10.28.2004
Where to Catch a Rising Political Star? Try Illinois (NYTimes.com)
By MONICA DAVEY
Published: October 27, 2004
CHICAGO, Oct. 26 - Barack Obama drove to Milwaukee the other day and stirred up a crowd in a sunny park on behalf of Russell D. Feingold, a 12-year veteran of the United States Senate.
Another day, Mr. Obama sent a check for $25,000 to the Democratic Party in South Dakota, where Tom Daschle, the Senate minority leader, is fighting to keep his seat. Over a recent weekend, he flew to speak at a national Democratic fund-raiser in Los Angeles, then on to Denver, where he told a crowded gymnasium to vote for Ken Salazar, the party's Senate candidate from Colorado.
Here is the puzzling part: Mr. Obama is a mere state senator from the South Side of Chicago, and many people, even here in Illinois, would not have recognized him a year ago. At the moment, too, he is a candidate in a contested race for the United States Senate, someone unlikely to be brimming with spare time to wander other states, hand out money or dabble in other campaigns.
But Mr. Obama has had a season of remarkable fortune. And though he insists he is taking nothing for granted in his campaign against Alan Keyes, a Republican who is trailing him in a poll by 47 percentage points, Mr. Obama often seems - and is treated by others - as if he were already the next senator from Illinois.
(More ... The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Where to Catch a Rising Political Star? Try Illinois) ¶ 21:41
Published: October 27, 2004
CHICAGO, Oct. 26 - Barack Obama drove to Milwaukee the other day and stirred up a crowd in a sunny park on behalf of Russell D. Feingold, a 12-year veteran of the United States Senate.
Another day, Mr. Obama sent a check for $25,000 to the Democratic Party in South Dakota, where Tom Daschle, the Senate minority leader, is fighting to keep his seat. Over a recent weekend, he flew to speak at a national Democratic fund-raiser in Los Angeles, then on to Denver, where he told a crowded gymnasium to vote for Ken Salazar, the party's Senate candidate from Colorado.
Here is the puzzling part: Mr. Obama is a mere state senator from the South Side of Chicago, and many people, even here in Illinois, would not have recognized him a year ago. At the moment, too, he is a candidate in a contested race for the United States Senate, someone unlikely to be brimming with spare time to wander other states, hand out money or dabble in other campaigns.
But Mr. Obama has had a season of remarkable fortune. And though he insists he is taking nothing for granted in his campaign against Alan Keyes, a Republican who is trailing him in a poll by 47 percentage points, Mr. Obama often seems - and is treated by others - as if he were already the next senator from Illinois.
(More ... The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Where to Catch a Rising Political Star? Try Illinois) ¶ 21:41
