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November 17, 2008 Barack O'Bama and the Luck of the IrishBy Richard L. BenkinHis
first foray into national politics was a disaster; a 61 to 30 percent
thrashing by incumbent Congressman and African-American community icon
Bobby Rush in 2000. Obama learned from that experience and
started building a base with the two constituencies that would turn
failure into success; Chicago pols, including political operative David
Axelrod; and Black voters who had dismissed Obama, so say locals, as
"the Professor." Obama's political story was so far nothing out
of the ordinary. Even his breakout address to the 2004 Democratic
Convention in Boston was not supposed to have the significance that it
did. With the mainstream media and flawed pollsters assuring
President George W. Bush's defeat, Democrats went into that convention
convinced of a John Kerry victory. Obama was to be one of
several faces for a more distant time. But, and here's Obama's
first bit of luck, it did not work out that way, and someone new would
have to fill the gap in 2008.
It
took more luck for Obama to capitalize on his success in the midst of
Democratic failure by winning the open US Senate seat from
Illinois. The incumbent Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald
decided not to run, resulting in a crowded field of candidates in both
parties' primaries. On the Democratic side, Obama consistently
ran third behind businessman Blair Hull and former state Comptroller
Daniel Hynes. Hull was in command of the race and destined to
capture his party's nomination until, as the New York Times (NYT) reported,
his "campaign suddenly imploded" with scandal. "Under pressure,
his campaign released details of an order of protection [Hull's ex-wife
Brenda] Sexton took out against him. It accused him of striking her and
threatening her life."
With
Hull gone, Obama captured the nomination with the backing of Chicago's
legendary Democratic machine. Going into the general election,
the NYT observed that most people predicted the Illinois
election to be "one of the most hard-fought Senate races in the
nation." But scandal also derailed Republican Senate candidate
Jack Ryan, just as it had Hull. Ryan had married and divorced
former Star Trek Voyager actress, Jeri Ryan, and both parties
had insisted that the records of their divorce and custody battle be
sealed "in the best interests of the child." But rumors of
embarrassing content in the records persisted in the media; and The Chicago Tribune sued to have them unsealed. We should note here that The Chicago Tribune is owned by the same company that owns The Los Angeles Times, which
refused to release a tape in the recent Presidential election that
would have embarrassed the Democratic nominee-Barack Obama. The
media storm caused Ryan's poll numbers to plummet even before a Los
Angeles judge ruled the records unsealed. In them, the former
Mrs. Ryan alleged that her husband "had taken her to sex clubs in
several cities, intending for them to have sex in public." As
Ryan's former primary opponent Jim Oberweis commented, "we all know
people tend to say things that aren't necessarily true in divorce
proceedings when there is money involved and custody of children
involved." Nevertheless, Ryan resigned his candidacy three days
later with just four months to go in the race. It took
Illinois Republicans a month to find replacement, eventually convincing
former Ambassador Alan Keyes to establish Illinois residency and run
for the Senate. To no one's surprise, with only 86 days to go in
the race, it was a Republican disaster. Obama won easily, 70 to
27 percent. Two-thousand
and eight brought more good fortune to any Democrat running for
President. Regardless of party, ideology, or anything else,
experts domestically and worldwide marshaled volumes of information to
support their belief that it was almost impossible for a Republican to
win the White House. Anyone could run and win, so the expert
opinion went. Even so, by the middle of September, Republican
John McCain held a small lead in most authoritative polls. Then,
on September 15, the American economy went into a crisis. The
papers were filled with dire news about the stock market crashing and
the credit market drying. Home foreclosures were at an all-time
high, and many homeowners owned more on their houses than the new
market value. Businesses started folding; there were
layoffs. All sorts of experts and officials were warning of an
impending deep recession-if not a depression.
That
was when Obama started pulling away in the polls. His campaign's
identification of John McCain and all Republicans with George W. Bush
and by connection (whether justified or not) the economic collapse
sounded the death knell for many Republicans. More Democratic
votes would be cast in a desperate attempt to fix the economy before it
was too late; a vote against the current occupant of the White House
much more than a vote for the next one. At that point, the
Democrats could have run the least qualified, least experienced
Presidential candidate in history and still have won. Oh wait,
that is what they did. Still, people were not all that thrilled
with Obama. While he won the Electoral College by a sizeable
margin (365-173), the popular vote was much closer: 52.7 to 46
percent, only two percent more than George W. Bush in 2004. So
before Democrats continue to delude themselves that Barack Obama will
be entering office with some sort of popular mandate-a groundswell of
support for his agenda of "change," they would do best to remember that
were it not for a solid helping of fortuitous events most candidates
never see in even one election, he would not be entering office at all.
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