Obama and the Backstabbers

NY Times piece on Obama's time in Springfield. The human mosaic, brilliance personified:

There was something improbable about the new guy from Chicago via Honolulu and Jakarta, Indonesia, the one with the Harvard law degree and the job teaching constitutional law, turning up in Springfield, Ill., in January 1997 among the housewives, ex-mayors and occasional soybean farmer serving in the State Senate.

They go on to say he was a "progressive Democrat" at a time of "tight Republican" control. It's not that long ago, so memories are fresh. He was the most liberal member of the Illinois State Senate, bar none. A few choice quotes among the bromides:

His critics say Mr. Obama could have accomplished much more if he had been in less of a hurry to leave the Statehouse behind. Steven J. Rauschenberger, a longtime Republican senator who stepped down this year, said: “He is a very bright but very ambitious person who has always had his eyes on the prize, and it wasn’t Springfield. If he deserves to be president, it is not because he was a great legislator.”

Oh, but The Times hails Barack as bringing ethics reform to Illinois. By the way, he's touting another fundraising "Dinner With Barack". Maybe he can hold it in his big supporter Tony Rezko -under-house-arrest-until-the-trial-after-the-primary-'s house, so Tony & friends can be there. And Hollywood Hendon is writing a book:

Mr. Hendon, who says he is writing a book on electoral politics called “Backstabbers,” said ethics reform would have passed with or without Mr. Obama because of scandals that preceded it. He said the sponsors of ethics bills tended to be “wealthy kind of people, the same kind of people who vote against pay raises, who don’t need $5,000 a year. Whereas senators like me from poorer communities, we could use that $5,000.”

We look forward to the book. Maybe someone will make a movie about it before the election.

UPDATE: Obama's Achilles' heel "What's He Ever Done?". Slate:

Democratic strategists debate whether experience is Obama's biggest problem or whether he faces a bigger challenge broadening his support among voters. Despite his success in recruiting record numbers of donors and turning out huge crowds, Obama's position in national and key state polls has leveled off. He does well with upper-income voters but has trouble connecting with those who make less than $35,000 and those who have graduated only from high school. He is often compared to other boutique candidates such as Eugene McCarthy and Bill Bradley, who were always in the murmur of elite drawing rooms but never caught on with the blue-collar base of the party.

Yup.

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