2.09.2007
Obama Forged Political Mettle In Illinois Capitol (WashingtonPost.com)
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 9, 2007; Page A01
CHICAGO, Feb. 8 -- When Sen. Barack Obama heads downstate to Springfield on Saturday to announce his candidacy for president, he will speak in lofty tones of America and Abraham Lincoln, but also of a more prosaic topic: his own eight years in the Illinois Senate.
The heart of Obama's political résumé lies in Springfield, where he arrived in January 1997. He was a newcomer to elective politics after time as a community organizer and University of Chicago law professor operating largely outside the city's Democratic machine.
From a district on the South Side of Chicago, he reached Republican-dominated Springfield as a committed liberal, later writing that he understood politics in the capital "as a full-contact sport, and minded neither the sharp elbows nor the occasional blind-side hit."
Yet he emerged as a leader while still in his 30s by developing a style former colleagues describe as methodical, inclusive and pragmatic. He cobbled together legislation with Republicans and conservative Democrats, making overtures other progressive politicians might consider distasteful.
Along the way, he played an important role in drafting bipartisan ethics legislation and health-care reform. He overcame law enforcement objections to codify changes designed to curb racial profiling and to make capital punishment, which he favors, more equitable.
(More ... Washington Post > Politics)
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 9, 2007; Page A01
CHICAGO, Feb. 8 -- When Sen. Barack Obama heads downstate to Springfield on Saturday to announce his candidacy for president, he will speak in lofty tones of America and Abraham Lincoln, but also of a more prosaic topic: his own eight years in the Illinois Senate.
The heart of Obama's political résumé lies in Springfield, where he arrived in January 1997. He was a newcomer to elective politics after time as a community organizer and University of Chicago law professor operating largely outside the city's Democratic machine.
From a district on the South Side of Chicago, he reached Republican-dominated Springfield as a committed liberal, later writing that he understood politics in the capital "as a full-contact sport, and minded neither the sharp elbows nor the occasional blind-side hit."
Yet he emerged as a leader while still in his 30s by developing a style former colleagues describe as methodical, inclusive and pragmatic. He cobbled together legislation with Republicans and conservative Democrats, making overtures other progressive politicians might consider distasteful.
Along the way, he played an important role in drafting bipartisan ethics legislation and health-care reform. He overcame law enforcement objections to codify changes designed to curb racial profiling and to make capital punishment, which he favors, more equitable.
(More ... Washington Post > Politics)
Labels: 2008 election, Obama, Washington Post
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