Meanwhile, the true voice of sustained humility in Obama's life was his wife, who was back home in Chicago. Mich.e.l.le Obama regarded the unending clamor and sycophancy that now attended her husband with a bracingly astringent bemus.e.m.e.nt. At the swearing-in ceremony At the swearing-in ceremony, she observed all the commotion and said, "Maybe one day he will do something to warrant all this attention."

In his three years as an active senator, Obama proved a reliable Democrat, voting with his Party more than ninety-five per cent of the time; at one point, he even earned the rating of "most liberal" from relatively uncontentious arbiters like as an active senator, Obama proved a reliable Democrat, voting with his Party more than ninety-five per cent of the time; at one point, he even earned the rating of "most liberal" from relatively uncontentious arbiters like The National Journal The National Journal. And yet he sought, above all, to emphasize his flexibility and pragmatism. "Over the next six years "Over the next six years, there will be occasions where people will be surprised by my positions," he told Zeleny. "I won't be easy to categorize as many people expect."

Obama voted against Bush's nominee for Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, but he supported Bush's second-term nomination for Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, offering the rationalization that despite her unquestioning involvement in the planning of the Iraq war, a war that he had judged "a dumb war," Rice was a committed and intelligent diplomat and the President was not likely to nominate someone less conservative if she was rejected. He did not vote to punish. He also voted against a defense appropriations bill that would have included a firm date for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Despite lobbying by John Kerry, Obama supported the White House on legislation capping payoffs in cla.s.s-action lawsuits. He voted for bills strengthening environmental protection and free trade. He voted consistently for abortion rights.

Obama had wanted an appointment to the Commerce Committee, in order to be able to get some pork for his const.i.tuents in Illinois. He had hoped that his campaigning for Democratic candidates in the 2004 elections--which he had been able to do because his own race was not in doubt--would be enough to gain him the appointment. The Party leadership placed him instead on the committees for Environment and Public Works, Veterans Affairs, and Foreign Relations. At committee sessions, Obama, as the most junior senator, was eighteenth in line to ask questions; the committee room would often be all but empty when his turn at the microphone came. During Rice's confirmation hearings During Rice's confirmation hearings in the Foreign Relations Committee, Obama grew increasingly bored during one of Joe Biden's bloviations. Finally, Obama leaned back in his chair and handed one of his aides a note. The aide was excited to receive his first serious communication from the Senator. The note read, "Shoot. Me. Now." in the Foreign Relations Committee, Obama grew increasingly bored during one of Joe Biden's bloviations. Finally, Obama leaned back in his chair and handed one of his aides a note. The aide was excited to receive his first serious communication from the Senator. The note read, "Shoot. Me. Now."

Obama's closest friend in the Senate was his Illinois colleague, Richard Durbin. For Obama, Durbin was a link to the glory days of Illinois liberalism. When Durbin was an undergraduate at Georgetown, he'd served as an intern in the office of Paul Douglas; as a young lawyer, he was counsel to Paul Simon when he was lieutenant governor. Durbin was elected to the House in 1982 and to the Senate in 1996; for Obama, he was a teacher unthreatened by the younger man's glossy public image and boundless prospects.

Richard Lugar of Indiana, a Republican who was the longtime chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and an advocate of tighter control of nuclear-and conventional-weapons stockpiles, also tutored Obama. Lugar had worked with Sam Nunn, of Georgia, on the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program to secure weapons stockpiles across the former Soviet Union. Obama had made a name for himself by opposing the invasion of Iraq, but there was not much he could do on the Foreign Relations Committee about Iraq. He thought he could make a concrete impact, with Lugar's help, by becoming an active voice on proliferation issues.

In August, 2005, as a member of a congressional delegation that also included Lugar, Obama went to Russia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan to meet with officials and inspect various weapons-storage facilities. He had traveled fairly widely in Asia, Africa, and Europe, but this was his first trip to the former Soviet Union. The folkways of political missions to Moscow were alien to him. Faced with the prospect Faced with the prospect of mutual, and repeated, toasts, Obama asked to have his shot gla.s.s filled with water instead of vodka. Obama experienced what Lugar had many times before: rides in rickety buses to secret weapons sites; the dismantling of aging rockets; interminable briefings from officials telling partial truths. In Kiev, Obama went with Lugar to a dilapidated laboratory that had been used in the old Soviet biological weapons program. of mutual, and repeated, toasts, Obama asked to have his shot gla.s.s filled with water instead of vodka. Obama experienced what Lugar had many times before: rides in rickety buses to secret weapons sites; the dismantling of aging rockets; interminable briefings from officials telling partial truths. In Kiev, Obama went with Lugar to a dilapidated laboratory that had been used in the old Soviet biological weapons program. "So we enter into the building "So we enter into the building," Obama recalled for an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington a few weeks after the trip. "There are no discernible fences or security systems. And once we are inside, some sort of ramshackle building, there were open windows, maybe a few padlocks that many of us might use to secure our own luggage. Our guide, a young woman, takes us right up to what looked like a mini-refrigerator. And inside the refrigerator there were rows upon rows of test tubes. She picked them up, and she's clanking them around, and we listened to the translator explain what she was saying. Some of the tubes, he said, were filled with anthrax and others with plague. And you know, I'm pretty close and I start sort of backing off a little bit. And I turn around ... and say, 'Hey, where's Lugar? Doesn't he want to see this?' And I turn around and he's way in the back of the room, about fifteen feet away. And he looked at me and said, 'Been there, done that.'"

Lugar had made countless such trips, but, for Obama, it was a revelation. He had studied arms-control issues at Columbia; now it stunned him to see the weaponry up close. "When you are there you get a sense of the totality of the nuclear program and the stockpiles of conventional arms," Mark Lippert, Obama's foreign-policy adviser, said. "It made an incredible impact on him to see the industrial complex behind it all. When we were in Ukraine, we went to a factory where they were disa.s.sembling conventional weapons. There were just piles and piles of sh.e.l.ls. They told us that, working at the rate they were working, it would take eighty years to disa.s.semble them all. At one chem-bio plant, we saw a freezer for the pathogens kept closed by just a string."

Three months after the trip, Lugar and Obama published an article on the Washington the trip, Lugar and Obama published an article on the Washington Post's Post's op-ed page called "Junkyard Dogs of War," warning against the spread of loose conventional weapons from the former Soviet Union and elsewhere, "particularly shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles that can hit civilian airliners." Lugar and Obama introduced legislation to gain the cooperation of other nations and tighten control of arms caches in the former Soviet Union that were being routinely plundered, and whose contents were being used to make improvised roadside bombs in the Middle East and to fuel civil wars in Africa. The legislation helped strengthen systems to detect and intercept illegal shipments of materials used in chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. op-ed page called "Junkyard Dogs of War," warning against the spread of loose conventional weapons from the former Soviet Union and elsewhere, "particularly shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles that can hit civilian airliners." Lugar and Obama introduced legislation to gain the cooperation of other nations and tighten control of arms caches in the former Soviet Union that were being routinely plundered, and whose contents were being used to make improvised roadside bombs in the Middle East and to fuel civil wars in Africa. The legislation helped strengthen systems to detect and intercept illegal shipments of materials used in chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.

Obama's work with Lugar was not the only instance of his cooperating with Republicans and Democratic centrists. He worked with Mel Martinez, a Republican from Florida, on immigration reform, and with Tom Coburn, a right-wing Republican from Oklahoma, on legislation to bring greater transparency to government contracting. He was getting along with his own Party and with his colleagues in general.

"I am sure it was in the back of my mind that he would run for President someday," Lippert said, "but he felt we had to be serious and map out very particular policy issues where we could be heard. Obama's basic mantra is, You figure out the policy and I will figure out the politics."

During his term, Obama also called on journalists like Fareed Zakaria, of Newsweek Newsweek, and Thomas Friedman and David Brooks, of the New York Times Times, to talk about policy. Obama was comfortable with them, eager to exchange ideas and, at the same time, playfully aware of the game of mutual seduction. When Brooks, a moderate conservative, wrote a column attacking the Republicans in Congress on fiscal issues and then added an additional attack on the Democrats, Obama sent him a friendly e-mail saying, "If you want to attack us fine, but you are only throwing in those sentences to make yourself feel better." Brooks felt caught out. "He was calling me to my better nature," Brooks said, wryly. As a conservative, Brooks was disappointed that Obama was such "an orthodox Democrat," but impressed with his intellect and the collective intelligence of the people whom he appointed.

Obama struck journalists as a voracious reader, deliberative, versed in policy and political philosophy. He could talk Reagan and Burke with Brooks and foreign policy with Zakaria and Friedman, all with the politician's gift of making his guest feel that he agrees with him. They were all struck by his charm and lack of neediness, his intelligence and what one called "his gargantuan self-confidence"--a freshman senator who was convinced he could get in a room with foreign-policy realists and idealists and somehow transcend the battle and reconcile the two sides. Their conversations started from the a.s.sumption that Obama had read their books and articles and he spent nearly all of the meetings listening.

As a law professor, Obama used to say that he had to know Antonin Scalia's side of arguments as well as Scalia did in order to win the debate. But for all his talk about seeing both sides of a question and occasionally siding with the opposition, Obama was, ideologically, squarely in the center of the post-Bill Clinton Democratic Party. His views, foreign and domestic, were generally progressive, but their expression was more a.n.a.lytic and deliberative than pa.s.sionate. Pa.s.sionate moralism would never be his dominant key. He could admire Edward Kennedy's ferocious advocacy of universal health care or the strong human-rights orientation of some of his other colleagues, but he was wary of what he saw as emotional absolutism. This was especially true for foreign policy.

"The sense I got from him then was that his fundamental view of the world was rooted as much in the struggle for development and economic growth as it was in missiles and the Cold War," Zakaria recalled. "I think this came first from his mother and Indonesia. His first memory of a foreign-policy event was not of Vietnam or of the Soviet Union but of life on the ground in Jakarta. The struggle for survival and development--that's the prism through which he sees the world. That is why the neocon agenda or even the recent formulation of the liberal internationalist agenda is not something he leaps toward immediately. It's not because of some coldness about democracy, but rather because he understands that, for the vast majority of the world, there is first a basic struggle for dignity and survival. I think that view comes from the Kennedy era, even though Kennedy was a cold warrior: the Alliance for Progress, the Peace Corps, the age of Pell Grants, aid to Africa, the Green Revolution in India. His mother was absorbed in that and so is he.

"Obama is a kind of practical idealist," Zakaria went on. "He told me that he admired George H. W. Bush's diplomacy, his careful management of the end the Cold War and his emphasis on productive relations with the world's other major powers. I can't think of many Democrats then who said that. He writes in his book about reading Fanon and other leftists when he was young, but it seemed to me that, in his view of the world, he moved beyond that. He is a sober type. And part of that seems to come from another influence: the University of Chicago. He was steeped in the atmosphere of law and economics. He may not have taken on their arguments, but something rubbed off in his view of the world--the realism and the logic."

In late August, 2005, Hurricane Katrina submerged much of the city of New Orleans, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and, it seemed, the Bush Presidency. The storm overwhelmed the levees and emergency systems of New Orleans, and the public officials at the center of the tragedy--the mayor, Ray Nagin; the governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco; the chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael Brown; and most of all, President Bush--underperformed to such a degree that countless people caught up in the tragedy, along with millions who witnessed it on television, blamed those officials almost as if the hurricane had been an act of pure human agency rather than a force of nature. Bush's clueless fly-over detachment in the first days of the tragedy seemed to many a domestic version of his arrogance and deceit during the run-up to the war in Iraq, his hapless management of its prosecution, and his blithe indifference to the reports of torture. In Katrina's wake, the facts and images of incompetence, mismanagement, and callousness became as indelibly fixed as the images of the storm itself. The Bush Presidency was now, like the Lower Ninth Ward, underwater.

For eight months, Obama, even as he was ubiquitous on magazine covers and on television programs as a political celebrity of certain promise, had been a mild presence in the national debate. He had shied away from out-of-state speaking engagements and the Sunday talk shows. He avoided controversy. This studied reticence was part of the first stage of the plan that Rouse and his team had drafted for him. Obama had not wanted to get ahead of himself and seem like a preening show horse, the least desirable breed in the Senate stable. But as the sole African-American in the Senate, he could not avoid speaking out about Katrina.

Among Democrats, at least, there was not much debate about the performance of the President and the local government officials; the question for Obama was what tone to adopt. Jesse Jackson, and also black intellectuals like Cornel West, compared the images of crowds of African-Americans herded into the Superdome or left to broil on highway overpa.s.ses without food or water to Africans in previous centuries being herded onto slave ships. White Democratic Party leaders, including Howard Dean and Hillary Clinton, joined in the criticism, accusing the Administration of acting so slowly because of lingering racism.

When the hurricane made landfall, Obama had been in Russia, but the week after the storm he went to the Gulf Coast with former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush. Obama stood silently with Hillary Clinton as the two ex-Presidents spoke to reporters at various disaster sites. Then, appearing on ABC's Then, appearing on ABC's Sunday morning talk show "This Week," with George Stephanopoulos, Obama criticized the government response, but painstakingly, without attacking anyone directly. His tone was many degrees less fierce than that of Jesse Jackson or Cornel West. "Whoever was in charge of planning was so detached from the realities of inner-city life in a place like New Orleans," Obama said, "they couldn't conceive of the notion that [people] couldn't load up their S.U.V.s, put a hundred dollars' worth of gas in there, put some sparkling water, and drive off to a hotel and check in with a credit card." Sunday morning talk show "This Week," with George Stephanopoulos, Obama criticized the government response, but painstakingly, without attacking anyone directly. His tone was many degrees less fierce than that of Jesse Jackson or Cornel West. "Whoever was in charge of planning was so detached from the realities of inner-city life in a place like New Orleans," Obama said, "they couldn't conceive of the notion that [people] couldn't load up their S.U.V.s, put a hundred dollars' worth of gas in there, put some sparkling water, and drive off to a hotel and check in with a credit card."

Obama's initial response was calibrated to express a sober awareness of reality--"It was apparent on the first day that blacks were disproportionately impacted"--not a sense of outrage or blame. In an interview with the In an interview with the Tribune Tribune, Obama was almost as hard on the Democrats as he was on Bush. "It is way too simplistic just to say this Administration doesn't care about black people," he said. "I think it is entirely accurate to say that this Administration's policies don't take into account the plight of poor people in poor communities and this is a tragic reflection of that indifference, but I also have to say that it's an indifference that is not entirely partisan. We as Democrats have not been very interested in poverty or issues relating to the inner city as much as we should have. Think about the last Presidential campaign: it's pretty hard to focus on a moment on which there was any attention given."

Even if Obama was privately outraged by the Bush Administration's early indifference to the suffering on the Gulf Coast--an outrage that he did express later--he clearly saw that his job as a senator was to forge a broader political consensus for reform rather than embody the popular anger. This rhetorical tact was partly a matter of temperament, and partly indicative of a generational shift. It was hard to imagine many older African-American legislators or mayors using the rhetoric of calm conciliation in Katrina's wake. Obama said that the "encouraging thing" about Katrina was that "everybody" was generous to the victims: "white suburban Republicans as well as black liberal Democrats."

"The burden is on us as Democrats, the burden is on me as a U.S. senator to help bridge that gap," he said. as Democrats, the burden is on me as a U.S. senator to help bridge that gap," he said.

Although his votes in the Senate were more predictably liberal than he advertised, Obama felt it was essential to show that he possessed a distinctive equanimity and cool. Conciliation was his default mode, the dominant strain of his political personality. After witnessing the partisan political wars that stretched from Watergate to the Clinton impeachment trial and the battles now being waged over the Bush Presidency on the Internet and cable television, Obama insisted on a rhetoric of common ground. He was instinctively wary of ideology, and sometimes this left even sympathetic colleagues and critics frustrated and wondering what he really believed in, what was essential to his view of the world. This had been his way since Harvard when he extended a hand to conservatives even at the cost of disappointing some fellow liberals. in the Senate were more predictably liberal than he advertised, Obama felt it was essential to show that he possessed a distinctive equanimity and cool. Conciliation was his default mode, the dominant strain of his political personality. After witnessing the partisan political wars that stretched from Watergate to the Clinton impeachment trial and the battles now being waged over the Bush Presidency on the Internet and cable television, Obama insisted on a rhetoric of common ground. He was instinctively wary of ideology, and sometimes this left even sympathetic colleagues and critics frustrated and wondering what he really believed in, what was essential to his view of the world. This had been his way since Harvard when he extended a hand to conservatives even at the cost of disappointing some fellow liberals.

In the fall of 2005, Obama and his Democratic colleagues were faced with the Bush Administration's nomination of John Roberts, a conservative federal judge, to succeed William Rehnquist as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Obama held long discussions with his staff over how to vote. As in the case of the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State, Obama knew that the Administration was not likely to put forward a less conservative nominee if somehow the Roberts nomination failed to gain approval from the Senate. Obama admitted that Roberts had a good legal mind and that if he were President he would not want his nominees rebuffed for ideological reasons, either. Obama's mentor at Harvard, Laurence Tribe, had testified against Robert Bork during the Reagan years and, in July, 1987, Edward Kennedy had insisted on the floor of the Senate that in "Robert Bork's America," women would be forced into "back-alley abortions," blacks would return to "segregated lunch counters," writers and artists would be "censored at the whim of the government," and "rogue police" making "midnight raids" could break into the homes of citizens. Was Roberts really Robert Bork's ideological twin? What good would it do to attack him? Perhaps, relying on the same rationale as he had when he voted for Rice, he should vote for Roberts. Eventually, Pete Rouse Eventually, Pete Rouse brought the discussion down to earth and into the realm of politics. He told Obama that he was not engaged in a moot-court exercise at Harvard Law School. There were real-life political implications to his decision. He told Obama that a vote in favor of the Roberts nomination could prove crippling among Democratic voters in a future Presidential primary. brought the discussion down to earth and into the realm of politics. He told Obama that he was not engaged in a moot-court exercise at Harvard Law School. There were real-life political implications to his decision. He told Obama that a vote in favor of the Roberts nomination could prove crippling among Democratic voters in a future Presidential primary.

As he had proved in Cambridge, Chicago, and Springfield, Obama could be shrewd when balancing the impulse of principle and the realities of politics and career. In a statement, he said that he had just spoken with Roberts the day before; he complimented him as "humble," "personally decent," and respectful of precedent in "ninety-five percent of the cases that come before the federal court." The problem, he said, came with the other five per cent, with cases involving affirmative action, reproductive decisions, and the rights of the disabled. Roberts, Obama said, told him that it was hard for him to talk about his values, except to say that he "doesn't like bullies" and views the law as a way of "evening out the playing field between the strong and the weak." In the end, Obama said that Roberts, in his work in the White House and the Solicitor General's Office, "seemed to have consistently sided with those who were dismissive of efforts to eradicate the remnants of racial discrimination." With "considerable reticence," he was going to vote against Roberts.

Obama's demurral hardly matched Kennedy's ferocious denunciation of Robert Bork; such rhetoric was not his style or his political way of being. The final tally was seventy-eight to twenty-two in favor of Roberts; nearly all the votes against Roberts came from blue-state Democrats. On similar grounds, Obama also voted against Samuel Alito, Bush's second nomination to the Supreme Court. In order "to send a signal" that the President "is not above the law," Obama also voted against Bush's nominee for director of the Central Intelligence Agency, General Michael Hayden.

Some combination of Obama's very real objections to Roberts's record and Rouse's hardheaded political logic had won the day. Obama was not reluctant to compliment his chief of staff for his prescience. "Pete's very good "Pete's very good at looking around the corners of decisions and playing out the implications of them," Obama said, two years after the Roberts vote. at looking around the corners of decisions and playing out the implications of them," Obama said, two years after the Roberts vote.

But the Roberts story did not end there. Some Democrats--Patrick Leahy, Christopher Dodd, Carl Levin, Russ Feingold, and Patty Murray--had voted for Roberts, and, as a result, they were being excoriated on many left-leaning Web sites, including the popular collaborative blog Daily Kos. In his speech on the floor, Obama defended Leahy, especially, against these "broad-brush dogmatic attacks." He took the occasion of that fierce criticism of his colleagues to send a letter to Daily Kos that in many ways could be read as a kind of manifesto for his conciliatory temperament, which he clearly regarded as an essential element of his politics and of his appeal.

The letter was ent.i.tled "Tone, Truth, and the Democratic Party" and was posted on September 30, 2005. "Tone, Truth, and the Democratic Party" and was posted on September 30, 2005.

After apologizing for failing to follow blogs "as regularly as I would like," Obama wrote that he wanted to address "friends and supporters": There is one way, over the long haul, to guarantee the appointment of judges that are sensitive to issues of social justice, and that is to win the right to appoint them by recapturing the presidency and the Senate. And I don't believe we get there by vilifying good allies, with a lifetime record of battling for progressive causes, over one vote or position. I am convinced that, our mutual frustrations and strongly held beliefs notwithstanding, the strategy driving much of Democratic advocacy, and the tone of much of our rhetoric, is an impediment to creating a workable progressive majority in this country.According to the storyline that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists--a storyline often reflected in comments on this blog--we are up against a sharply partisan, radically conservative, take-no-prisoners Republican party. They have beaten us twice by energizing their base with red meat rhetoric and single-minded devotion and discipline to their agenda. In order to beat them, it is necessary for Democrats to get some backbone, give as good as they get, brook no compromise, drive out Democrats who are interested in "appeasing" the right wing, and enforce a more clearly progressive agenda. The country, finally knowing what we stand for and seeing a sharp contrast, will rally to our side and thereby usher in a new progressive era.I think this perspective misreads the American people. From traveling throughout Illinois and more recently around the country, I can tell you that Americans are suspicious of labels and suspicious of jargon. They don't think George Bush is mean-spirited or prejudiced, but have become aware that his administration is irresponsible and often incompetent. They don't think that corporations are inherently evil (a lot of them work in corporations), but they recognize that big business, unchecked, can fix the game to the detriment of working people and small entrepreneurs. They don't think America is an imperialist brute, but are angry that the case to invade Iraq was exaggerated, are worried that we have unnecessarily alienated existing and potential allies around the world, and are ashamed by events like those at Abu Ghraib, which violate our ideals as a country.

In a style of insistent reasonableness--the same tone that he employed the next year in his book The Audacity of Hope The Audacity of Hope--Obama argued that most people saw the debate over the Roberts nomination through a "non-ideological" lens and that to argue in less than civil terms is to risk alienating most Americans and, worse, to endanger the creation of a progressive coalition. His rhetorical approach was to acknowledge the virtues of both sides, caution against moral equivalence, but insist on courtesy and respect. Obama insisted that civility need not come at the cost of rigor or principle. Some critics argued that Obama's emphasis on civility was a form of delicacy, an escape from rigor and principle. But Obama was convinced that his argument would resonate with voters weary of the yowling on cable news and the most profane battle scenes of the Web.

Obama asked Daily Kos readers to see that some Democrats (if not Obama himself) were concerned that a floor battle over Roberts would be "quixotic" and endanger the Party's attempt to win back the majority in the coming elections. In other words, there were valid reasons for liberal Democrats like Leahy to vote for Roberts. Similarly, Obama asked that the readers of Daily Kos not attack the motives of Richard Durbin or himself for failing to call for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq despite their early opposition to the invasion. Durbin, Obama said, "may be simply trying to figure out, as I am, how to ensure that U.S. troop withdrawals occur in such a way that we avoid all-out Iraqi civil war, chaos in the Middle East, and much more costly and deadly interventions down the road." In his letter, Obama aimed at a.s.suring the readers of Daily Kos, and liberals in general, that they were his natural allies, but cautioned them against a rhetoric that alienates all but true believers. Without a broader coalition, progressives will not be able to overhaul health care, lift people out of poverty or "craft a foreign policy that meets the challenges of globalization or terrorism while avoiding isolationism and protecting civil liberties." The arguments for belligerent, unilateral foreign policy, the dismantling of a social safety net, and a politics of "theological absolutism" are relatively easy to make, Obama said. Liberalism is hard and demands nuance and exchange. Obama's argument was not for reflexive centrism or caving in to conservative opponents but, rather, for a flexibility of mind and tolerance in argument to gain liberal ends.

"This is more than just a matter of 'framing,' although clarity of language, thought, and heart are required," Obama wrote. "It's a matter of actually having faith in the American people's ability to hear a real and authentic debate about the issues that matter."

Afterward, Obama used a favorite phrase to describe the Roberts vote and his letter. He called it a "teachable moment." The letter was not, however, a wholly pedagogical gesture. Obama's desire was to position himself and the Party as being beyond the old arguments of the centrists of the Democratic Leadership Conference (a major influence in the Clinton Administration) and the "old-time-religion-Ted-Kennedy-die-hard types." The danger of the D.L.C., Obama said, was its impulse to "cut a deal no matter what the deal is," while the danger for traditional liberals was to be "unreflective" and "unwilling to experiment or update old programs to meet new challenges." a favorite phrase to describe the Roberts vote and his letter. He called it a "teachable moment." The letter was not, however, a wholly pedagogical gesture. Obama's desire was to position himself and the Party as being beyond the old arguments of the centrists of the Democratic Leadership Conference (a major influence in the Clinton Administration) and the "old-time-religion-Ted-Kennedy-die-hard types." The danger of the D.L.C., Obama said, was its impulse to "cut a deal no matter what the deal is," while the danger for traditional liberals was to be "unreflective" and "unwilling to experiment or update old programs to meet new challenges."

"And the way I would describe myself," Obama said, "is I think that my values are deeply rooted in the progressive tradition, the values of equal opportunity, civil rights, fighting for working families, a foreign policy that is mindful of human rights, a strong belief in civil liberties, wanting to be a good steward for the environment, a sense that the government has an important role to play, that opportunity is open to all people and that the powerful don't trample on the less powerful ... I share all the aims of a Paul Wellstone or a Ted Kennedy when it comes to the end result. But I'm much more agnostic, much more flexible on how we achieve those ends." myself," Obama said, "is I think that my values are deeply rooted in the progressive tradition, the values of equal opportunity, civil rights, fighting for working families, a foreign policy that is mindful of human rights, a strong belief in civil liberties, wanting to be a good steward for the environment, a sense that the government has an important role to play, that opportunity is open to all people and that the powerful don't trample on the less powerful ... I share all the aims of a Paul Wellstone or a Ted Kennedy when it comes to the end result. But I'm much more agnostic, much more flexible on how we achieve those ends."

Obama's desire for civility did not always succeed. Early in his second year in the Senate, in February, 2006, he had his first public run-in with a colleague. His adversary was the senior senator from Arizona, John McCain, and, by the decorous standards of the Senate, the incident was notably ugly. did not always succeed. Early in his second year in the Senate, in February, 2006, he had his first public run-in with a colleague. His adversary was the senior senator from Arizona, John McCain, and, by the decorous standards of the Senate, the incident was notably ugly.

In the wake of the arrest of Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist-conman who had worked with officials both in the Bush White House and on Capitol Hill, McCain organized a bipartisan group--seven Republicans and three Democrats--to work on reform of the rules governing lobbyists on the Hill. McCain thought that he'd got a commitment from Obama to work with his task force on the problem, but, when Obama sent him a note saying he had decided that a task force would delay action on the issue and, at the request of the Democratic leader, Harry Reid, he was joining a Democratic plan for reform, McCain was furious. Returning to Washington Returning to Washington from a conference in Germany, he sent Obama an acid letter, accusing him of bad faith and callow ambition. McCain supported a bill that called on lobbyists to make public any gifts given to members of Congress; members of both the House and the Senate would have to wait two years, not one, to become a registered lobbyist. The Democratic version of the legislation, the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, added more restrictions, banning meals and gifts from lobbyists. McCain, who was first elected to Congress in 1982 and had plenty of close relations with Democrats, thought that the freshman had been grandstanding and he let him know it: from a conference in Germany, he sent Obama an acid letter, accusing him of bad faith and callow ambition. McCain supported a bill that called on lobbyists to make public any gifts given to members of Congress; members of both the House and the Senate would have to wait two years, not one, to become a registered lobbyist. The Democratic version of the legislation, the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, added more restrictions, banning meals and gifts from lobbyists. McCain, who was first elected to Congress in 1982 and had plenty of close relations with Democrats, thought that the freshman had been grandstanding and he let him know it: Dear Senator Obama:I would like to apologize to you for a.s.suming that your private a.s.surances to me regarding your desire to cooperate in our efforts to negotiate bipartisan lobbying reform legislation were sincere. When you approached me and insisted that despite your leadership's preference to use the issue to gain a political advantage in the 2006 elections, you were personally committed to achieving a result that would reflect credit on the entire Senate and offer the country a better example of political leadership, I concluded your professed concern for the inst.i.tution and the public interest was genuine and admirable. Thank you for disabusing me of such notions with your letter to me dated February 2, 2006, which explained your decision to withdraw from our bipartisan discussions. I'm embarra.s.sed to admit that after all these years in politics I failed to interpret your previous a.s.surances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more n.o.ble. Again, sorry for the confusion, but please be a.s.sured I won't make the same mistake again....You commented in your letter about my "interest in creating a task force to further study" this issue, as if to suggest I support delaying the consideration of much-needed reforms rather than allowing the committees of jurisdiction to hold hearings on the matter. Nothing could be further from the truth....As I explained in a recent letter to Senator Reid, and have publicly said many times, the American people do not see this as just a Republican problem or just a Democratic problem. They see it as yet another run-of-the-mill Washington scandal, and they expect it will generate just another round of partisan gamesmanship and posturing. Senator Lieberman and I, and many other members of this body, hope to exceed the public's low expectations....As I noted, I initially believed you shared that goal. But I understand how important the opportunity to lead your party's effort to exploit this issue must seem to a freshman Senator, and I hold no hard feelings over your earlier disingenuousness. Again, I have been around long enough to appreciate that in politics the public interest isn't always a priority for every one of us. Good luck to you, Senator.Sincerely,John McCainUnited States Senate This seemed to be vintage McCain: he was known among his colleagues as much for his volcanic temper as for his intelligence and flashes of humor. In fact, the letter was drafted by his close aide, speechwriter, and alter ego, Mark Salter, who co-auth.o.r.ed McCain's autobiography, Faith of My Fathers Faith of My Fathers. The letter was meant to be both funny and stinging, a welcome-to-the-majors brushback pitch, to use McCain's words of instruction to Salter. "I obviously beaned him "I obviously beaned him and wrote too sharp a response," Salter recalled. In no time at all the letter was e-mailed around Capitol Hill with a one-word subject line: "Wow." and wrote too sharp a response," Salter recalled. In no time at all the letter was e-mailed around Capitol Hill with a one-word subject line: "Wow."

Obama responded in a tone of polite bewilderment. He said he had "no idea what has prompted" McCain's two-page outburst and answered with a "Dear John" letter of artful restraint and righteous politesse: During my short time in the U.S. Senate, one of the aspects about this inst.i.tution that I have come to value most is the collegiality and the willingness to put aside partisan differences to work on issues that help the American people.... I confess that I have no idea what has prompted your response. But let me a.s.sure you that I am not interested in typical partisan rhetoric or posturing. The fact that you have now questioned my sincerity and my desire to put aside politics for the public interest is regrettable, but does not in any way diminish my deep respect for you nor my willingness to find a bipartisan solution to this problem.

After the epistolary exchange and a brief telephone conversation to cool things off, McCain told reporters, "We're moving on. We're still colleagues. We're still friends. I mean, this isn't war." When a reporter asked if he regretted the tone of his letter, however, McCain said, "Of course not."

Obama's words of reconciliation were similarly contingent. "The tone of the letter "The tone of the letter, I think, was a little over the top," he said. "But John McCain's been an American hero and has served here in Washington for twenty years, so if he wants to get cranky once in a while, that's his prerogative."

On the third and final day of the drama, Obama and McCain, who were both preparing to testify before the Senate Rules Committee, posed with their fists c.o.c.ked at each other like a couple of publicity-hungry middleweights at a weigh-in. Before they testified Before they testified, Obama said, "I'm particularly pleased to be sharing this panel with my pen pal, John McCain."

In June, 2006, Obama went a step further in trying to expand his own Party's political base. He accepted an invitation to speak from Jim Wallis, a white liberal evangelical Christian. Wallis's organization, known as the Sojourners, opposed the policies of the religious right and spoke out for social justice. Obama was among those in the Party who were eager to prove that the evangelical movement was far more diverse than the political cla.s.s in Washington, New York, or Los Angeles believed, that religious Christians were as capable of independent thought and politics as any other seemingly cohesive voting bloc. Obama talked about his own church--Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ, on the South Side--and the way it viewed religious faith as commensurate with a belief in political liberation and compa.s.sion. Again, Obama asked his audience to step outside the accustomed barricades. He denounced both the intolerance of the religious right and the failure, often, of the secular left to respect the value of religious faith in the lives of others.

What I am suggesting is this: secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Dougla.s.s, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King--indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history--were not only motivated by faith but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public-policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.Moreover, if we progressives shed some of these biases, we might recognize some overlapping values that both religious and secular people share when it comes to the moral and material direction of our country. We might recognize that the call to sacrifice on behalf of the next generation, the need to think in terms of "thou" and not just "I," resonates in religious congregations all across the country. And we might realize that we have the ability to reach out to the evangelical community and engage millions of religious Americans in the larger project of American renewal.

Obama criticized leaders of the religious right, like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who had been at the forefront of the Reagan revolution, and those liberal secularists who are wary of any and all religious appeals. At the same time he paid tribute to preachers like Tony Campolo, Rick Warren, and T. D. Jakes, who had been active on issues like the genocide in Darfur, poverty, H.I.V./AIDS, and Third World-debt relief. It was a speech that recognized how ruinous was the divide between the Democratic Party and evangelicals. Obama was attempting to reconcile the const.i.tutional requirement for separation of church and state with recognition of sincere religious impulse for the social good: The American people intuitively understand this, which is why the majority of Catholics practice birth control and some of those opposed to gay marriage nevertheless are opposed to a const.i.tutional amendment to ban it. Religious leadership need not accept such wisdom in counseling their flocks, but they should recognize this wisdom in their politics.But a sense of proportion should also guide those who police the boundaries between church and state. Not every mention of G.o.d in public is a breach to the wall of separation--context matters. It is doubtful that children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase "under G.o.d." I didn't. Having voluntary student prayer groups use school property to meet should not be a threat, any more than its use by the High School Republicans should threaten Democrats. And one can envision certain faith-based programs--targeting ex-offenders or substance abusers--that offer a uniquely powerful way of solving problems.So we all have some work to do here. But I am hopeful that we can bridge the gaps that exist and overcome the prejudices each of us brings to this debate. And I have faith that millions of believing Americans want that to happen. No matter how religious they may or may not be, people are tired of seeing faith used as a tool of attack. They don't want faith used to belittle or to divide. They're tired of hearing folks deliver more screed than sermon. Because in the end that's not how they think about faith in their own lives.

One conceit of the Obama narrative, as told by his inner circle, is that the discussions about running for President did not come to the fore until the fall of 2006, with the publication of his second book, The Audacity of Hope The Audacity of Hope, and the explosion of media interest that attended the publicity tour. Obama, the narrative continues, was moved less by the attention in the media (he was already accustomed to that) than by the crowds of ordinary people who came to get their book signed and pleaded with him to run. The emotional experience of hearing those pleas and stories of dissatisfaction and despair, at one venue after another, from coast to coast, hastened and intensified Obama's notion that there was, in the wake of the failed Bush Presidency, a hunger for integrity and newness, for change, that the presumed Democratic candidates, particularly Hillary Clinton, could never satisfy. Then, after long thought and intensive consultation, the Obama family went to Hawaii that Christmas, talked it through, and returned to Chicago unified in the decision to campaign. This was the story.

It's not a false narrative, but it is not a complete one, either. It's hard to say when Obama started thinking about running for President or what importance to attach to those "thoughts." Obama's sister, Maya, says that she and their mother used to tease him about running for President, if only to puncture his desire to win dinner-table debates. Many sources interviewed for this book and for countless other publications were eager to say that upon meeting Obama they knew, just knew knew, that he could be the first African-American President. Valerie Jarrett says Valerie Jarrett says that Obama "always" wanted to be President. And Obama himself has admitted that, when he arrived at Harvard and sized himself up against all the intelligent young men and women--a bracing encounter with a nascent ruling cla.s.s--he felt that he could pursue high office. that Obama "always" wanted to be President. And Obama himself has admitted that, when he arrived at Harvard and sized himself up against all the intelligent young men and women--a bracing encounter with a nascent ruling cla.s.s--he felt that he could pursue high office. "I thought these will be "I thought these will be the people who will be leading at some point," Obama recalled. "And, you know, I feel comfortable within this group, being able to lead." the people who will be leading at some point," Obama recalled. "And, you know, I feel comfortable within this group, being able to lead."

Although Pete Rouse says he believed, initially, that Obama would not run until 2016, he saw the possibilities in the more immediate future. The first year had been one of establishing a sense of diligence in the Senate, of making no enemies. The second phase entailed raising Obama's profile, having him give speeches for fellow Democrats and extending favors, which would help him nationally should he want to run. On January 16, 2006 On January 16, 2006, Rouse sent a memorandum to Obama saying, "It makes sense for you to consider now whether you want to use 2006 to position yourself to run in 2008 if a 'perfect storm' of personal and political factors emerges in 2007.... If making a run in 2008 is at all a possibility, no matter how remote, it makes sense to begin talking and making decisions about what you should be doing 'below the radar' in 2006 to maximize your ability to get in front of this wave should it emerge and should you and your family decide it is worth riding."

Events like the insurgency in Iraq and the revelations of torture in Abu Ghraib prison, the faltering economy, and the mismanagement of the rescue and reconstruction efforts on the Gulf Coast would make life very difficult for any Republican in 2008; what was more, although Hillary Clinton would enter a primary season bolstered by a well-financed, experienced campaign machine, she would be weighed down by the voters' overall weariness with familiar politicians. Clinton was far from a sure thing. Obama had to start considering the future, if only to think it through and come up with a coherent version of "not yet."

The Clintons had a vast network of operatives and fundraisers at their disposal--a machine developed over decades--while Obama had nothing like it. Still, the Clintons thought through the decision to run with no less deliberation than the Obamas did. "At the end of 2006, Hillary and Bill took a Caribbean vacation together and they were out on a boat together, nearly alone, and they swam to an island," one top Clinton aide recalled. "They sat on the beach and talked for about three hours and they talked about the pluses and minuses. Until then, they had set things up so there would be a turnkey campaign operation. She had to decide whether she wanted to go through the rigors of the campaign. And she loved the Senate. Finally he asked her, 'There is really one question to answer, and that's whether do you think you'd be the best person out there to be President?' After that, the staff got phone calls saying she's in. They set an announcement for January 20th.

"We were very confident, sometimes bordering on arrogant, and sometimes pa.s.sing over the border," the aide went on. "At first, there was a low-grade worry about Obama, that's all. I remember hearing a phone call on the plane and Bill and Hillary were talking about Obama. And the tone of the conversation was of him rea.s.suring her. Believe me, there were no phone calls rea.s.suring her about Tom Vilsack or John Edwards. He was saying, 'If you sit around and worry about him, you'll be off your own game.'"

Part of Obama's calculation had to do with the job he already occupied. The truth was, David Axelrod told me, "Barack hated being a senator." Washington was a grander stage than Springfield, but the frustrations of being a rookie in a minority party were familiar. Obama could barely conceal his frustration with the torpid pace of the Senate. His aides could sense his frustration and so could his colleagues. "He was so bored being a senator," one Senate aide said. "It's picayune, it's small-ball everywhere. And he is restless. He was engaged with the big issues, like what to do about Iraq. What interested him was policy, strategy, not bills ... His frustration was obvious to everyone in the office." An aide who was devoted to Obama nevertheless described how his offices at the Hart Building seemed "unlived in" and temporary, "as if he never really thought he would stay for long."

His friend and law colleague Judd Miner said, "The reality was that during his first two years in the U.S. Senate, I think, he was struggling; it wasn't nearly as stimulating as he expected. He felt there was very little opportunity to engage in meaningful dialogue, certainly with Republicans. The amount of time spent on creative or constructive policy debates was so limited. I remember one day he was really glowing when someone raised an issue about health care and he didn't know much about it. He discovered that the most valuable perk was that if you call someone, they call you back fast. He had contacted some people and got the names of five or six thinkers and got on the phone to hash it out. Lo and behold, all of them flew to Washington and spent the entire day with him." Similarly, he convened experts on everything from health care to voting rights, but those days, Obama was seeing, were the exception.

The one project that did engage Obama fully was work on The Audacity of Hope The Audacity of Hope. He procrastinated for a long time and then, facing his deadline, wrote nearly a chapter a week. "This was not your average senator writing a book," one aide said. "His whole soul went into it, so it meant that there was less of him to go around elsewhere. In the office, he was distracted. He wasn't thrilled to be living the life of a senator, even on the best of days. The job was too small for him--not because he was arrogant but because his mind was on systemic change, not on votes.

"So he was punching the clock during the day and then coming alive at night to write the book," the aide went on. "The book was about a mortgage and cashing in on the success of the first book. And the book was a way to think through who he was and what he stood for. It was a culmination of thinking and refinement. He created a mechanism where he was chained to the mast and had to figure out who he was to meet a book deadline."

Obama also spent a lot of time now raising money for his political-action committee, Hopefund, and for his political colleagues. Eventually, Hopefund would become a bulwark for a Presidential campaign, acc.u.mulating money and a vast computerized list of contacts. As a fundraiser, Obama had uncommon capacities, especially for a Senate freshman. He could call on Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, Oprah Winfrey, and George Soros and ask for their support. Like a traditional pol, he spent hours making cajoling calls to potential donors, but, because of his celebrity, he could also do things quickly. On a single night, he drew a crowd of more than a thousand and raised a million dollars for the Arizona Democratic Party. With a single e-mail appeal, he raised eight hundred thousand dollars for Robert Byrd. When he went to Omaha, he won the glowing endors.e.m.e.nt of Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, and his daughter, Susie. Obama was completely at ease with financial barons like Buffett, and they, it seemed, saw something promising in him. "He has as much potential "He has as much potential as anyone I've seen to have an important impact over his lifetime on the course that America takes," Buffett said of Obama. as anyone I've seen to have an important impact over his lifetime on the course that America takes," Buffett said of Obama.

In order to increase the sense of connection between himself and his donors, Obama, in late October, 2005, had invited a hundred people who had given at least twenty-five hundred dollars to Hopefund to a conference in Chicago to discuss policy and spend time together socially. Peter Bynoe, an African-American entrepreneur who helped build a new stadium for the Chicago White Sox and owned a chunk of the Denver Nuggets, thought Obama had become such a gifted fundraiser that he started calling him "Money." "When his name pops up "When his name pops up on caller I.D. on my cell phone, I know it's going to cost a lot more than two cents a minute, but I'm compelled to take the call," Bynoe told one fund-raising audience. "I pride myself on saying no to politicians, but I can't say no to 'Money.'" on caller I.D. on my cell phone, I know it's going to cost a lot more than two cents a minute, but I'm compelled to take the call," Bynoe told one fund-raising audience. "I pride myself on saying no to politicians, but I can't say no to 'Money.'"

Ever since Obama's election to the Senate, his staff had been planning an official visit to Africa for him. They set the trip for August, 2006, after he completed the ma.n.u.script of The Audacity of Hope The Audacity of Hope but before its publication. Obama could justify the trip--to Kenya, Djibouti, Chad, and South Africa--as an important fact-finding mission for a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and of the subcommittee on Africa. There were myriad issues for a legislator to discuss: H.I.V./AIDS, Darfur, extreme poverty, development, terrorism, the proliferation of conventional arms. It was hardly a cynical trip. Gibbs, Axelrod, Rouse, and Obama knew that the two-week journey would provoke an emotional reaction in Kenya and in the American press, not least among African-Americans who had not yet learned much about Obama. They did not realize the extent of the reaction: the huge crowds, people watching from balconies, children perched in the branches of trees. but before its publication. Obama could justify the trip--to Kenya, Djibouti, Chad, and South Africa--as an important fact-finding mission for a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and of the subcommittee on Africa. There were myriad issues for a legislator to discuss: H.I.V./AIDS, Darfur, extreme poverty, development, terrorism, the proliferation of conventional arms. It was hardly a cynical trip. Gibbs, Axelrod, Rouse, and Obama knew that the two-week journey would provoke an emotional reaction in Kenya and in the American press, not least among African-Americans who had not yet learned much about Obama. They did not realize the extent of the reaction: the huge crowds, people watching from balconies, children perched in the branches of trees.

Traveling with his wife and daughters and just two aides, Mark Lippert and Robert Gibbs, Obama visited a refugee camp in Chad to highlight the slaughter in Darfur; received a briefing from U.S. military officials at a base in Djibouti; and met with officials in South Africa. He made some policy p.r.o.nouncements along the way, including a sharp denunciation of corruption and tribalism in Kenya that echoed his father's deepest political concerns and a critique of the South African leader, Thabo Mbeki, for his bewildering and dangerous beliefs about the source of AIDS. In Kenya, Obama made sure to travel beyond Nairobi. He visited Wajir, in the northeastern region of Kenya, near Somalia, which had experienced famine and drought. As a gesture of hospitality, the local Somali Kenyans took Obama to a camel auction and gave him the robes of a Somali elder. (During the 2008 Presidential campaign, right-wing Web sites published a photograph of Obama wearing the robes to suggest that he was, in fact, a Muslim.) Near Kisumu, where his father was born, he took an AIDS test to reduce the stigma of testing, which is especially prevalent among African men, and visited "Granny" at her modest concrete house in Kogelo.

"The happiest I've seen him, maybe, is when he saw his grandmother," Lippert said. "He truly has a relationship with her. You could see his reaction when he spotted her in a sea of people--it was so deep and genuine." Obama spent nearly two hours in his grandmother's house talking with relatives and eating a traditional stew. He also paid a visit to the raised, tile graves of his father and grandfather, who are buried near the house.

The extraordinary reception Obama received seemed to demonstrate the effect he could have in altering the battered image of America that had taken hold all over the world during the Bush Administration. The trip certainly reignited the media's infatuation. The networks ran clips, magazines had new pictures and cover stories, newspapers carried news of each event and venue--Obama's team was not disappointed.

Just a couple of weeks after returning from Africa, Obama accepted an invitation to speak at a venue that was very different from Kogelo. It was an invitation to appear at the Warren County Fairgrounds, in Indianola, Iowa. The occasion was Senator Tom Harkin's annual steak fry, at which more than three thousand people paid twenty-five dollars to eat fantastic quant.i.ties of food, stroll around the fairgrounds, and then settle on the gra.s.s or in lawn chairs to listen to a few speeches. The headliner in 2003 had been Bill Clinton and, in 2005, John Edwards. Obama had initially been reluctant to come to the event, but now he was willing to attract the attention and speculation. after returning from Africa, Obama accepted an invitation to speak at a venue that was very different from Kogelo. It was an invitation to appear at the Warren County Fairgrounds, in Indianola, Iowa. The occasion was Senator Tom Harkin's annual steak fry, at which more than three thousand people paid twenty-five dollars to eat fantastic quant.i.ties of food, stroll around the fairgrounds, and then settle on the gra.s.s or in lawn chairs to listen to a few speeches. The headliner in 2003 had been Bill Clinton and, in 2005, John Edwards. Obama had initially been reluctant to come to the event, but now he was willing to attract the attention and speculation.

To help guide Obama in Iowa, a trip that only the dense would fail to see as an exploratory mission for the 2008 caucuses, Pete Rouse called on a friend, Steve Hildebrand, who had run Al Gore's campaign in the state six years earlier, and had worked for Daschle, too. "I thought, let's have a little fun "I thought, let's have a little fun with this," Rouse said. "I wanted to create a little buzz." Much of the buzz was within the Clinton and Edwards camps; they, too, had hoped to hire Hildebrand. Harkin, a liberal who had taken a brief run at the Presidency in 1992, introduced his guest to the crowd by saying, "I really tried to get Bono this weekend. I settled for the second-biggest rock star in America." with this," Rouse said. "I wanted to create a little buzz." Much of the buzz was within the Clinton and Edwards camps; they, too, had hoped to hire Hildebrand. Harkin, a liberal who had taken a brief run at the Presidency in 1992, introduced his guest to the crowd by saying, "I really tried to get Bono this weekend. I settled for the second-biggest rock star in America."

Dressed in standard steak-fry garb for visiting Washingtonians--shirtsleeves and khaki pants--Obama was in good form. He began with his well-honed description of his family background (my mother is from Kansas, he said, "which is where I got this accent"), then he moved on to a description of the troubled state of the nation. If the country didn't change course soon the next generation would find life "a little bit meaner and a little bit poorer than the one we inherited from our parents." But he did not come to Iowa intent on attacking the President, or not personally.

"I don't think George Bush is a bad man," he said. "I think he's a patriotic person and I don't think that the people who work for him are stupid people. I think a lot of them are smart in their own way. I think that the problem is that they've got a different idea of America than the idea we've got." is a bad man," he said. "I think he's a patriotic person and I don't think that the people who work for him are stupid people. I think a lot of them are smart in their own way. I think that the problem is that they've got a different idea of America than the idea we've got."

In the simplest terms--terms that he had been rehearsing for a long time, terms that became the center of his stump speech in the months ahead--Obama provided a homey, deeply affecting vision of a liberal American idea: They believe in different things. They have a sense that in fact government is the problem, not the solution, and that if we just dismantle government, piece by piece, if we break it up in tax cuts to the wealthy and if we just make sure that we privatize Social Security and we get rid of public schools and we make sure that we