My little politics blog

I'm just saying that, if you're not running for president, dealing with the national press is not something that people really look forward to. For me, it's great.

Earlier today, the Clinton campaign demanded that Barack Obama release all the documents pertaining to the purchase of his home in 2005 on a piece of land adjacent to land owned by Tony Rezko.

The Obama campaign's response: We already have!

Says Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor, "It's the height of hypocrisy for Senator Clinton to demand the release of documents that are already on our campaign website while she steadfastly refuses to release her full tax returns and earmark requests from her time in the Senate, as well as her White House records and Clinton library donors. Democrats across the country should be very concerned about Senator Clinton's refusal to offer a full and complete accounting of what could be lurking in this financial information and what that would mean for our party when we run against Senator McCain in November."

This was a pretty amazing conversation, not only because of Obama's mastery of the legal details, but also because many prominent Democratic leaders had already blasted the Bush initiative as blatantly illegal. He did not want to take a public position until he had listened to, and explored, what might be said on the other side.

This is the Barack Obama I have known for nearly 15 years -- a careful and evenhanded analyst of law and policy, unusually attentive to multiple points of view.

[...]

Those of us who have long known Obama are impressed and not a little amazed by his rhetorical skills. Who could have expected that our colleague, a teacher of law, is able to inspire large crowds?

The Obama we know is no rhetorician; he shines not because he can move people, but because of his problem-solving abilities, creativity and attention to detail.

In recent weeks, his speaking talents, and the cultlike atmosphere that occasionally surrounds him, have led people to wonder whether there is substance behind the plea for "change" -- whether the soaring phrases might disguise emptiness and vagueness. But nothing could be further from the truth. He is most comfortable in the domain of policy and detail.

Obama should have had Friday's discussion 16 months ago. Asked why he didn't, he spoke of learning, uncomfortably, what it's like to live in a fishbowl. That made him perhaps too eager to protect personal information -- too eager to "control the narrative."

Tribune: I ask because again, the overriding question about all this and the one that you've been trying to address since the very beginning, but the one that's still lingering, is whether or not you and Tony coordinated the purchase of the home.

Obama: And I guess what I'm saying is, if we've got confirmation from the seller that the two transactions weren't related, that we in fact paid the best price, or gave them the best offer for the home, then why the thought that I coordinated would be relevant? Look, the overarching suspicion that has been raised by a number of reporters in this room is that there was some sort of subsidy of my house. If that is in fact not the case, then that should allay whatever concerns you have. Unless there is something that I'm missing.

Tribune: No sir, we have never communicated with the sellers and your transmissions of their e-mails to us is the first we've ever had of them.

Obama: I recognize that, and I should probably make mention of this: Part of the . . . difficulty that we've had on some of these responses has to do with the fact that the sellers are very private people and were not interested in being drawn into a media circus.

And just to give you some indication of what might prompt their concerns: One reporter got a hold of their 11-year-old daughter's cell phone and asked for them; one reporter showed up at their house at 9:30 at night; another somehow got through security at John Hopkins and started asking questions of the woman doctor who was on rounds there. And so, not surprisingly then, this was not something that they were eager to get involved with.

They are the ones, though, that did originally indicate to us when they first read the reports that this is just not accurate, and after some prodding, then we were able to get them to at least respond to a set of points that my lawyer laid out, my campaign lawyer laid out, so that they could confirm this. And again, this is subject to confirmation.

Tribune: I appreciate that, and I'm also . . our contact with them has been entirely respectful of their privacy.

Obama: No, this was not in any way suggesting that you guys hadn't been respectful. I'm just saying that, if you're not running for president, dealing with the national press is not something that people really look forward to. For me, it's great.

This is a minor point, but...

In the editorial after the big meeting with Obama, the Chi Trib says,

Chicago Tribune wrote:

Obama should have had Friday's discussion 16 months ago. Asked why he didn't, he spoke of learning, uncomfortably, what it's like to live in a fishbowl. That made him perhaps too eager to protect personal information -- too eager to "control the narrative."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-0316edit1mar16,0,745313.story

That's not what I got out of the exchange.

And the fact is my answers really haven't changed much, and so, so to that extent I think a part of the reason we didn't have this conversation was, the feeling was maybe we had the conversation. What had changed was not so much my answers but that it looked like now I was really a viable presidential candidate and Tony Rezko had been indicted.

So that it was the circumstances of the individuals had changed instead of the story. So having said that, as I said before, part of our difficulty was that the sellers were very reticent to come forward, and so I think, clearly disputing the implications or the appearances and other stuff, other than simply telling things that had gone on, and it wasn't clear that we had no new information to provide.

You know, [Tribune editor] Anne Marie [Lipinski] asked what it is that I've learned. Learning the relationship with the press in a national campaign is a challenge. I mean, I mean, I will say this, that there's no experience similar to this in terms of living in the fish bowl. And there are times where very legitimate and fair questions are raised about my inconsistencies, contradictions or foibles.

There are times where, you know, folks are just picking at you, you know, because they need some copy. And so what it can induce is a mentality of let's be very protective of information for interviews and access so we can control the narrative a little more. That's something we have to be careful of, not just as a candidate but presumably even more so as a president because what you want to do is balance, not responding to every reporter out there, maintaining a sense of openness and accessibility and a willingness to engage the criticisms that are made. And that's something that we're still learning as a team.

Sozobe! You're back! (but you probably already knew that )

Man, they've been stinking it up over on your 'Obama 08' thread. Hopefully out of deference to you, they'll ease up on the muckracking now that you're back...


or, not...

Read this story posted earlier by pstalmer on a different page:

Favorite campaign story so far: On an NPR talk show a couple of days ago, a nursing-home chaplain called to report her political conversation with an elderly white gentleman. He asked, "Who's that n----- that's running?"

The chaplain said on the air, "Well, we're chaplains; we're not supposed to correct our people." So she said to the man, "That's Barack Obama, the black man who's running for president."

"Right," said the old guy. "That's who I'm voting for."

Statement Regarding Barack Obama

The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as "Senior Lecturer."

From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.

Briefly -- I was way, WAY out of the loop for about a week and had conversations with relatives that had me spooked about Obama's chances. One (F) leans Hillary but was considering Obama; one (M) leans McCain but was also considering Obama. Both 60-ish. Both were spouting all this stuff about Obama and Wright and Farrakhan and blah blah blah that had me really worried. (The good news -- my cousin the Obama supporter and I took the opportunity to disabuse these relatives of several false notions. Plus, I talked about the "sniper fire in Bosnia" thing and they didn't quite believe me and then like the next day it was big news everywhere... finally.)

Anyway, I was relieved that when I came up for air (and internet access) things didn't actually seem so bad. Way better than I feared, and some room for optimism.