Part 6 (2/2)

The statewide campaign swing was further evidence of the intensity of Obamaas overnight celebrity. The Obama fever that swept through Boston hit the same scorching temperature back in Illinois. Everywhere Obama went, in every little quaint town square where he had planned a rally, he was greeted by thick, energized crowds. Publicly, he tried to downplay the breathless attention by talking about his goal at handa”winning the Senate race. Whether standing center stage in a crowded college theater or on the bed of a bronze Chevrolet S10 pickup truck parked in a dirt lot next to a town hall, the ever-disciplined Obama stuck to his message. He told rally after rally that, in his keynote address, he was trying to do nothing more than echo the voices of Illinois residents. More than anything, he said, he sought to bring a more conciliatory approach to Americaas bitterly partisan political culture. aApparently, the speech turned out okay Tuesday,a he said with an understated grin to a group of about five hundred in a scenic park in Kewanee. aBut the reason I was there was because of you, the voters of Illinois. People didnat care that I was from a different town or that I was a different color.a With reporters, he endeavored to remain religious to the campaign script of personal humility and public service. aThis is all so, well, interesting. But itas all so ephemeral,a Obama said between campaign stops in DeKalb and Marengo. aI donat know how this plays out, but there is definitely a novelty aspect to it all. The novelty wears off, and it canat stay white-hot like it is right now.a There was also a part of Obama, whose father abandoned him as a child and whose mother traveled to faraway continents and left him with his grandparents, that clearly fed off the public adulation. Nothing nourished him more than connecting emotionally and intellectually with an audience. In these crowds of G.o.d-fearing heartland Americans, he would typically end his stump speeches with a reference to the Almightya”aG.o.d bless you all.a But in concluding his first tour speech, as the crowd roared its affirmation, Obama instead blurted out, aI love you all! Love ya!a He then strutted offstage to the strains of booming country music very much befitting the star image that had been thrust upon him. And it wasnat just Obama who was changing. His audience was too. Suddenly their appet.i.te for anything about Obama seemed insatiable. His humorous opening lines about his name being misconstrued as aYo mamaa or aAlabamaa were now greeted not with mild chuckles but with howls of laughter. aI vote for people, and not for political reasons, and this man inspires me,a gushed David Bramson, a rough-hewn sixty-seven-year-old truck driver from Marengo. Bramson said he would vote again for George W. Bush for presidenta”and the liberal Obama. aHe can really get your juices flowing. This is the first Democrat Iave seen who doesnat polarize the public,a he said. aThis guy is real. The others are phony.a In Pekin, a woman held aloft a sign: aIf you have a dream, vote for Obama.a ACCOMPANYING OBAMA FOR SEVERAL DAYS OF THE TRIP WAS THE senior senator from Illinois, Richard Durbin, who had introduced Obama to the Boston crowd before the keynote address. Durbin was the Energizer Bunny of stump politicians. A liberal Democrat who was one of the few senators to vote against giving President Bush the authority to invade Iraq, Durbin had been simply indefatigable on the campaign trail in the course of his career. aIave learned a lot just watching d.i.c.k,a Obama said. aHe is solid.a Durbinas tireless, type A nature is perhaps necessary. Short of stature, with slightly graying hair trimmed in a traditional style, Durbin conveys an almost anti-celebrity persona. He can remind you of the smiling next-door neighbor in khaki pants and b.u.t.ton-down checkered s.h.i.+rt, always ready with a friendly wave when you spot him mowing the lawn. His physical appearance was so Everyman-like and his personality so avuncular that he could walk through downtown Chicago in rush hour and hardly be recognized by a single const.i.tuent. Before a fund-raiser in Springfield during the tour, Obama was busy with phone calls and told Durbin that he would meet him at the event. Durbin replied that he would rather just wait. aI canat go there without you,a Durbin explained. an.o.body will have any clue who I am unless I walk in next to you.a Yet despite his relative anonymity in Illinois, in Was.h.i.+ngton, Durbin was considered one of the most serious members of the Senate, and he had earned great respect from his colleagues in the Capitol. When Democrats captured control of the Senate in 2006, Durbin was elected majority whip, making him the second-ranking Democrat on the Hill.

With their contrasting personal styles, Durbin and Obama had worked up something of a two-man comedy routine on this trip, with Obama playing the straight man to Durbinas boisterous standup delivery. Durbin opened each event by telling the less-than-true story that he had prepared this fantastic speech for the Boston audience, but (slight pause) he had given it to Obama instead. aI couldnat be mad,a Durbin would say with a wide grin, abecause didnat he do a great job with it, folks?!a Privately, Durbin allowed that this joke was older than he was, but it nevertheless was surefire in drawing a laugh. And morning, noon and night, at event after event, Durbin would hit his line perfectly each time. Meanwhile, Obama, with arms folded in his cool, detached posture, would stand next to him and push out a smile, a smile that became more fatigued and more forced on each subsequent telling, as each day pa.s.sed.

Obama, still a policy wonk at heart, mixed serious politics into his addresses on this trip. He spoke about providing everyday people with a greater voice in Was.h.i.+ngton and breaking down partisan bickering. He promised to channel the concerns of Illinois residents into sound policy. He a.s.sured voters that he was running for their sake, not his own. aThose little small miracles that all of you pull off every daya”that is what this campaign is all about,a he said. Surprisingly, Obama also took a decidedly antia”Iraq War stance. This could have been tricky in this part of the world, which was red state country, but he pulled it off in his reasonable tone. aWhen we send our men off to war, we need to make sure we are sending them off to the right war,a he told audiences, who reacted enthusiastically.

As the days wore on, miraculously, the crowds seemed to grow even bigger. And Obamaas young staff was in no way prepared or equipped to handle them. Outside an aluminum-sided caf in Lincoln, Obama stepped from his SUV and was swallowed up by a sea of several hundred admirers, each wanting to shake his hand or give him a hug or take a photo. Mike Daly, Durbinas chief Illinois aide and a veteran campaigner, grew irritated and impatient with this poorly planned scenario. aWeave lost control,a he said in frustration, as Obama disappeared amid the crowd. aSomeone is going to have to go in and fish him out.a Sweating and fatigued, Daly stepped out of the pack of humanity and mused about the lasting effect this idol wors.h.i.+p could have on Obama. aI think he is grounded internally, but look at this. How can you not let all of this go to your head?a he asked.

After a couple of days of fighting the crowds, Obama was starting to grow more weary of the speeches and the peoplea”especially all the people. As in Boston, everyone wanted a piece of him, sometimes literally. He complained to aides that some women would literally grab his b.u.t.tocks and physically push up against him. Each event ran well over its time because he would have to sign autographs and shake hands with hundreds of adoring fans, and this extra time had not been built into the schedule. The RV, meanwhile, had been practically discarded as a means of travel because it could not go fast enough on the cornfield-lined country roads to make up the lost time. Instead, aides corralled Sasha and Malia into the RV in the morning and took the children to theme and water parks for the day, reuniting them with their parents at the hotels in the evenings. Obama, however, was. .h.i.tting fund-raisers and rallies well into the night hours. So much for the family trip. aWhen are we going to see our children again?a Obama asked Mich.e.l.le inside the SUV one morning. aIam not sure,a she replied. A few moments later, Obama told his driver that he wanted to stop and pick up a New York Times. aWhy do you want that?a Mich.e.l.le asked. aWhatas in there about you?a Obama seemed rankled by the question. aNothing that I know of,a he said. aYou know that I always read the Sunday Times.a aOh yeah,a she replied. aI guess Iave just lost all perspective.a In these private settings, as the exhausting trip progressed, Obama was not always the relaxed, smooth politician from days and weeks earlier. His mercurial moments bubbled up again. He had brought Mich.e.l.le and his daughters out on the road, but he was seeing little of them. And not only that: With the sheer number of people he had to greet, the wors.h.i.+pping crowds became less ego gratifying and more of a burden. There was no real physical separation between him and the crowds. Finally, on the third day, at a high school in Clinton, a police officer threw one of Obamaas young traveling aides a roll of police line tape and told him, aKeep it and use it, son.a After that, the aides started cordoning off the crowds to give Obama some breathing room. aWeave finally kind of figured out that he is happier when we can keep some of these people the h.e.l.l away from him,a one aide said. Obama, feeling remorseful about this, apologized to audiences that he could not stay longer, sign autographs and meet each one of them.

Obama, at this juncture, had no security presence around him. His driver was a former police officer, but these crowds were too big for one man and a few twenty-somethings to handle. Moreover, Obamaas following now came with an emotional element that could possibly draw out the wrong emotion. In Boston, I had noticed that Obama had no security, despite some odd-looking characters who turned out to see him in the days after the speech. So during an interview on the Illinois trip, I asked him and Mich.e.l.le about the lack of protection. Mich.e.l.le jumped at the question, saying that she had been talking to the campaign staff about adding security personnel, but they had been resistant because they did not want to make it appear that Obama feared his future const.i.tuents. Being asked the question by a reporter legitimized her worry, and she looked over at Gibbs in the SUV. aThis is not something that Barack even needs to think about,a she said. aI understand you have to achieve a balance between looking out for his safety and not looking like he is afraid of the community he is serving. But we have to find that balance.a That night, at a packed outdoor fund-raiser, I told one of Obamaas aides about Mich.e.l.leas reaction and asked if I had gauged things correctly. aTheyare both totally freaked out by this,a he said.

The stress of the trip, and the madness around it, was showing on the ever-affable Mich.e.l.le. At some moments on the trip, the tension between Mich.e.l.le and her husband was palpable. No one is more devoted to Obama than his wife, and no one will race to his defense as ardently and as quickly as she will. But her husbandas overnight fame was causing her some concern. One morning, as I waited to interview her in the SUV, she dropped a political cartoon into my lap. The artist had sketched a smiling Democratic woman holding up a sign that read: aDated Dean, Married Kerry, l.u.s.t for Obama.a Mich.e.l.le looked at me and said, aThis is what I have to contend with.a Over time, Obama would smooth over these issues with his wife. This feeling was transitory, but at that moment it was real.

As the caravan made its way back to Chicago on Day Six of the Death March, nearly everyone involved in the tour was ready for its end. It had been a fascinating yet grueling adventure. But no one was more primed for its conclusion than Obama himself. After giving his final speech and posing for a photo with the youthful staff members who a.s.sisted him on the excursion, he called over the lead organizer of the trip, a law student named Jeremiah Posedel. The two were standing in the middle of a blocked-off street in a small town just south of the Chicago region. Obama placed his hands on Posedelas shoulders and then fixed a serious gaze directly into the young manas eyes. aYou did a great job and I am so appreciative of all the work youave done,a Obama told him. aBut donat ever f.u.c.king do that to me again.a WITH CHICAGO LOCKED DOWN, OBAMA WOULD TAKE MORE OF these extended campaign trips to solidify downstate Democrats and try to convert Republican voters to his cause. But these trips would cause some anguish for Obama as he sought to keep his biggest vicea”cigarette smokinga”hidden from public view. The whole campaign caravan would have to pull over at a gas station, where Obama would disappear into the restroom, presumably to catch a smoke. aItas embarra.s.sing,a Obama said. aWe pull over and eight guys jump out of cars just so I can use the restroom.a This could place his campaign staff in the awkward position of having to guard their employeras secret nicotine addiction.

Late at night, during one tour of the state, I was riding shotgun in a car trailing Obamaas black SUV amid the campaign caravan. At the wheel of our small sedan was press aide Tommy Vietor, a young tousle-haired East Coast native who joined Obama from the presidential campaign of North Carolina senator John Edwards after Edwards folded. Vietor was a smart, eager, computer-geek type who feared one thing: s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up. He sensed that if he played his cards right, he could find a seat on Obamaas rising rocket s.h.i.+p for a long time to come. Specifically, he had his sights set on being Gibbsas chief communications deputy. So Vietor could ill afford to let something outside the script slip to a reporter.

After a long day on the trail, it was nearing midnight and we were headed to a hotel that had been inexplicably booked a long two hoursa drive from the final event. As we motored along the dark, flat country roads of Illinois, I spied a small orange-lighted object fly from the pa.s.senger window of Obamaas SUV and smack into the road ahead of us, briefly bouncing along the pavement until it disappeared beneath our car. Vietor, understanding the magnitude of Obamaas well-kept secret and the potential consequences of its revelation to a reporter, immediately turned his head my way to see if I had noticed what was obviously a cigarette b.u.t.t discarded by Obama. But Vietor and I both said nothing. Only half-awake and tired, I lacked the energy to mention what I had seen and open a conversation about it. Vietor was obviously hoping I hadnat spotted the cigarette and kept his mouth shut.

Several minutes later, however, out flew another orange cigarette b.u.t.t, which elicited the same reaction from Vietora”a quick worried glance in my direction. After another several minutes, out popped another. Again Vietor turned my way, looking ever more worried as Obama flicked each cigarette from the SUV. aYou know, Tommy, Iave known for a long time that Barack smokes,a I said. aYou have?a Vietor asked. aYes,a I responded, asince early in the primary when I got into his SUV and it smelled like a smoky bar on Friday night.a aWhew!a he said. aSo long as Barack knows I didnat fink on him.a Throughout the summer, Obama was locked into a daily schedule that restricted press access, but on these many trips, Obama and I occasionally engaged in candid conversation. During a campaign stop in Springfield, he revealed his occasionally thin skin in one of these chats. He asked why I had been ataking all these jabsa at him in my Tribune stories. I was perplexed by what he meant. I thought my coverage had been balanced. But Obama referred to a line from a story that had run a couple of months earlier. Obviously, the line had been eating at him. I had written that while he was a talented orator, his debate skills might be suspect. I said that he had a tendency to be averbosea in press interviews, occasionally meandering off his message and waxing philosophical about other policy views. He was also not a good asound bitea politiciana”not the type who could deliver a quick one-line punch to the gut of an opponent. And the winner of a debate is often the candidate who delivers the most memorable punch. This was mild criticism at best, but Obama obviously was not accustomed to public criticism. A couple of years later, in his book The Audacity of Hope, he conceded the verbosity, anti-sound-bite point. He wrote that his elongated musings had probably won him some points with political reporters, however, whom he dubbed a aliterary cla.s.s.a AS OBAMA SET ILLINOIS ON FIRE THAT SUMMER, THE REPUBLICAN Party waged a bitter internal battle about who should replace Ryan on the ballot. Moderates and conservatives had been bickering for years about the direction of the party, and this battle was perhaps the ugliest public incarnation of that disagreement. Various potential candidatesa names floated. Even Mike Ditka, the former Chicago Bears head coach, who was a hometown hero, toyed momentarily with the idea of challenging Obama. In early August, the moderates finally succ.u.mbed to the partyas vocal right wing and allowed the GOPas central committee to bring in conservative firebrand Alan Keyes as its candidate. Keyes, who was then living in Maryland, was a former talk show host who quixotically ran twice for president. A rare African-American conservative, Keyes was best known for his rousing speaking style and his often inflammatory rhetoric, which was steeped in his deeply Christian moral philosophy. His style was scholarly, but extremely controversial, even within the Christian Right. But he was fiery enough and not the least bit reticent about virulently attacking his opponent, whoever he might be. One GOP legislator told Obama that Republicans drafted Keyes to muddy up Obamaas image, to aknock the haloa off the Democratas head. In the end, Keyes would do nothing of the sort.

My first encounter with Keyes came in Chicagoas annual Bud Billiken Parade, which runs through the African-American community on the cityas South Side. The Billiken parade is touted as the largest African-American parade in the country, running for several miles along Martin Luther King Drive. By now, Obama was a prideful symbol among Chicagoas blacks. And on this beautifully sunny afternoon, Obama and Mich.e.l.le were the king and queen of the parade. Thousands of parade-goers hoisted blue-and-white Obama signs, wore Obama stickers and shrieked in pure joy as his float pa.s.sed by. They serenaded the Hyde Park Democrat with chants of aO-ba-ma! O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!a Obama drew such a pa.s.sionate outpouring from the crowd that even he and his aides were overwhelmed. aAt one point, I thought Barack was going to rise up over the people and start saying, aMy children, my children, I have come to free you,aa joked his driver and bodyguard, Mike Signator. aIt was just incredible.a Keyes, however, was relegated to the back of the pack, proceeding by foot. And he was anything but welcomed by the crowd. As Keyes shook hands and walked along the parade route, attendees taunted, booed and hissed. One man briefly grabbed his arm and warned him, aTake your a.s.s back to Maryland.a As Keyes tried to shake hands between 47th and 48th Streets, a wild-eyed woman ran up to him, lifted an Obama sign above her head and screamed repeatedly into Keyesas face: aObama for president! Obama for president!a If Keyes, as a black man, had any thoughts of stealing away some black votes from Obama, he could now forget it. He would be lucky to get out of this angry stew without injury.

Keyesas bombastic nature was immediately evident. At the parade, I pulled him aside for an interview. In answering my first question, Keyes, who was wearing a thick gold crucifix around his neck, took dead aim at Obama. He charged that Obama was indirectly supporting the agenocidea of African Americans. Surprised, I asked, aHow is he doing that?a Keyes answered emphatically that Obamaas endors.e.m.e.nt of a womanas legal right to an abortion was killing athousands of black babiesa every year. aWeare the first people who have ever been pushed into genocide before our babies are born,a Keyes said. aSo the people who are supporting that position are actually supporting the systematic extermination of black America.a Through the next several months, Keyesas antiabortion rhetoric became no less incendiary. At one point he stated that if Jesus could vote in Illinois, he would cast a ballot against Obama because aBarack Obama has voted to behave in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved.a Again Keyes referred to Obamaas stance in favor of abortion rights.

Keyes was a gifted orator himself, able to deliver a political sermon that could convince his true believers that they were engaged in a battle of good versus evil. He would raise a fist, wag a finger and proselytize like a preacher spreading the tenets of Christianity to the chosen followers.

Nevertheless, the broad populace was unimpressed. Polling showed that Obama was destroying Keyes throughout the state. Still, as with Rickey Hendon in the state legislature, there was something about Keyes that got under Obamaas skin. Running across Keyes at a parade on the North Side of the city one weekend, Obama rushed over and tried to talk to him. Obama is someone who loathes conflict, and he thought that he could have a reasonable discussion with this man who had been hurling hateful invective at him. aBarack thinks he can win over anyone,a Jim Cauley observed. aHe thinks he can go into a roomful of skinheads and come out with all their votes.a Before long, Obama and Keyes were engaged in a verbal tussle that was heightened when Obama, trying to calm the situation, put his hand on Keyesas shoulder. The next dayas newspapers would feature photos of the altercation, prompting Axelrod to give Obama some worthwhile advice: aYou know, Barack, you canat hug a porcupine without getting p.r.i.c.ked.a Obama explained in The Audacity of Hope that Keyesas attacks on Obamaas Christianity and Keyesas readings of Scripture aput me on the defensive.a aWhat could I say? That a literal reading of the Bible was folly?a Obama wrote. aI answered with the usual liberal response in such debatesa”that we live in a pluralistic society, that I canat impose my religious views on another, that I was running to be the U.S. Senator from Illinois and not the minister of Illinois. But even as I answered, I was mindful of Mr. Keyesas implicit accusationa”that I remain steeped in doubt, that my faith was adulterated, that I was not a true Christian.a The rest of the way, Obama kept his head in the game and his hands off the porcupine. That November, in perhaps the most anticlimactic moment of Obamaas political ascension, he won the general election by the largest margin of victory in the history of Senate races in Illinois, defeating Keyes by a final tally of 70 percent to 29 percent.

ODDLY ENOUGH, THE FINAL CELEBRATION PARTY FOR OBAMAaS election victory was one of the less compelling moments of the campaign. With the Keyes debacle, Obamaas success was all but a.s.sured, and most eyes that evening were on the presidential contest between John Kerry and President Bush. When Kerry lost, there was a palpable deflation among Obamaas Democratic partygoers. Axelrod, in a moment of idealism, worried about disillusionment among the young people who had volunteered to work on behalf of Kerry and the Democrats. aWe canat lose them, but how do we keep them engaged after this?a Axelrod asked. When I looked at Obama and suggested that these young asave-the-worlda types, in the description of Jim Cauley, might gravitate toward the Democratsa newest rising star, Axelrod waved a hand. It was too early to think in those terms, he insisted.

Obamaas performance on election night was less than stellar, at times revealing his tendency to rebel against the trappings that accompany his career success. As the election results rolled in, his staff had a.s.sembled the candidate with Mich.e.l.le, Sasha and Malia in an upper-level hotel suite for a series of five-minute photo opportunities. Obama and his family sat on a light-colored couch with a widescreen TV in the background. Obama flashed his toothy smile throughout the photo sessions and his daughters delighted in the attention for a few minutes before growing bored and asking their parents when the pictures would be over. In between the processions of newspaper and television photographers, Obama squirmed in his seat and appeared more than a little uncomfortable in the contrived atmosphere. Just as when forcing a smile at d.i.c.k Durbinas joke again and again, Obama did not suffer well some of the showy, artificial moments of being a politician. aHe hates this phony s.h.i.+t,a Vietor said as we watched him hug his daughters and smile for the cameras.

Also dampening enthusiasm that evening was Obamaas speaking performance. He was so tired from the final frenetic leg of campaigning that his victory speech was rather flat. He had no time to compose anything new, leading him to wander languidly among various familiar anecdotes and talk too long. But his biggest flub was thanking everyone up front rather than after the speech. This led to some of the Chicago television stations s.h.i.+fting away from his speech midstream. But that was of little concern to his advisers. Obama had won the election, and this was all superfluous to that outcome.

Before the election, Axelrod hypothesized that a Kerry victory would be a G.o.dsend to Obama because the center of power for Democrats would s.h.i.+ft to the White House, lifting the hot glare of the Was.h.i.+ngton media off Obama, who, after all, would be just an incoming freshman low in seniority. This, in theory, would have allowed Obama to settle into his new job in relative peace. Indeed, Axelrod and Gibbs were already hard at work trying to structure the next phase of Obamaas career. In Chicago, political insiders marveled at how artfully Axelrod and Obamaas braintrust had managed his campaign amid the truly bizarre circ.u.mstances of the racea”circ.u.mstances that, in the end, worked in Obamaas favor. aIt was a thing of beauty to watch from the outside, like watching a play that David had written, with all the acts progressing into one another perfectly,a a Chicago political consultant said with a sense of deep admiration for Axelrod.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the campaign script was Obamaas perpetual clean slate through the race. With his main rivals essentially doing themselves in, Obama was never forced to launch a nasty public attack of any sort. And he never had a major negative attack launched at him. This played perfectly into his mantra of a anew kind of politicsa in which combatants can do political battle with civility. But it also raised questions about Obamaas toughness: How would he withstand an attack in a future election? I wondered this myselfa”after all, he seemed fairly sensitive about my mild observation that his intellectual verbosity would be a negative as a debater. He also seemed far too sensitive to the wild attacks of Keyes. aI canat believe how this guy is trash-talking me,a he once told Mich.e.l.le.

Indeed, the talk of the election night party was what the future held for the new senator. Several aides predicted a difficult transition to Was.h.i.+ngton. aHe is the smartest man I have ever met, but I think his first year is going to be really hard,a said Amanda Fuchs, his campaign policy director. aHe is going to need to learn to delegate more because there will be plenty of smart people around him. He is going to have to learn that he canat do everything himself, especially all his policy. And he is going to learn that Republicans in D.C. are not going to work with him in the same way they did in Springfield, no matter how much he reaches out to them.a The aspect of Obamaas life that would be easier was his finances. Obama had leveraged his star power and the blazing sales of his first memoir into a lucrative new book deal, which he signed in December 2004. He netted an advance of nearly two million dollars to write three books, including a childrenas book with Mich.e.l.le. Upon hearing of the sum of money he would reap, Mich.e.l.le had to admit that her earlier judgment had been wrong. Obamaas plan for success, which Mich.e.l.le had likened to so much pie in the sky, had miraculously worked. Her husband had won a Senate seat and now would write a book that would stabilize his family financially for his lifetime. He had climbed the beanstalk and had indeed descended with the golden egg. aI canat believe you pulled this off,a Mich.e.l.le told him. For a man who never sought excessive wealth, Obama now had it. aI am not looking for money,a he had told Jim Cauley. aAll Iam looking for is a decent house and the ability to send my little girls to whatever school I want.a Those goals were now accomplished.

CHAPTER.

22.

The Senator.

There are probably folks on the left who want me to be Paul Wellstone. And I love Paul Wellstone, but Iam not Paul Wellstone. I donat agree with everything Paul said. And one of the things you come into office and everybodyas projectinga”particularly the way I came ina”everybodyas projecting their own views onto you.

a”BARACK OBAMA.

Barack Obamaas inauguration week in January 2005 appeared to be a time of joy for him and his family, although the pressures of his celebrity were not to abate. During his first news conference in Was.h.i.+ngton, a reporter asked earnestly, aWhat is your place in history?a But most of the week was about enjoying the spectacle of the moment.

After taking the oath of office, Obama, Mich.e.l.le and the two girls strolled across the Capitol grounds to the Library of Congress, where he would greet a party of well-wishers from both Illinois and Was.h.i.+ngton. Taking the first steps out of the Capitol, Obama and Mich.e.l.le clasped hands. aCongratulations, Mr. Senator,a Mich.e.l.le said with a soft kiss. aCongratulations, Madame Senator,a Obama responded with a warm smile. With a handful of journalists trailing along to capture the scene, six-year-old Malia looked up at her father and asked, aDaddy, are you going to be president?a It was such an innocent question, but Obama scanned the reporters in his midst and cautiously withheld an answer. Picking up on the cue was Jeff Zeleny, then a Was.h.i.+ngton bureau reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Zeleny arched an eyebrow. aWell, Senator, arenat you going to answer?a Zeleny asked. Obama again ignored the question. Back in Obamaas transitional Senate office, Robert Gibbs received word of Maliaas query and made sure to disseminate it to all reporters who might not have heard the potentially clairvoyant anecdote: Obamaas little daughter had asked if he was going to be president!

As Obama reached the Library of Congress, his party guests were waiting in line to gain entrance. People had come from across Illinois and around Was.h.i.+ngton to fete Obama. His sister Maya and her husband had traveled from Hawaii. Marty Nesbitt and Valerie Jarrett had come from Chicago, along with an a.s.sortment of others. Obama ran up to the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who enveloped Obamaas thin frame in a bear hug. Obama had lost nearly ten pounds on the campaign trail that year. aIam not a toy senator. Iam not a play senator!a Obama said. aIam a real senator now!a Requests for photographs of the real senator came from all around, and he obliged as many as he could. Jackson, always deft when finding a camera to point his way, hoisted a smiling three-year-old Sasha onto a concrete pillar about four feet tall and posed for photographs with his arm around the bright-eyed girl. After the photo was snapped, Jackson stepped away, leaving Sasha standing atop the concrete pillar by herself. Obama saw his three-year-old daughter stranded on the pillar and rushed over to rescue her. He shot a disapproving glance at Jackson, who was oblivious to Obamaas glare and his own lapse in judgment about the little girlas safety.

Inside, amid the party of several hundred fund-raisers and Obama stalwarts, the senator a.s.sured his audience that his mission to create a fairer, more just America had only begun. aWe are bound at the hip,a he said. aWe are going to be working hard to make sure that every child gets a decent shot at life and to make sure that every senior citizen is cared for, that the diversity of this country is appreciated and to make sure that we create the kind of nation that these children and your children and your grandchildren deserve. I promise you that this is not the end of the road.a The question was, where did that road now lead?

AS A STAR ATTRACTION IN WAS

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