Word: votes
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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...
...contest raised another question that haunts Obama to this day: Does he have the will to win? Halfway through the race, he took his family to Hawaii for Christmas, missing a key vote in Springfield on legislation to make illegal gun possession a felony. The measure was intended to deter violence in the kind of gun-ravaged neighborhoods he was seeking to represent. Illinois's governor, who called a special session to pass the measure, pleaded with Obama to come back. His staff did too. But Obama, who had previously supported the bill, refused to return for the vote...
...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...
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...
...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...