Posted on 07/16/2008 4:44:18 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Another important group in Obama's life consists of the Chicago progressives who have mentored him throughout his career. The leader of this group is Abner J. Mikva, a retired federal judge, White House counsel and congressman from Chicago who has known Obama for 20 years, and who often is described as a father figure to the senator.
Mikva has quietly helped guide Obama since his Harvard Law School days. He encouraged his political aspirations, was an early advocate of his presidential run and has pulled numerous strings to help to ease the candidate's path.
One Mikva protégé is Axelrod. A former Chicago Tribune reporter, Obama's message maestro left his home town of New York for the University of Chicago in the early 1970s and has never looked back. Like Mikva, he belongs to the city's progressive elite. Axelrod and Obama also shared a second mentor: the late senator Paul Simon (Ill.), who took Obama under his wing when he joined the state legislature.
Other members of this circle include Newton Minow, a longtime Mikva friend who hired Obama to join his civil rights law firm and whose daughter taught Obama at Harvard; Forrest Claypool, a Cook County commissioner and Axelrod partner who is a member of Obama's media team; John Schmidt, a Clinton Justice Department official who founded the reform-minded Chicago Council of Lawyers and is a member of Obama's finance team; and John Bouman, a longtime friend from Springfield, Ill., who is president of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law in Chicago.
Obama also turns to Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), a Chicago politician through and through, who stayed neutral during the Democratic primary because of his close Clinton family ties but who endorsed the home-town candidate as soon as Obama crossed the delegate threshold.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
With the Clintons, it was the Arkansas mafia.
Obama will give us the Chicago mafia.
Wonder which will be worse? Or more interesting?
Crook county taxes 10.5 % Boycott Chicago, and spread the word.
Does anyone else remember Abner Mikva’s constant assault on the rights of gun owners in Chicago in years past? Now we hear the lies from Obama about a personal right to bear arms and his mentor was Abner Mikva. Wake up America.
—while in Congress, Abner Mikva was probably the most vicious anti-gun rep of all time-—
Abner Mikva is a super-lib.
B.O. HUSSEIN is not a New Wave Messiah to Government!
B.O. HUSSEIN is an empty-suited mouthpiece Parrot for this mess of corruption and decay! Dogcatcher looked like a mor realistic position for Obie, but now that looks too good for him! He seems better suited for Prison Janitor:-) that way he can stay in close touch with his mentor Tony Rezko!
Thanks for reposting the graphic. Very interesting.
Obama’s $845 billion U.N. plan forwarded to U.S. Senate floor
‘Global Poverty Act’ to cost each citizen $2,500 or more
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=70308
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.