Word: rushing
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...misstep made Obama think he could take Rush on. So in Obama jumped--only to discover he would have to fight for every vote. Rush started off with 90% name recognition, vs. 9% for Obama, a poll showed. The challenger had hoped to find common ground with Daley, but the mayor saw no percentage in crossing a sitting Congressman. Daley, according to his brother Bill, told Obama that just because Rush had been creamed for the mayoralty didn't mean he could be dethroned by a newcomer. "You're not going to win," Daley said...
Obama argued that Rush had failed in leadership and vision. But his delivery was stiff and professorial--"more Harvard than Chicago," said an adviser who had watched Obama put a church audience to sleep. The problem was deeper than speaking style. Obama was a cultural outsider. Rush attacked his Ivy League education, using the E word for the first time. "He went to Harvard and became an educated fool," the Congressman told the Chicago Reader. "We're not impressed with these folks with these Eastern-élite degrees." Not growing up on the South Side raised other suspicions about Obama...
...pleaded with Obama to come back. His staff did too. But Obama, who had previously supported the bill, refused to return for the vote on grounds that his 18-month-old daughter was sick. When the bill lost narrowly, Obama came in for a large share of the blame. Rush, whose 29-year-old son had been gunned down on the South Side a couple of months earlier, said there was no excuse for missing "one of the most important votes in memory...
...fell to Bill Clinton to deliver the coup de grace. The President broke his policy of staying neutral in primaries and endorsed Rush in a glowing radio spot. When it was over, Rush piled up 61% of the vote, compared with 30% for Obama. He lost the most heavily black wards by more than 4 to 1. The race was called before Obama could even make his way to a would-be victory party at the Ramada Inn in Hyde Park. "I confess to you," he told about 50 supporters on a chilly March evening, "winning is better than losing...
From the ashes, though, Obama could see a way out. The only ward he had won was the largely white working-class Irish Catholic 19th ward, where the local party organization had endorsed Rush but a state legislator, Tom Dart, broke ranks for Obama. Dart walked the precincts and marched with Obama at the annual South Side St. Patrick's Day parade, passing out O'BAMA buttons with shamrocks. Nearly three-quarters of the ward--a conservative community of cops, firefighters and schoolteachers--went for Obama, suggesting a wider reach among white voters. "He didn't need to be pigeonholed...