Word: african
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...politician. He jettisoned his Harvard-tested speaking style for something more down-home. He learned how to cultivate those in power without being defined by them. And he learned how to be different things to different people: a reformer groomed by an old-fashioned machine boss, an African American heavily financed by white liberals, a Harvard lawyer whose bootstrapping life story gained traction with white ethnics. Abner Mikva, a former federal judge and Congressman from Chicago, credits Obama with figuring out "how to appeal to different constituencies without being inconsistent...
...First had the longest continuous black representation and one of the highest percentages of African Americans of any district in Congress. Since 1992, the First had been represented by a man with his own claim to history. Bobby Rush co-founded the Illinois Black Panther Party before going mainstream as an alderman and ward committeeman. But Rush stumbled badly in early 1999 when he challenged incumbent Richard M. Daley in the Democratic primary for the mayor's job. Rush lost, doing poorly among black voters and failing to carry his own ward...
With Hull and Hynes likely to split the white vote, Obama would need blanket support from African Americans. But in seven years in Springfield, he was best known for passing ethics reform. The GOP majority hadn't made it any easier to pass social-justice legislation. Now Jones was in control of the body and its agenda. He picked Obama to steer and ultimately get credit for laws that passed in the second half of 2003 after years of demands by the black community: death-penalty reform, taping of homicide interrogations, fattening tax credits for the working poor...
...candidate would "drop into a Southern drawl, pepper his prose with a neatly placed 'ya'll' and call up various black colloquialisms." He rarely missed a chance to speak at Sunday services in black churches, where, Mendell writes, he linked his candidacy to the larger march forward of African Americans. He emphasized his Christian faith and often mentioned his pastor, Jeremiah Wright. While Wright has been a liability to Obama this year, in 2004, when Obama faced doubts on racial authenticity, he was a campaign asset. "It affirmed his roots," said Cobb...
...Senate race turned into a rout, with Obama taking nearly 53% of the vote in a three-way race. Not only did he score a landslide victory in the African-American community, but he also handily won a pair of ethnic-white wards on Chicago's Northwest Side. And he won a third of the vote in downstate Illinois, backed by college students and farmers...