Behind the Scenes with Barack
Less than six hours after Barack Obama's victory speech Tuesday night, Newsweek published its epic "How He Did It," written by Evan Thomas and reported by Daren Briscoe, Eleanor Clift, Katie Connolly, Peter Goldman, Daniel Stone and Nick Summers. The story provides wonderful insider details of the wild twists and turns of the presidential race, following Obama, McCain, Clinton and the other contenders from the early jockeying in 2006 through election night. Here they describe one of Obama's awkward days early in the campaign:
On the stump, he decided to experiment, to try loosening up a little. Speaking to an African-American crowd in Manning, S.C., on Nov. 2, he began to riff, using the call-and-response cadence of a black preacher. Addressing the doubts among some blacks about whether the country was ready to vote for an African-American, Obama said, "I just want y'all to be clear … I would not be running if I weren't confident I was gon' win!"
There was a rousing chorus of "Amen!" and cheers from the audience.
"I'm not interested in second place!" More cheers, and a big grin from Obama … he could feel the crowd's energy.
"I'm not running to be vice president! I'm not running to be secretary of something-or-other!" They were like old friends now, Obama and the crowd … this was fun!
But then Obama got carried away with himself and violated a cardinal rule of braggadocio in the black community: don't get too high and mighty.
"I was doing just fine before I started running for president! I'm a United States senator already!"
In an instant the crowd went quiet—and that should have been his cue … but Obama plowed ahead.
"Everybody already knows me!" A lone shout went up from the audience.
"I already sold a lot of books! I don't need to run for president to get on television or on the radio …"
Silence.
"I've been on Oprah!" That seemed to get the crowd back, but Obama knew he had almost lost them altogether.
www.newsweek.com/id/167582