Obama stakes his claim to history
Campaign launched from Abe Lincoln’s home town
Sarah Baxter, Washington
AS Barack Obama officially launched his campaign for president in Springfield, Illinois, the home town of Abraham Lincoln, his team was quietly beefing up his security. Mindful of the fate of the 19th-century president, who abolished slavery and was assassinated, friends say that new measures are being taken to ensure Obama’s protection on the campaign trail.
At the Old State Capitol building, comparisons with the gaunt, top-hatted president were inescapable. Springfield is where Obama, like Lincoln, served for eight years as a state legislator before entering national politics.
Thousands of eager spectators thronged the square in freezing temperatures waving Obama ’08 banners as he stepped on the stage and hugged his wife and young daughters, who were bundled up in hats and scarves.
Setting out what is likely to be his signature theme, he urged Americans: “Let’s be the generation” for change. “I know it’s a little chilly, but I’m fired up.”
No other Republican has Rudy Giuliani's star power yet he is receiving a lukewarm response from the party’s base
Obama, 45, chose the historic setting in an attempt to lay to rest accusations that he is too inexperienced to be president. He acknowledged there was a certain “presumptuousness” and “audacity” in staking his claim to the White House, but said: “I’ve been in Washington long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.”
He believes his early opposition to the Iraq war — a major point of difference with his rival, Hillary Clinton — has vindicated his judgment. Calling Iraq the “war without end”, he said: “I opposed this war from the start, I thought it was a tragic mistake.” He called for combat troops to be brought home by March, 2008.
Alabama congressman Artur Davis, who first met Obama while they were law students at Harvard, said the Illinois senator would “electrify” the country. “It is a historic moment, because it is the first time that a candidate of African descent has entered the race with a strong chance of being successful.”
Obama was aware of the personal risks he was taking, Davis said. “He recognises that we have some very extreme elements in this country. His campaign is wisely not discussing their security precautions publicly, but they know Barack’s candidacy creates a dimension that is different to the others and are taking steps to deal with it.”
Born in Hawaii to a white mother from Kansas and a Kenyan father, Obama believes he is uniquely placed to offer America the hope of a society based on talent, not race.
“In the place of a politics that has divided us for too long, you believe that we can be one people,” he told the crowd.
Before formally entering the White House race, Obama said he was concerned about potential violence. “Being shot, obviously, that is the least attractive option,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times, and added that security was “something that is on [his wife] Michelle’s mind”.
Alma Powell, the wife of former secretary of state Colin Powell, was fearful for her husband’s safety when he was encouraged to run for president in the 1990s and is thought to have influenced his decision not to stand.
But Michelle Obama said in an interview to be broadcast on CBS television tonight: “I don’t lose sleep over it, because the realities are that . . . as a black man . . . Barack can get shot going to the gas station. You can’t make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen.”
Avis LaVelle, a Chicago friend of Michelle, said it was Obama’s ideas rather than his race that presented a danger. Citing the example of President John F Kennedy and his brother Robert, who were assassinated in the 1960s, she said: “These are perilous times for candidates. Think of the history of people who have stood for change and sparked this level of passion.” Michelle, 43, earns nearly twice her husband’s $165,200 (£85,000) Senate salary as vice-president for community affairs at the University of Chicago hospitals. The mother of two girls, Malia, 8, and Sasha, 5, she says she often feels like a single parent because Obama is away so often, but she makes sure he performs his share of household tasks.
According to LaVelle, Michelle would be an inspirational first lady. “She’s an incredibly compelling person in her own right — smart, loyal and very grounded. She’s also physically attractive and that makes a wonderful package.”
Obama said he was delighted to have the “100%” support of his wife. “We tend to be pretty private people, we don’t like a lot of fuss,” he said last week. “The difficulty in just going out and taking a walk or taking my kids to the zoo — the inability to do that is a major sacrifice, but we think the sacrifice is worth it.”
With half-brothers, sisters, cousins and inlaws scattered across America, Britain, the Far East and Africa, Obama said he has relatives that look like Bernie Mac, the black comedian, and “relatives who look like Marga-ret Thatcher”.
His race has already become a heated campaign issue. Asked by CBS television if he had decided to be black, Obama replied: “I’m not sure I decided it . . . If you look African-American in this society, you’re treated as an African-American.”
A majority of black voters currently favour the better-known Clinton, but Obama has the backing of Reverend Jesse Jackson, a former presidential candidate, whose daughter Santita is a childhood friend of Michelle.
“By the time the primaries roll around and significant black voter populations weigh in, Senator Obama will get the lion’s share of the black vote,” said Davis. “But he is going to have to compete for their votes just as Senator Clinton will have to compete for the women’s vote.”
The 2008 campaign is hotting up already, with Clinton touring the early primary state of New Hampshire this weekend. Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and a Republican frontrunner, yesterday attended a key party rally in California.
Obama left Springfield immediately after his speech for a weekend swing through Iowa and Chicago and on to New Hampshire tomorrow. After a meteoric start to his early, unofficial campaign, his momentum has been checked by Clinton, who currently has a double-figure lead in the polls for the Democratic nomination.
He warned last week: “I learnt my politics in Chicago, a place not known for producing push-overs. If somebody goes at us, we’ll respond. I am not averse to drawing sharp contrasts between myself and other candidates.”
But he has been criticised for offering little more substance to his politics than the “audacity of hope”, the title of his recent number one bestseller.
“The truth of the matter is I probably have a more detailed and specific record of what I think and where I stand than any candidate in this race,” Obama said. “I’ve written two very detailed books that give people a pretty good window into my heart and soul. I’ve given policy speeches on just about every important issue that we face.”
In his speech, he vowed to introduce universal health care, reform education, free America from its dependence on oil and cap greenhouse gases. “Let’s be the generation that ends poverty in America,” he urged. He also recalled his bipartisan efforts to reform ethics in Congress and urged Americans to be “the generation that never forgets” the attacks of September 11 and is willing to “confront the terrorists with everything we’ve got”.
Conservative critics charge that Obama’s left-wing voting record in the Senate proves he is not the moderate politician he appears. His middle name — Hussein — is regularly invoked by political opponents and he has been falsely accused of attending a madrasah, a radical Islamic school, as a boy in Indonesia.
His own ethical standards have been questioned after he purchased land next door to his $1.6m family home from a shady Chicago friend and financier, who was indicted for trying to obtain nearly $5m in kickbacks from firms in Illinois. Obama was forced to disown the decision as “boneheaded”.
But he has been disarmingly open about his use of drugs, including cocaine, as a young man and last week vowed to kick his one remaining vice: smoking. He has also been frank about his absent father, a brilliant student who made it to Harvard University from Kenya but acquired multiple wives and drank too much before he died in a car crash in 1982.
His multi-faceted biography lends credence to his claim that he is a post-baby-boom politician who can rise above the cultural, religious and generational divides that have gripped America since the Vietnam era.
Donna Brazile, chairwoman of Al Gore’s campaign for president in 2000, said: “Hillary Clinton is a formidable, tough and hardworking politician, but Barack Obama has started a movement of ideas to transform the country. He can inspire us to go further like Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy and make the ideal of America come alive again.”
Clinton is seeking to amass an unprecedented war chest. Last week her team announced plans to raise $75m by the end of the year.
At a packed book-launch party last week in Washington for Terry McAuliffe, Clinton’s energetic campaign chairman, the Democratic party establishment was feted as if it was already back at the White House. According to his publishers, the hotel that hosted the event spent $250,000 providing champagne, truffles, foie gras, suckling pigs, petits fours and vintage cognac free to guests in the hope of basking in Clinton’s glory.
It was a far cry from the $5, $10 and $25 pledges that Obama said he hoped to gather from “ordinary voters” on the internet. But he has already attracted the support of billion-aire financier George Soros, television star Oprah Winfrey and Hollywood celebrities.
Obama’s campaign is paying for security out of its own pocket as candidates only receive Secret Service protection if they win their party’s nomination.
With at least a year to go before the Democratic race is decided, one veteran of the Clinton White House said of Obama: “He has been riding a huge wave because he is a dream candidate, but what goes up goes down. The magic can only last so long without the organisation, money and nuts and bolts of a campaign that the Clinton camp is so good at.”
On reflection, he added: “He is no fluke either” — as the former first lady may soon discover.
Born to run
- Born in 1961 in Hawaii to a white mother from Kansas and a Kenyan father, who left when Obama was two
- Moved to Indonesia with his stepfather at six, attending Muslim and Catholic schools
- Raised by grandparents in Hawaii at 10 and educated at an elite private school
- Dabbled in marijuana and cocaine in his teens “to push questions of who I was out of my mind”
- Studied in Los Angeles and New York before becoming a community organiser in Chicago in mid1980s
- Returned to university and became the first African-American editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review in 1990
- Baptised as an adult in Chicago at an “unashamedly black and unashamedly Christian church”
- Met Michelle Robinson at a Chicago law firm and married in 1992. She earns more than him n Has two daughters, Malia, 8, and Sasha, 5. Describes his multiracial family as a “mini United Nations”
- Elected to the Illinois state Senate in 1996 and served for eight years
- Opposed the Iraq war in the run-up to the invasion in 2003
- Thrilled the Democratic National Convention in 2004 by saying: “In no other country on earth is my story even possible”
- Elected to the US Senate in 2004 with a landslide 70% of the vote
- Has five half-brothers and two half-sisters, including Auma Obama, who works in Berkshire
Campaign launched from Abe Lincoln’s home town
Sarah Baxter, Washington
AS Barack Obama officially launched his campaign for president in Springfield, Illinois, the home town of Abraham Lincoln, his team was quietly beefing up his security. Mindful of the fate of the 19th-century president, who abolished slavery and was assassinated, friends say that new measures are being taken to ensure Obama’s protection on the campaign trail.
At the Old State Capitol building, comparisons with the gaunt, top-hatted president were inescapable. Springfield is where Obama, like Lincoln, served for eight years as a state legislator before entering national politics.
Thousands of eager spectators thronged the square in freezing temperatures waving Obama ’08 banners as he stepped on the stage and hugged his wife and young daughters, who were bundled up in hats and scarves.
Setting out what is likely to be his signature theme, he urged Americans: “Let’s be the generation” for change. “I know it’s a little chilly, but I’m fired up.”
No other Republican has Rudy Giuliani's star power yet he is receiving a lukewarm response from the party’s base
Obama, 45, chose the historic setting in an attempt to lay to rest accusations that he is too inexperienced to be president. He acknowledged there was a certain “presumptuousness” and “audacity” in staking his claim to the White House, but said: “I’ve been in Washington long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.”
He believes his early opposition to the Iraq war — a major point of difference with his rival, Hillary Clinton — has vindicated his judgment. Calling Iraq the “war without end”, he said: “I opposed this war from the start, I thought it was a tragic mistake.” He called for combat troops to be brought home by March, 2008.
Alabama congressman Artur Davis, who first met Obama while they were law students at Harvard, said the Illinois senator would “electrify” the country. “It is a historic moment, because it is the first time that a candidate of African descent has entered the race with a strong chance of being successful.”
Obama was aware of the personal risks he was taking, Davis said. “He recognises that we have some very extreme elements in this country. His campaign is wisely not discussing their security precautions publicly, but they know Barack’s candidacy creates a dimension that is different to the others and are taking steps to deal with it.”
Born in Hawaii to a white mother from Kansas and a Kenyan father, Obama believes he is uniquely placed to offer America the hope of a society based on talent, not race.
“In the place of a politics that has divided us for too long, you believe that we can be one people,” he told the crowd.
Before formally entering the White House race, Obama said he was concerned about potential violence. “Being shot, obviously, that is the least attractive option,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times, and added that security was “something that is on [his wife] Michelle’s mind”.
Alma Powell, the wife of former secretary of state Colin Powell, was fearful for her husband’s safety when he was encouraged to run for president in the 1990s and is thought to have influenced his decision not to stand.
But Michelle Obama said in an interview to be broadcast on CBS television tonight: “I don’t lose sleep over it, because the realities are that . . . as a black man . . . Barack can get shot going to the gas station. You can’t make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen.”
Avis LaVelle, a Chicago friend of Michelle, said it was Obama’s ideas rather than his race that presented a danger. Citing the example of President John F Kennedy and his brother Robert, who were assassinated in the 1960s, she said: “These are perilous times for candidates. Think of the history of people who have stood for change and sparked this level of passion.” Michelle, 43, earns nearly twice her husband’s $165,200 (£85,000) Senate salary as vice-president for community affairs at the University of Chicago hospitals. The mother of two girls, Malia, 8, and Sasha, 5, she says she often feels like a single parent because Obama is away so often, but she makes sure he performs his share of household tasks.
According to LaVelle, Michelle would be an inspirational first lady. “She’s an incredibly compelling person in her own right — smart, loyal and very grounded. She’s also physically attractive and that makes a wonderful package.”
Obama said he was delighted to have the “100%” support of his wife. “We tend to be pretty private people, we don’t like a lot of fuss,” he said last week. “The difficulty in just going out and taking a walk or taking my kids to the zoo — the inability to do that is a major sacrifice, but we think the sacrifice is worth it.”
With half-brothers, sisters, cousins and inlaws scattered across America, Britain, the Far East and Africa, Obama said he has relatives that look like Bernie Mac, the black comedian, and “relatives who look like Marga-ret Thatcher”.
His race has already become a heated campaign issue. Asked by CBS television if he had decided to be black, Obama replied: “I’m not sure I decided it . . . If you look African-American in this society, you’re treated as an African-American.”
A majority of black voters currently favour the better-known Clinton, but Obama has the backing of Reverend Jesse Jackson, a former presidential candidate, whose daughter Santita is a childhood friend of Michelle.
“By the time the primaries roll around and significant black voter populations weigh in, Senator Obama will get the lion’s share of the black vote,” said Davis. “But he is going to have to compete for their votes just as Senator Clinton will have to compete for the women’s vote.”
The 2008 campaign is hotting up already, with Clinton touring the early primary state of New Hampshire this weekend. Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and a Republican frontrunner, yesterday attended a key party rally in California.
Obama left Springfield immediately after his speech for a weekend swing through Iowa and Chicago and on to New Hampshire tomorrow. After a meteoric start to his early, unofficial campaign, his momentum has been checked by Clinton, who currently has a double-figure lead in the polls for the Democratic nomination.
He warned last week: “I learnt my politics in Chicago, a place not known for producing push-overs. If somebody goes at us, we’ll respond. I am not averse to drawing sharp contrasts between myself and other candidates.”
But he has been criticised for offering little more substance to his politics than the “audacity of hope”, the title of his recent number one bestseller.
“The truth of the matter is I probably have a more detailed and specific record of what I think and where I stand than any candidate in this race,” Obama said. “I’ve written two very detailed books that give people a pretty good window into my heart and soul. I’ve given policy speeches on just about every important issue that we face.”
In his speech, he vowed to introduce universal health care, reform education, free America from its dependence on oil and cap greenhouse gases. “Let’s be the generation that ends poverty in America,” he urged. He also recalled his bipartisan efforts to reform ethics in Congress and urged Americans to be “the generation that never forgets” the attacks of September 11 and is willing to “confront the terrorists with everything we’ve got”.
Conservative critics charge that Obama’s left-wing voting record in the Senate proves he is not the moderate politician he appears. His middle name — Hussein — is regularly invoked by political opponents and he has been falsely accused of attending a madrasah, a radical Islamic school, as a boy in Indonesia.
His own ethical standards have been questioned after he purchased land next door to his $1.6m family home from a shady Chicago friend and financier, who was indicted for trying to obtain nearly $5m in kickbacks from firms in Illinois. Obama was forced to disown the decision as “boneheaded”.
But he has been disarmingly open about his use of drugs, including cocaine, as a young man and last week vowed to kick his one remaining vice: smoking. He has also been frank about his absent father, a brilliant student who made it to Harvard University from Kenya but acquired multiple wives and drank too much before he died in a car crash in 1982.
His multi-faceted biography lends credence to his claim that he is a post-baby-boom politician who can rise above the cultural, religious and generational divides that have gripped America since the Vietnam era.
Donna Brazile, chairwoman of Al Gore’s campaign for president in 2000, said: “Hillary Clinton is a formidable, tough and hardworking politician, but Barack Obama has started a movement of ideas to transform the country. He can inspire us to go further like Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy and make the ideal of America come alive again.”
Clinton is seeking to amass an unprecedented war chest. Last week her team announced plans to raise $75m by the end of the year.
At a packed book-launch party last week in Washington for Terry McAuliffe, Clinton’s energetic campaign chairman, the Democratic party establishment was feted as if it was already back at the White House. According to his publishers, the hotel that hosted the event spent $250,000 providing champagne, truffles, foie gras, suckling pigs, petits fours and vintage cognac free to guests in the hope of basking in Clinton’s glory.
It was a far cry from the $5, $10 and $25 pledges that Obama said he hoped to gather from “ordinary voters” on the internet. But he has already attracted the support of billion-aire financier George Soros, television star Oprah Winfrey and Hollywood celebrities.
Obama’s campaign is paying for security out of its own pocket as candidates only receive Secret Service protection if they win their party’s nomination.
With at least a year to go before the Democratic race is decided, one veteran of the Clinton White House said of Obama: “He has been riding a huge wave because he is a dream candidate, but what goes up goes down. The magic can only last so long without the organisation, money and nuts and bolts of a campaign that the Clinton camp is so good at.”
On reflection, he added: “He is no fluke either” — as the former first lady may soon discover.
Born to run
- Born in 1961 in Hawaii to a white mother from Kansas and a Kenyan father, who left when Obama was two
- Moved to Indonesia with his stepfather at six, attending Muslim and Catholic schools
- Raised by grandparents in Hawaii at 10 and educated at an elite private school
- Dabbled in marijuana and cocaine in his teens “to push questions of who I was out of my mind”
- Studied in Los Angeles and New York before becoming a community organiser in Chicago in mid1980s
- Returned to university and became the first African-American editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review in 1990
- Baptised as an adult in Chicago at an “unashamedly black and unashamedly Christian church”
- Met Michelle Robinson at a Chicago law firm and married in 1992. She earns more than him n Has two daughters, Malia, 8, and Sasha, 5. Describes his multiracial family as a “mini United Nations”
- Elected to the Illinois state Senate in 1996 and served for eight years
- Opposed the Iraq war in the run-up to the invasion in 2003
- Thrilled the Democratic National Convention in 2004 by saying: “In no other country on earth is my story even possible”
- Elected to the US Senate in 2004 with a landslide 70% of the vote
- Has five half-brothers and two half-sisters, including Auma Obama, who works in Berkshire
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