seat in the United States Senate.” Obama declined to be interviewed for this, but conversations with more than a dozen friends and colleagues portray his time in Springfield as a political baptism performed at warp speed, engineered by Obama's vast self-confidence and ambition.”
”His legislative record in the state Senate showed promise, but it was fraught with 129 ‘Present’ votes, watered-down bills and a dearth of significant accomplishments -- shortcomings that hardly affected his success. With an eye toward the future, Obama decided to befriend everyone in Springfield who could help him get where he wanted to go. And that included the two men who mercilessly hazed him: Hendon and Trotter.”
Chicago Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet asks the "when did he know Ayers” question. "So the question is--I'm just curious and I wonder about this as one who has defended Obama's association with Ayers, the education expert (not Ayers, the terrorist)---when did Obama finally learn about the Weather Underground background of Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn? As a young reporter working in Chicago, I was well aware of the Weather Underground couple on the lam from the law; Ayers father ran the local electrical utility company and was a big shot in the city. But this was years before Obama came to Chicago. As a rookie at the Sun-Times I tried to find Ayers and Dohrn working some connections, but nothing ever panned out and eventually they surrendered in Chicago in 1981.”
“I asked Obama chief strategist David Axelrod on Tuesday afternoon here when and how Obama learned about Ayers and Dohrn and their days with the violent radical 1960s group. Axelrod offered no details and needed to move on to his next interview, since he was in high demand in the media filing center at Belmont University, where the second presidential debate will be held between Obama and John McCain."
By the way, did Biden really get 5,000 for a rally in Naples? Really? That's big if Biden campaigning alone can start getting bigger crowds than McCain gets when he campaigns solo.
