Posted on 01/22/2006 11:43:09 AM PST by Chi-townChief
Print this page WASHINGTON -- This week, Sen. Barack Obama found himself in new territory -- breaking from his bipartisan honeymoon and preaching the Democrats' party line on ethics.
Whether the Illinois Democrat is deviating from his freshman game plan of staying above the fray or launching a new strategy will soon play out.
But this much is clear: by taking a leading role in the Democrats' ethics reform campaign kicked off on Wednesday -- potentially key to his party reclaiming the House or Senate in November -- Obama has opened a new chapter in his Senate career. And that comes with costs the cautious Obama is not used to paying since he rode into Washington a year ago riding a wave of goodwill.
As part of a team effort on ethics, Obama will be expected to keep up the partisan rhetoric and tamp down what seems to be his instinctual plea for a bipartisan solution.
On Friday, Obama, realizing that his new role could shine an ethics spotlight on him for the first time, moved to deprive Republicans of an issue. In the future, Obama's office announced, the senator's political war chest will pay the entire cost of using planes provided by others -- Obama took eight such flights in 2005 -- rather than the cheaper first-class fare.
In the wake of GOP lobbying scandals, which is triggering the calls for an ethics crackdown, congressional watchdogs want an end to what amounts to subsidized travel for lawmakers on corporate aircraft.
With his ethics assignment, Obama will appear on NBC's "Meet the Press" this morning, accepting only his third Sunday show invitation since being sworn in.
Living in two worlds
Ten years ago, Obama was just starting his political career, running for a state senate seat from Hyde Park. Now, at 44, he is on a remarkable trajectory, but those who know him best say that those who guess Obama is putting together a White House run for 2008 are wrong for many reasons, including that his daughters are only 4 and 7. No doubt, though, the Obama storyline points to someday, more likely 2012, when he will grab for something higher.
"If you were a political investment banker, you would want to buy into this Barack Obama IPO," says Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
One year ago, the Obamas made a decision -- his wife, Michelle, vice president for community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals, would stay in Chicago with their children.
When the Senate is in session, Obama commutes to Washington, renting a downtown apartment.
His first year has been packed with staffing up offices in Washington and Illinois, creating an elaborate fund-raising and political organization, extensive state and national travel, expansive legislative work and two international trips. On top of it all, the Obamas also moved.
The most tangible result of Obama's incredible change of fortune since he ran for the Senate is the family's $1.65 million home in Kenwood, purchased in June and listed at 6,199 square feet with three fireplaces and 6.5 baths. A few months before, the Obamas received $415,000 for the Hyde Park condo they bought for $277,500 in 1993.
Obama bankrolled the new real estate mainly with an advance on a $1.9 million multi-book deal. One volume is due in March. It will be policy-oriented and forward-looking, with anecdotes from his 2004 campaign. He writes mainly at night.
"I like working out in the morning," says Obama, who back home is given his space when he hoists weights at the East Bank Club, "because then it is sure to happen." The lanky Obama favors dark suits from Bloomingdale's or Nordstrom.
Wall tells all
Obama is talking about the year behind him and what's ahead for 2006 sitting on a couch in his high-ceiling office in the Hart Senate Office Building. It's December.
The walls and shelves -- and a White Sox cap parked on his desk -- offer silent testimony to what moves Obama.
There are pictures of Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and framed pages from a 1965 Life Magazine story about a bloody civil rights march in Selma, Ala. There is a program from the 1963 rally where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
Then there is the gallery of more than a dozen pictures of his wife, daughters and scenes from the 2004 Senate campaign, where, after a tough Democratic primary, he strolled to a Senate seat. His rousing keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention vaulted him into the political stratosphere, and he has been flying high since.
Sitting in a bookcase is a stack of audiotapes of his best-selling memoir, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, published in 1995.
Obama sandwiched in time last year to record his book, about growing up as the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, and next month is up for a Grammy.
The Plan
In the beginning, there was The Plan, closely held and drafted by his inner circle, including Chicago-based media consultant David Axelrod, chief of staff Pete Rouse, who worked 19 years for former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, and Robert Gibbs, his communications chief, plus a few others.
"It is very important to have a game plan," Obama says. "To be well-organized and to think through . . . how do you set priorities, so that events are not shaping our schedule and we are not subject to the whims of the news cycle. My general attitude is, if we don't have something new or interesting to say, we should not say it."
The Plan -- mapped out month by month -- called for an intense Illinois focus in the beginning, to let voters know Obama did not forget who brought him to the dance. He pays close attention even though he knows he has enough political capital to be a senator from Illinois for life. He held 39 town hall meetings.
With a couple of exceptions, Obama lived by the plan: In April, he keynoted an address on Social Security, which he did not want to do originally for fear of looking like he was "going national" too soon. And in September, the botched response to Hurricane Katrina prompted Obama, the only African-American in the Senate, to stray from the map. It "was such an overwhelming tragedy that I felt it was important for me to step out," he said.
Obama's Katrina message: Bureaucratic blindness rather than racial insensitivity led to a breakdown in emergency services to impoverished New Orleans blacks stranded by the storm.
Broadening voice for blacks
Obama wants a significant voice in national policy and does not avoid issues about race. But he wants it understood: "My interests are broader." He said it best in an October interview on National Public Radio: "What I do think is that the African-American community in the Democratic Party is looking for a voice in a broader range of policies . . . and consultation on a broader range of policies. I think there's a tendency to think that, 'Well, we'll defer to Barack on civil rights issues or issues related to poverty, but not on nuclear proliferation.' And those are certainly, you know, constraints that I would reject."
Obama caught a big break early on, when the Chicago Sun-Times broke a story about how disabled vets in the state were shortchanged in disability payments. Obama was newly planted on the Veterans Affairs Committee, usually a secondary assignment, and with Durbin led a drive to fix the inequality.
It was a perfect starter issue: a complex problem with local and national implications, underscored because U.S. troops were fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama says he is most proud of his work on veterans' concerns.
Little time to share
Obama is under tremendous pressure when it comes to his time.
Everyone wants him. He ranks with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as one of the most sought-after Democratic speakers in the country, and he comes with no baggage. "I get every week asked to try to get Barack to speak somewhere," said Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.)
"All the time I am being asked to ask him," said Illinois AFL-CIO president Margaret Blackshere. Blackshere's union did not endorse Obama in the primary, so she was not expecting the solicitous call she got from the new senator after he took office. "I just want to touch base with you each month," says Blackshere, recalling Obama's side of the conversation.
She was stunned. "No one has ever done that."
For a while, Obama seemed to follow Hillary Clinton's lead. The former first lady kept her head down when she came to the Senate. "I could have been much more quiet this year than I have been and gotten away with it," Obama says.
"People would have explained it as, 'He is taking the Hillary model.' "
"He and I have talked often about how to get off on the right foot in the Senate, and he has done a superb job this year," Clinton says. "He is a careful, thoughtful, effective person, and he is doing what is right for him and also, what is, in my opinion, what is right for the state of Illinois, because when he speaks, people pay attention," Clinton says. "When he immerses himself in an issue like avian flu, people pay attention. When he goes to Russia with Dick Lugar [chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee] mastering the arcane world of nuclear proliferation, people pay attention, and I think it is a great tribute to him that he has charted his own course."
Obama's visit to Russia and other former Soviet states was followed a few months later by his first trip to the Mideast. His stop in Kuwait to play basketball with soldiers two weeks ago was a morale boost; his short visit to Iraq only underscored the opinion he formed before he got there: that there is no military solution for the U.S.
His first visit to Israel and the West Bank was long overdue, with members of Chicago's Jewish community having wanted Obama to travel there since he was a state senator.
In August, Obama will travel to African nations, including Kenya, a homecoming for a not-quite native son. He is using his pulpit to draw attention to the genocide in Sudan and is being advised by one of the leading voices on genocide, Samantha Power, a professor at Harvard University's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy in the Kennedy School of Government. She is working out of his Senate office for a year.
Says Power, who won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for her seminal book, A Problem from Hell, "Suddenly I find myself in a position to be listened to."
Moving to the center?
Axelrod, the media consultant, says there never was a line in a memo such as, "let's find Republicans to work with." But there is a pattern: Obama is teaming with Lugar, the Indiana Republican on weapons proliferation; Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) in an op-ed piece on Sudanese genocide; Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) on immigration and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) on keeping tabs on out-of-control Hurricane Katrina spending.
That Obama may be drifting toward the center, or playing it too safe, is a growing concern of some of his liberal and progressive base, many drawn to him originally for his strong opposition to the Iraq war. He waited until November to deliver a major address on Iraq, calling for measured withdrawal, rather than the immediate pullout some of his supporters want.
He also is angering some progressives for taking sides in the Illinois Democratic primary for the seat being vacated by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), promoting wounded Iraq war vet Tammy Duckworth over Christine Cegelis, who won the nomination in 2004. As word was going around that he was backing Duckworth, Obama called Cegelis to give her the news personally.
"It sure seems like Obama is thumbing his nose at the kind of grassroots progressives who were the heart, soul and muscle of his own Senate campaign when he started out," blogged Jim Ginsburg, a Chicago Democratic activist who is the son of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Obama got beaten up in the blogosphere in September for defending Democratic colleagues Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Patrick Leahy of Vermont for voting to confirm John Roberts as chief justice of the Supreme Court.
Obama confronted these critics in a posting on the Daily Kos, an influential Web site for progressives, offering this comfort: "I am not arguing that the Democrats should trim their sails and be more 'centrist.' "
'The jury is still out'
Marilyn Katz, a Chicago media consultant, anti-war organizer and host of Obama fund-raisers, explains, "People project on him their own politics."
Progressives incorrectly assume, Katz says, that Obama shares "each and every nuance of their political positions."
This year Obama will continue to raise money for Democrats, reaping political chits for later use as he builds an organization that could foster a White House run -- or just let him climb the rungs of Senate leadership. In 2005, Obama created the HOPEFUND, a D.C.-based political action committee, and criss-crossed the country picking up checks at 28 events from a who's who of Democratic donor elites. He headlined another 10 fund-raisers to benefit his 2010 re-election fund. Obama, the money machine, in total for 2005 raised about $6.55 million for his war chests and for other Democrats.
From the left and the right, there is a sense Obama has yet to translate his fame into leadership.
"He needs to be a little more of a leader in the center if he really wants to have an impact beyond being an Illinois senator," says Sen. Trent Lott (R-La.), asked last month about Obama.
Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, a Chicago native, says Obama "has not been the kind of strong leader people expected," with the caveat that he is a freshman. "To me, the jury is still out."
mailto:lsweet3022@aol.com
A socialist in charge of ethics.
Talk about an oxymoron,
He is near his expiration date. The party has used him too much for too many things. He has no future.
If Obama carries about ethics, then he should start in his own backyard (Chicago).
If Obama carries about ethics, then he should start in his own backyard (Chicago).
If Obama carries about ethics, then he should start in his own backyard (Chicago).
Hillary & Obama in 2008. Scary.
"Hi, I'm frum the Dimocratic Party and I'm here to teach you about ethycks!"
Bwahahahaha!
A year ago, nobody in the Dimocratic Party could even SPELL the word "ethics" - if you shouted "Ethics!" in a room full of Dimocrats, there'd be a stampede for the exits!
Barack Obama is a "Jesse Jackson" phony. An ultra leftwinger who should never be trusted. One day Obama will be seen as the savior of the Democratic Party. Smooth talker and experienced spinner, able to dodge any line of questioning, so far. Just like you know who.
Not just scary, but fatal for this country as we know it today!!!!!!!1
The thing that drives me NUTS about this guy is that he totally self-identifies as a black man.
He was raised by his white mother and grandmother after his black father dropped out of the picture when he was quite young.
Is he ashamed of his white half? If he is,shame on him.
Yep, that sure sounds "ethical" to me... That book is definitely going to be a page-turner. Echoes of Jim Wright, and all that...
Gotta hand it to Obama, though... The Dems have chosen him to be their point man on an issue that has no constituency whatsoever and will fail to resonate with any voters who aren't already cheerleading for the Dems. He has pulled a fast one on them - he'll gladly take the fawning media exposure, thank you very much, and the Dems can spend all the money chasing that non-existant constituency, but it will not get a single additional Demo/Commie elected.
Oh Good Grief...2 years ago all we were hearing from the MSM was about how Harold Ford Jr. was the Dims 'rising star'. No doubt he would be running for Pres.
What happened??? I really don't see much difference in the two. They're both left wing wackos. Bet Harold is wondering what in the hell happened too.
I've always said that Barack is the biggest phony in Illinois with the possible exception of Studs Terkel.
When you're as dependent upon black voters as Illinois donks are, the last thing they would want is for Obama to emphasize any "whiteness."
There is some interesting information about Obama's origins on this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1562678/posts
"He was raised by his white mother and grandmother after his black father dropped out of the picture when he was quite young."
Actually, after his Noble Kenyan father high-tailed it back to Africa, his mother upped and married an Indonesian. Obama lived with his new father and mother in Jakarta for a short period of time and then he was carted off to his grandparents in Hawaii when he was six.
His mother sounds like she was a piece of work.
Given his background, Obama must have a lot of "issues," and eventually he'll become unglued.
"If you were a political investment banker, you would want to buy into this Barack Obama IPO," says Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
He's already been bought, by the Democratic Party. You know the one that opposed the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution, every bit of Civil Rights legislation from 1866 thru 1972, the party of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, the KKK and abortion. Yep his soul has been bought and paid for already.
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