Very long, thorough and informative article. I urge you to take the time to read.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/08/AR2007020802262_pf.html
Obama Forged Political Mettle In Illinois Capitol
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 9, 2007; A01
CHICAGO, Feb. 8 -- When Sen. Barack Obama heads downstate to Springfield on Saturday to announce his candidacy for president, he will speak in lofty tones of America and Abraham Lincoln, but also of a more prosaic topic: his own eight years in the Illinois Senate.
The heart of Obama's political résumé lies in Springfield, where he arrived in January 1997. He was a newcomer to elective politics after time as a community organizer and University of Chicago law professor operating largely outside the city's Democratic machine.
From a district on the South Side of Chicago, he reached Republican-dominated Springfield as a committed liberal, later writing that he understood politics in the capital "as a full-contact sport, and minded neither the sharp elbows nor the occasional blind-side hit."
Yet he emerged as a leader while still in his 30s by developing a style former colleagues describe as methodical, inclusive and pragmatic. He cobbled together legislation with Republicans and conservative Democrats, making overtures other progressive politicians might consider distasteful.
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