It helps to have an excellent writer profile you who happens to like you a lot.
I find the most interesting to be his ability to analyze legislation
In retrospect, that walk through the political shadows proved a turning point in Obama’s career. He recommitted himself to the Illinois Senate, where his intelligence and his growing savvy about the legislative process were combining to make him increasingly formidable. When Democrats took over the chamber in 2003, Obama won General Assembly approval of 26 bills, including legislation to expand healthcare benefits for uninsured children and adults, an earned income tax credit for low earners, and major criminal justice reforms.
The latter measures were of particular interest to me. In the summer of 2002, Obama had called me to get together to talk about death-penalty reform. For more than two years, I had sat as one of the 14 members of the Commission on Capital Punishment, a body that Gov. Ryan had appointed in 2000, after declaring a moratorium on executions in Illinois because of a growing record of mistakes in the capital process, most notably the death sentences of 13 individuals who were subsequently exonerated. In April 2002, the commission issued its report, including 85 recommendations for reform of Illinois’ laws.
Despite Ryan’s support for our recommendations, resistance to the measures ran deep in the General Assembly, due in large part to the barely tempered rage that had been been expressed by many Illinois prosecutors. After appearing at legislative hearings that spring, I grew skeptical that any of the proposals would become law. When I met Obama the following summer, he went through the recommendations with me, analyzing which proposed reforms had a chance of passing and which did not. I was impressed not only by the shrewdness of his analysis but also by his lack of rancor about those who disagreed with him and, most of all, by his refusal to bow to conventional wisdom about what was possible. There were a couple of provisions that had essentially been pronounced DOA, where I remember Obama saying, We might be able to do something there.
Oh, and no I haven’t seen any polls, but I check the Hotline every day so as soon as I see ’em, so will you.