For nearly a year before the March 2004 primary I was ranking the contenders for the Democratic nomination to the Illinois US Senate seat in some fashion and it wasn’t until late January that anyone besides Dan Hynes was ever considered anything, but the frontrunner.
Matt Stoller brought this up in terms of Barack’s supposed caution.
One thing to consider is that Obama walked into the Senate. His primary opponent and his general election opponent both self-destructed. In some small way, he thinks of himself as a fraud who snuck into the Senate, undeserving of the attention he gets on a regular basis. He’s never had to make that call to pull the trigger on the negative ads. He’s never weathered the scandals. He’s never been won an actual media intensive campaign.
He beat the fucking machine people. I like Dan Hynes–I like Barack more. But Dan Hynes didn’t self destruct in the primary, he got beat by SEIU, Barack’s talent, and a hell of a media campaign by Axelrod.
Blair Hull had only registered significant support for the last couple months of the campaign and it was largely based upon heavy advertising. Hull ran a decent campaign and barring problems might have made the race closer.
He got 53% of the vote in a 7 way race with five serious candidates. He beat the machine candidate, Hynes, by over 2-1. Hynes won his last statewide election with 60 some % of the vote and had nearly every, if not every county chairman supporting him. Hull ended with 11% of the vote. If Hull had gotten 31% of the vote, Obama presumably would have lost 20 points and been at 33% of the vote.
Obama ran a remarkable insurgent campaign and this meme that he has never been tested is bullshit.
And while certainly anyone would have been a stronger opponent than Keyes, Jack Ryan wasn’t all that impressive of a candidate. In the Republican primary, he got a total of 228,000 votes to over 642,000 votes for Barack. The chief challenge in Illinois is the Democratic Party Primary and Barack ran a remarkable campaign.
“this meme that he has never been tested is bullshit.”
That’s the Repub spin on Obama — and the left’s bloggers (incl. the biggies like Kos and Stoller) — have bought into it for some reason.
It’s bad enough when the conglomerate media runs with this line. We don’t need to feed that beast.
he thinks of himself as a fraud who snuck into the Senate, undeserving of the attention he gets on a regular basis. He’s never had to make that call to pull the trigger on the negative ads. He’s never weathered the scandals. He’s never been won an actual media intensive campaign.
AP,
I read this differently than you did.
I think that Mr. Stoller’s quote above is supposed to represent what Mr. Stoller thinks that Sen. Obama thinks, not objective reality. It’s about perception not facts.
Mr. Stoller seems to be saying that Sen. Obama steps lightly because he is somewhat uncertain of his own legitimacy. Mr. Stoller is presuming to get into Sen. Obama’s head to explain why Barack Obama’s acts as a Senator have not fully reflected the progressive politics of his speeches.
I read it like this: Mr. Stoller believes that the Barack Obama who gives very progressive speeches is the True Obama. And that the Senator who voted for the Bush bankruptcy bill, the Bush class-action bill, confirmation of Condi Rice for Sec. of State and who is supporting the reelection of Joe “Bush’s Favorite Democrat” Lieberman is the side-effect of his lingering uncertainty about whether or not the rocketride to the U.S. Senate was a fluke.
Although I don’t fully buy into Mr. Stoller’s thesis, I do find it appealing. I too would like to believe that Sen. Obama campaigns against grassroots progressives for some reason other than he doesn’t actually believe in grassroots progressive politics. And it is appealing to believe that if I clap my hands and say, “I believe in a liberal Barack Obama,” Sen. Obama will follow his heart to the left.
It’s appealing, but I’m just not sure if it’s true.
Man, I’ve been like the lunatic with the sandwich board and the ratty beard making these same points. Hynes was well-funded, and backed by nearly every Dem heavyweight as well as the building trades and some heavy hitters in the LGBT community (shoring up his liberal bona fides).
Let’s add that Barack was NOT the only African American in the race — Joyce Washington, though underfunded and running a crappy campaign, (who can forget a slogan like “send WASHINGTON to WASHINGTON” – must have taken all night to come up with that), had run statewide before and made a respectable showing for Lt. Guv.
Hull’s lead was strong early because he -wisely- was on TV early. But as Hynes and Obama went up, the race began to tighten. Hull’s implosion didn’t hurt – but if he’d run a better campaign, Hynes could well have capitalized on it and made a real game of it.
This will be a long comment, but it’s my knowledge & opinions of the ’04 senate race. My apologies:
First, I have to say to everybody, excellent points.
I’m probably the only conservative-leaning reader/poster of this blog who doesn’t intend on being a troll. But, I am a non-partisan pundit at heart.
Regarding Obama:
1) This is honestly the first time I’ve heard people questioning, or at least offering up the questioning, of Obama’s legitimacy. Stoller’s comments were new to me, but after thinking about it, he might have a minor point, and I don’t think it’s all bad.
Let me explain.
2) I followed the 2004 primary closely, and I 100% disagree with Stoller that the other candidates, “self-destructed.”
3) With the Hynes candidacy, Obama’s group was at least savvy enough to keep their heads down, not really kick Hynes when HE was down, and come out of the nasty crossfire cleanly.
4) Winning 53% of the vote in a crowded primary is nothing short of astounding, especially since he wasn’t the machine candidate.
5) His general election bid was twofold.
5A) On one hand, he was already handily ahead of the polls on his own accord versus Jack Ryan during the early summer of 2004. That credit should be given to Obama’s campaign organization, and his charismatic ability to connect with people.
5B) On the other hand, Ryan’s campaign did implode/self-destruct. However, the ONLY reason Ryan’s campaign, “self-destructed,” is that he didn’t disclose his damaging divorce details to the state republican party before his nomination. When asked earlier if there was anything the party needed to, “manage,” he told them no. In all fairness, he believed his divorce records were sealed in Los Angeles and would NEVER get out to the general public. The Chicago Tribune sued in court in L.A. and had them released, and the legal (but torrid and sexually-charged) details of his divorce became public.
6) All told, they Ryan campaign’s biggest sin was to be already behind Obama’s by 20 points (give credit to the Obama campaign). With the release of the divorce files, his campaign began an un-recoverable nose-dive.
7) This was one of the Illinois republican party’s darkest hours. George Ryan was under investigation/trial for corruption. Now, they have got a guy named Ryan running for the U.S. Senate with a, “sex scandal,” and he was already 20 points down in the polls to begin with.
7A) Politically, the Illinois GOP did the smart thing and they cut Jack Ryan off and pressured him to quit the campaign.
7B) Then, they did a very politically STUPID thing: brought in an inflamatory carpet-bagger who could get media attention, and would seem like an obvious ploy to play the race card against Obama. Of course, it failed miserably, and it deserved to.
8) Obama is a charismatic, powerful, and popular figure in Illinois politics. If I were a personal advisor to the IL GOP, my advice would be this:
Obama is a fixture, and he’ll be here for the rest of his life if he wants to, barring any tremendous scandal. Do not try to unseat him. Instead, whenever Obama is up for an election, run a young rising star in the GOP party. They WILL LOSE. But, as long as they hold their own and run a clean campaign, that candidate will get state-wide recognition, and then run for the other senate seat or the governorship in 2 or 4 years.
9) I’m sorry for the rambling comment, but here’s my final point on Stoller’s observation about why Obama is treading lightly in the Senate.
First, it’s the politically savvy thing to do. I read an interview in “The Nation” about Obama, and one thing was clear: he is results oriented. Yes, he may be a principled progressive with an agenda. But he’s also realistic about his chances about pushing his own legislation through as a freshman senator. Give it time.
The second point is this: So what if Stoller’s right? That might actually be a GOOD thing. Having a powerful, popular, charasmatic politician on your side is good. But personally, I feel better at night if that SAME figure is a *tad* uneasy about his power & influence. It makes him more thoughtful and careful about the steps he makes. Instead of being an imperial & proverbial bull in a china shop, he picks & chooses his battles carefully.
Wow. I’m embarassed about the length of this comment. I must be VERY bored at work.
Carry on…..
Larry
It’s the signal-to-noise ratio that counts not the length.
Thanks for the post.
I think the Hull implosion did help Obama more than anyone else, since he was just really starting his media spend when that happened. Obama was generally polling third in the primary until that happened. Also machine or no, Danny ran a bad campaign, in particular his ads sucked, Obama’s use of media was brilliant.
As for Jack Ryan, 20 points down was something he could have addressed. It is a long time between April and November.
He could have gone negative on Obama early, it would have at least made it closer and raised Obama’s negavtives in Illinois, may have prevent him from being the keynote speaker at the convention which really helped Obama accross the board. Ryan could have helped define Obama in a different way.
Then again I have been called bitter about this race.