This book would not have been written without the guidance of two editors. The first is Patrick Arden of the Chicago Reader, who in 1999 sent me down to the South Side to check out this guy Obama who was trying to take Bobby Rush’s congressional seat. “Is Bobby Rush in Trouble?” the story that came out of that reporting, is the basis for chapter 9.
The second is Mark Schone, who was news editor of Salon.com in 2007, when Obama declared his presidential candidacy. I pitched a story about Obama’s “lost campaign” and how it helped him mature as a politician to over a dozen national news outlets. Only Mark was interested. Throughout the 2008 campaign, I wrote a number of stories about Obama and Chicago for Salon. The essay “Chicago is Barack Obama’s kind of town” is where I first developed the idea that certain historical forces made Chicago the perfect home base for a black presidential candidate.
My agent, Jeff Gerecke, responded enthusiastically to my book proposal when I e-mailed him after the 2008 election. Jeff then used his knowledge of the New York publishing world to find the perfect editor: Pete Beatty, who had just moved to Bloomsbury Press from the University of Chicago Press. As a former Hyde Parker, Pete understood exactly what I meant when I said that Obama wouldn’t have become president if he hadn’t moved to Chicago.
Most of the people I interviewed are named in this book, but there are a few whose help was especially important: Jerry Kellman, Brian Banks, Alan Dobry, Douglas Baird, and Todd Spivak all reviewed sections of the manuscript for factual accuracy. (Alan also told me I could find Abner Mikva in the phone book, which is the last place someone of my generation thinks to look.) Hermene Hartman, publisher of N’DIGO, was an invaluable guide to the worlds of black business, media, and politics. Cheryl Johnson always made me feel welcome when I visited Altgeld Gardens and allowed me to attend meetings of her group, People for Community Recovery.
I also want to thank Eithne McMenamin for serving as my guide at the state capitol in Springfield and Beth Milnikel for showing me around the University of Chicago Law School. Joan Walsh, Alison True, Anne Fitzgerald, and Lucinda Hahn are other editors who encouraged me to write about Obama. (Lucinda, I’m looking forward to seeing your memoir in print.) Jim Dye, my oldest friend, digitized the nine-year-old Obama interview tape I found in a desk drawer.
Finally, I want to thank my mother, Gail Kleine, for typing the manuscript, saving me a lot of time and money when both were in short supply. She worked as an editor after college and used those skills on this book, too. It is a better work because of her.