MARILYNNE ROBINSON ON "THE GOD DELUSION"

BARACK OBAMA INC.The Birth of a Washington Machine

By Ken Silverstein-----------. -----------

THE KIDS ARE FAR RIGHTHippie Hunting, Bunny Bashing, and the New Conservatism

By Wells Tower

IT'S MORNING IN NEVADAOn the Campaign Trail in Post-Bush America

By Dave Hickey

SANSFARINEA story by Jim Shepard

-----------. -----------

REP 0 R T

BARACK OBAMA INC.The birth of a Washington machine

By Ken Silverstein

In July, on a typically oppressive summer dayin Washington, D.C., roughly a thousand collegestudents from across the country gathered at aMarriott hotel with plans to change the world.Despite being sponsored by theCenter for American Progress,a moderate think tank foundedby one of Bill Clinton's formerchiefs of staff, John Podesta, thestudent group-ealled CampusProgress-leans decidedly far-ther to the left. At booths out-side the main auditorium, youngactivists handed out pamphletsopposing nuclear power, highpay for CEOs, excessive profitsfor oil companies, harsh prisonsentences for drug users, and Is-raeli militarism in Gaza and the West Bank. Atone session, Adrienne Maree Brown of TheRuckus Society-a protest group whose capaciousmission is to promote "the voices and visions ofyouth, women, people of color, indigenous peopleand immigrants, poor and working class people,lesbian, gay, bisexual, gender queer, and trans-gendered people"-urged students to "break thefucking rules." Even the consummate insiderPodesta told attendees, with unintended ambi-guity, "We need more of you hanging from trees."

Around noon, conference participants began fil-ing into the auditorium; activists staffing the lit-erature booths abandoned their posts to take seatsinside as well. The crowd, and the excitement,building in the hall was due entirely to the im-minent arrival of the keynote speaker: Illinois

Senator Barack Obama. Having ascended to po-litical fame through a stirring and widely laudedspeech at the 2004 Democratic Convention, Oba-rna, the U.S. Senate's only African-American

member, isnow considered to bethe party's most promisingyoungleader--especially among thosewho, like the student organizerspresent, are seeking to reinvigo-rate its progressivewing. In termsof sheer charisma, Obama is cer-tainly the party's most magneticleader since Bill Clinton, andperhaps sinceRobert F.Kennedy.

The senator was running abit late; but when he finallyglided into the auditorium, es-corted by an assortment of

aides, he was greeted by a tremendous swell ofapplause as he took to the stage. Dressed in abrown jacket and red tie, Obama approachedthe podium, flanked by two giant screens en-larging his image, and began a softly spoken butcompelling speech that recalled his own days,after his graduation in 1983 from ColumbiaUniversity,· as a community organizer in poorneighborhoods of Chicago. "You'll have bound-less opportunities when you graduate," he toldthe students, "and it's very easy to just takethatdiploma, forget about all this progressive-poli-tics stuff, and go chasing after the big house andthe large salary and the nice suits and all theother things that our money culture says youshould buy. But I hope you don't get off thateasy. There's nothing wrong with making mon-

Ken Silverstein is the Washington editor of Harper's Magazine.

Capitalism (detail), a collage made from currency, by C. K. Wilde.Courtesy Pavel Zoubok Gallery, New York City REPORT 31

ey, but focusing your life solely on making abuck shows a poverty of ambition."

Obama complained of an American culturethat "discourages empathy," in which those inpower blame poverty on people who are "lazyor weak of spirit" and believe that "innocentpeople being slaughtered and expelled fromtheir homes halfway around the world aresomebody else's problem." He urged the assem-bled activists to ignore those voices, "not be-cause you have an obligation to those who areless fortunate than you, although I think youdo have that obligation ... but primarily be-cause you have that obligation to yourself. Be-cause our individual salvation depends on col-lective salvation. It's only when you hitch

run on regular gasoline as well as on E85.l Oba-rna had essentially marshaled his twenty min-utes of undeniably moving oratory to plump for

the classic pork-barrel cause of every

I Midwestern politician.

. n an election season, when Americans of allpolitical persuasions can allow themselves toimagine-even if for just a few unguarded mo-ments-how matters in this country might im-prove if its leadersdid, it isworthwhile to considerthe path so far of Senator Barack Obama. A manmore suited to the tastes of reform-minded Amer-icans could hardly be imagined: he is passionate,charming, and well-intentioned, and his desire tochange the culture of Washington seems deeply

IT IS STARTLING TO SEE HOW QUICKLY OBAMA'S SENATORSHIP HAS BEEN WOVEN

INTO THE WEB OF INSTITUTIONALIZED INFLUENCE-TRADING

THAT AFFLICTS OFFICIAL WASHINGTON

yourself up to something bigger than yourselfthat you realize your true potential."

It was a rousing speech, and Obama is proba-bly the only member of Congress who could havedelivered it with any conviction or credibility.When he left the stageand headed toward the ho-tel exit, he was trailed by a pack of autographseekers, picture takers, and glad-handers.

Despite its audience and ostensible subject mat-ter, however, Obama's speech had contained justa single call for political action. This waswhen hehad introduced Mark Pike, a law student whothen came bounding across the stage in a greenone-piece mechanic's outfit. As part of a cam-paign called "Kick the Oil Habit," Pike was todepart directly from the conference and drivefrom Washington to Los Angeles in a "flex-fuel"vehicle. "Give it up for Mark!" Obama had urgedthe crowd, noting that Pike would be refuelingonly at gas stations that offer E85-which Oba-rna touts as "a clean, renewable, and domestical-ly produced alternative fuel."

Although the senator did not elaborate, E85is so called because it is 85 percent ethanol, aproduct whose profits accrue to a small group ofcorporate corn growers led by Illinois-head-quartered Archer Daniels Midland. Not surpris-ingly, agribusiness is a primary advocate ofE85,as are such automobile manufacturers as Ford,which donated Pike's car. The automakers loveE85 because it allows them to look environ-mentally correct ("Live Green, Go Yellow," goesGM's advertising pitch for the fuel) while pro-ducing vehicles, mostly highly profitable andfuel-guzzling SUY and pickup models, that can

32 HARPER'S MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2006

held and real. He managed to win a tremendousmajority in his home state of Illinois despiterhetoric, and a legislative record, that markedhim as a true progressive. During his first year inthe state senate-1997-he helped lead a laud-able if quixotic crusade that would have amend-ed the state constitution to define health care asa basic right and would have required the IllinoisGeneral Assembly to ensure that all the state's cit-izenscould get health insurance within five years.He led initiatives to aid the poor, including cam-paigns that resulted in an earned-income taxcredit and the expansion of early-childhood-education programs. In 2001, reacting to a surgein home foreclosures in Chicago, he helped pushfor a measure that cracked down on predatorylenders that peddled high-interest, high-fee mort-gages to lower-end homebuyers. Obama wasalso the driving force behind legislation, passedin 2003, that made Illinois the first state to requirelaw-enforcement agencies to tape interrogationsand confessions of murder suspects. Throughouthis campaign for the U.S. Senate, Obama calledfor social justice, promised to "stand up to thepowerful drug and insurance lobbies" that blockhealth-care reform, and denounced the war inIraq and the Bush White House.

Since coming to Washington, Obama has ad-vocated for the poor, most notably in the aftermath

I Since producing most domestic ethanol requires largeamounts of fossil fuel, and regular gasoline provides about30 percent more mileage per gallon than E85, it's arguablypreferable from a conservation standpoint to drive a stan-dard gasoline car rather than a flex-fuel vehicle.

of Hurricane Katrina, and has emerged as a cham-pion of clean government. He has fought for re-strictions on lobbying, even as most of his fellowDemocrats postured on the issue while quietlyseeking to gut real reform initiatives. In mid-September, Congress approved a bill he co-au-thored with Oklahoma's arch-conservative sena-tor, Tom Coburn, requiring all federal contractsand earmarks to be published in an Internet data-base, a step that will better allow citizens to trackthe way the government spends their money.

Yet it is also startling to see how quickly Oba-rna's senatorship has been woven into the web ofinstitutionalized influence-trading that afflictsofficial Washington. He quickly established apolitical machine funded and run by a standardBeltway group of lobbyists, P.R. consultants, andhangers-on. For the staff post of policy directorhe hired Karen Kornbluh, a senior aide to RobertRubin when the latter, as head of the TreasuryDepartment under Bill Clinton, was a chief ad-vocate for NAFT A and other free-trade policiesthat decimated the nation's manufacturing sec-tor (and the organized labor wing of the Dem-ocratic Party). Obama's top contributors are cor-porate law and lobbying firms (Kirkland & Ellisand Skadden, Arps, where four attorneys arefund-raisers for Obama as well as donors), WallStreet financial houses (Goldman Sachs andJPMorgan Chase), and big Chicago interests(Henry Crown and Company, an investmentfirm that has stakes in industries ranging fromtelecommunications to defense). Obama imme-diately established a "leadership PAC," a vehi-cle through which a member of Congress cancontribute to other politicians' campaigns-andone that political reform groups generally viewas a slush fund through which congressional lead-ers can evade campaign-finance rules while rais-ing their own political profiles.

Already considered a potential vice-presidentialnominee in 2008, Obama dearly has abundantpolitical ambitions. Hence he is playing not onlyto voters in Illinois-a reliably Democratic andgenerally liberal state-but to the broader nationalaudience, as well as to the Democratic Party es-tablishment, the Washington media, and largepoliticaldonors.Perhapsfor this reason,Obama hastaken an approach to his policymaking that is no-tably cautious and nonconfrontational. "Sincethe founding, the American political traditionhas been reformist, not revolutionary," he toldme during an interview at his officeon Capitol Hillthis summer. "What that means is that for a po-liticalleader to get things done, he or she ideal-ly should be ahead of the curve, but not too farahead. I want to push the envelope but make sureI have enough folkswith me that I'm not renderedpolitically impotent."

The question, though, is just how effec-

. Illustration by Joseph Adolphe

tive-let alone reformist-Obama's approachcan be in a Washington grown hostile to re-form and those who advocate it. After a quar-ter century when the Democratic Party towhich he belongs has moved steadily to theright, and the political system in general hasbecome thoroughly dominated by the corpo-rate perspective, the first requirement of elec-toral success is now the ability to raise stagger-ing sums of money. For Barack Obama, thismeans that mounting a successful career,especially one that may include a run for

the presidency, cannot even be attemptedwithout the kind of compromising and horse

trading that may, in fact, renderrJ'" him impotent.

1.he walls of Obama's office on the seventhfloor of the Hart Senate Office Building are dec-orated with images from the canon of liberalicons. There are photos of Martin Luther King ad-dressing a civil rights rally, Gandhi sitting cross-legged,and Obama with Nelson Mandela; a paint-ing of Thurgood Marshall, and, above a framed

.•... •<•••• ..-.~

REPORT 33

pair of red boxing gloves signed by MuhammadAli, the famous photo of a scowling Ali standingover Sonny Liston after knocking him out duringtheir second fight, in Lewiston, Maine.

When I interviewed him this summer, I hadmy eleven-year-old daughter in tow, because herouting with a friend had fallen through just as Iwas leaving home. Obama, who is married andhas two young daughters of his own, asked her afew questions; when she told him she was start-ing seventh grade in the fall, he told her that ather age, "I was such a terror that my teachersdidn't know what to do with me." He drapedhis gray jacket over his leather desk chair andurged her to have a seat. For the next hour, she

helped me get over the hump .... And then af-ter winning, the notoriety that I received maderaising money relatively simple, and so I don'thave the same challenges that most candidatesdo now, and that's pure luck. It's one of the ben-efits of celebrity."

Obama sat with his arms and legs crossed, onefoot tapping the air. Progressive candidates gen-erally have a harder time raising money, he said,and at times some of them will "trim their sails"on behalf of the people who are financing them."When I say that," he was hasty to add, "I wantto make sure I'm not saying all the time. I'm justsaying there are going to be points where donorshave more access and are taken more into

contentedly twirled on the chair while we spokeacross the room, Obama on a tan sofa and me ona chair to his right.

I asked Obama how he was adjusting to Wash-ington and the city's peculiar political culture. "Ihave not had to partake of the culture much," hereplied. "My family lives in Chicago, and I'musually here Tuesday through Thursday. I rarelymeet lobbyists; it's one of the benefits of havinga good staff." Nor has he had to devote muchtime to fund-raising. "The first $250,000 that Iraised was like pulling teeth," he recalled. "Nomajor Democratic donors knew me, I had a fun-ny name, they wouldn't take my phone calls.Then at a certain point we sort of clicked into thepublic consciousness and the buzz,and I benefitedfrom a lot of small individual contributions that

34 HARPER'S MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2006

account than ordinary voters." The solution hesupports is some form of public financing forcampaigns, combined-since big donors "are al-ways going to find a way to get money" to can-didates-with some reduction in the cost of run-ning for office; for example, by providingcandidates with free political advertising.

Personally, though, Obama felt that he hadnot trimmed his own political sails to make him-self palatable to the political center. His prima-ry obstacle, he said, is simply that the G.O.P.controls the White House and Congress. "Myexperience in the state legislature is instructive.The first seven years I was there I was in the mi-nority, and I think that I passed maybe ten bills;maybe five of them were substantive. Most of thebills that I did pass were in partnership with Re-

Capitalism, a collage made from currency, by C. K. Wilde.Courtesy Pavel Zoubok Gallery, New York City

publicans, because that was the only way I couldget them passed.The firstyear we were in the ma-jority party I passed twenty-six bills in one year."While Washington "moves more slowlythan thestate legislature," Obama said he had no doubtthat if the Democrats controlled Congress, itwould be possible to move forward on importantprogressive legislation.

The alternative, until then, is to be oppor-tunistic and look for areas where he can getenough Republican support to actually get a billpassed.That, he said, "means thar most of the leg-islation I've proposed will be more modest in itsgoals than it would be if I were in the majorityparty." Obama gave an example: although he isa strong supporter of raising fuel-economy stan-dards, proposals to do so have gone nowhere foryears. In 2005, Congress overwhelmingly re-jected an amendment to the energy bill thatwould have required cars, minivans, and SUVsto get 40 miles per gallon on average by 2016.This year,Obama and Indiana Republican Richard

cuss legislation to aid the Democratic Republic ofCongo, a country that Obama wasplanning to vis-it as part of a trip to Africa. After taking the callat his desk, Obama returned to the couch andtook up the pork-barrel question again. He gaveas an example President Bush's Clear Skies Ini-tiative, which he described as a difficult decision.After examining the legislation, he determinedthat it would significantly weaken the Clean Air

.Act, yet the administration claimed it would helpthe coal industry, a major economic force in south-ern Illinois. In the end, he opposed it because hedecided it would have been more beneficial towestern coal producers,not those in Illinois."Thatkind of vote is a tough vote, not so much on themerits as it is on the politics," he said. "I thenhave to spend a lot of time working that throughwith my constituents in southern Illinois, ex-plaining to them why I did not think it was ac-tually good for them." Even so, he took heat athome, with one southern Illinois newspaper edi-torial saying that he was less interested in looking

"T1 HE FIRST $250,000 I RAISED WAS LIKE PULLING TEETH," OBAMA SAID.

"NO MAJOR DEMOCRATIC DONORS KNEW ME ... THEN WE SORT OF

CLICKED INTO THE PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS"

Lugar introduced a bill that would require fuel-economy targets to rise 4 percent annually unlessfederal regulators specifically blocked that step.Obama recruited as co-sponsorsfour senators whohad voted against the 2005 amendment-Democrat Joe Biden of Delaware and Republi-cans Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Gordon Smithof Oregon, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania-and although this bill might not pass either, ithas a better chance than past efforts.

I asked Obama a question about pork-barrelspending. Did he feel pressure to deliver federalmoney for home-state interests?"Pork is in the eyeof the beholder," he said. "The recipients don'ttend to think it's pork, especially if it's a greatpublic-works project." He said he felt "prettygood" about projects he had sought in last year'stransportation bill and "unashamed" about get-ting them in. House Speaker Dennis Hastert hadpraised Obarna for his efforts in helping win Illi-nois its $6.2 billion in the massive, earmark-larded 2005 transportation bilL (Illinois's most ex-travagant project funded by the bill was the PrairieParkway, a controversial regional highway thatwould run through Hastert's district and, in fact,has significantly increased the value of real estatehe owns along the proposed route.)

An aide came in and told Obama that Con-gressman David Dreier was on the phone to dis-

out for the interestsof the state's coal industry thanhe was in voting with the interests of BarbaraBoxer and Hillary Clinton.

And what if he had determined that theClear Skies Initiative would have aided Illinoiscoal? I asked. In that case, Obama said, "Itwould have been more difficult for me.... If Ithought that it would have significantly helpedIllinois coal but would have been a net minusfor the environment, then you've got your clas-sic legislative dilemma."

Obama said that the "blogger community,"which by now isshorthand for liberal Democrats,gets frustrated with him because they think he'stoo willing to compromise with Republicans."My argument," he says,"is that a polarized elec-torate plays to the advantage of those who wantto dismantle government. Karl Rove can affordto win with 51 percent of the vote. They're nottrying to reform health care. They are contentwith an electorate that is cynical about govern-ment. Progressives have a harder job. They need

a big enough majority to initiate

B bold proposals."

efore he addressed the 2004 convention,Obama was virtually unknown nationally, andeven in Illinois his was far from a householdname. Just four years earlier, he had been de-

REPORT 35

feated by a significant margin when he tried tounseat Chicago-area Congressman Bobby Rushin the Democratic primary. But following thespeech, which was universally hailed-eventhe National Review called it "simple and pow-erful," conceding that it had deserved its "rap-turous critical reception"-Obama became anational celebrity. Less than two months later,he won election to the Senate with 70 percentof the vote.

If the speech was his debut to the wider Amer-ican public, he had already undergone an equal-ly successfulbut much quieter audition with Dem-ocratic Party leaders and fund-raisers, withoutwhose support he would surely never have beenchosen for such a prominent role at the conven-tion. The early, if not overwhelming, favorite tobe the Senate nominee from Illinois had beenDan Hynes, the state comptroller, who had twicewon statewide office and had the support of thestate's Democratic machine and labor unions. Butby September 2003, six months before the pri-mary, Obama was winning support from notonly African Americans but also Chicago's "Lake-front Liberals" and other progressives.He wasstilllargely unknown in Washington circles, but thatchanged the following month when Vernon jor-dan, the well-known power broker and corporateboardmember who chaired Bill Clinton's presi-dential transition team after the 1992 election,placed calls to roughly twenty of his friends andinvited them to a fund-raiser at his home.

That event marked his entry into a well-established Washington ritual-the gauntlet offund-raising parties and meet-and-greets throughwhich potential stars are vetted by fixers,donors,and lobbyists. Gregory Craig, an attorney withWilliams & Connolly and a longtime Democrat-ic figure who, as special counsel in the WhiteHouse, had coordinated Bill Clinton's impeach-ment defense, met Obama that night. "I liked hissense of humor and the confidence he had dis-cussing national issues,especially as a state sena-tor," Craig recalled of the event. "You felt excit-ed to be in his presence."Another thing that Craigliked about Obama was that he's not seen as a"polarizer,"like such traditional African-Americanleaders asJesseJackson and Al Sharpton. "He getsrespect from his adversaries because of the wayhetreats them," Craig said. "He doesn't try to be allthings to all people, but he has a way of taking po-sitions you don't like without making you angry."

Word about Obama spread through Wash-ington's blue-chip law firms, lobby shops, andpolitical offices, and this accelerated after hiswin in the March primary. Mike Williams, vicepresident for legislative affairs at The BondMarket Association and a member of anAfrican-American lobbying association, hadbeen following the race in Illinois and was in-

36 HARPER'S MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2006

I

troduced to Obama through acquaintances inWashington who had known him at HarvardLaw School. "We represent Wall Street firms,"Williams said in recounting his first conversa-tion with Obama. "A big issue for us since 2000is predatory lending. He worked on that issue inIllinois; he was the lead sponsor of a bill there. Italked to him about that. He had a different po-sition from ours. There's a perception out therethat the Democrats are anti-business, and Italked to him about that directly. I said, There'sa perception that you're coming at this from theangle of consumers. He was forthright, which Iappreciated. He said, I tried to broker the bestdeal I could." Williams still had his differenceswith Obama, but the conversation convincedhim that the two could work together. "He'snot a political novice and he's smart enoughnot to say things cast in stone, but you can havea conversation with him," Williams said. "He'sa straight shooter. As a lobbyist, that's some-thing you value. You don't need a yes everytime, but you want to be able to count thevotes. That's what we do."

Williams subsequently set up a conferencecall between Obama and a group of financial-industry lobbyists. That, too, went well, and inJune of 2004, Williams helped organize "a littlefund-raiser" for Obama at The Bond MarketAssociation. "It wasn't just the financial com-munity. There was a broad cross-section," hesaid of the 200 or so people who turned out."There was overwhelming support, not justpeople from associations giving $2,000 but fromindividuals who just wanted to meet him, giv-ing smaller contributions."

Tom Quinn, a senior partner at Venable andwidelyconsidered one of the top lobbyistsin town,got a call from Williams and attended the fund-raiser. "I'm on the list. Pretty much everyone inpolitical fund-raising circles knows me," saidQuinn, who works closely with the DemocraticNational Committee and has been a party pow-er broker since the late 1960s,when he worked onthe presidential campaign of Hubert Humphrey."Every day I get ten or fifteen solicitations. I con-tribute if! like the candidate and think they havea chance to win." He was impressed when heheard that Obama had been president of the Har-vard Law Review-"That jumped out at me. Itshowed he had absolute intelligence"-and evenmore impressed after meeting him. "He's got anice personal touch and the ability to kid arounda little bit too," he said. "He's got star quality."Quinn contributed $500 to Obama at The BondMarket Association event, and later made calls topeople he knew and asked them to donate mon-ey as well.

Robert Harmala, also a big player in Demo-cratic circles and a colleague of Quinn's at Ven-

able, attended the association's event as well. Hehad been invited by Larry Duncan-an African-American lobbyist for Lockheed Martin, a Ven-able client-who helped Williams organize theaffair. Harmala liked what he saw and contin-ued to be impressed by Obama. "There's a rea-sonableness about him," he said. "I don't see himas being on the liberal fringe. He's not going tobe a parrot for the party line." Like Quinn, Har-mala donated $500 to Obama and made calls toa number of political donors ("Some usual suspectsin California whom I've worked with before")and urged them to support Obama's campaign.Other fund-raisers were soon organized-one atthe Four Seasons Hotel, another at a DupontCircle restaurant, yet another at the Clintons'home offEmbassyRow. "He washitting his stride.There were people clamoring to help," saidWilliams. "It wasn't just one person who put theevents together and it wasn't all about raising

money-people wanted to meet him

I and talk to him."

t's not always clear what Obama's financialbackers want, but it seems safe to concludethat his campaign contributors are not inter-ested merely in clean government and politi-cal reform. And although Obama is by nomeans a mouthpiece for his funders, it appearsthat he's not entirely indifferent to their de-sires either.

Consider the case of Illinois-based ExelonCorporation, the nation's leading nuclear-power-plant operator. The firm is Obama'sfourth largest patron, having donated a total of$74,350 to his campaigns. During debate on the2005 energy bill, Obama helped to vote downan amendment that would have killed vast loanguarantees for power-plant operators to developnew energy projects. The loan guarantees werecalled "one of the worst provisions in this mas-sive piece of legislation" by Taxpayers for Com-mon Sense and Citizens Against GovernmentWaste; the public will not only pay millions ofdollars in loan costs but will risk losing billionsof dollars if the companies default.

In one of his earliest votes, Obama joined abloc of mostly conservative and moderate Sen-ate Democrats who helped pass a G.O.P.-driven class-action "reform" bill. The bill hadbeen long sought by a coalition of businessgroups and was lobbied for aggressively by fi-nancial firms, which constitute Obama's sec-ond biggest single bloc of donors.

Although The Bond Market Associationdidn't lobby directly on the legislation,Williams took note of Obama's vote. "He's aDemocrat, and some people thought he'd dowhatever the trial lawyers wanted, but he did-n't do that," he said. "That's a testament to his

character." Obama has voted on one bill thatwas of keen interest to Williams's members:last year's hotly contested bankruptcy bill,which made filing for bankruptcy more difficultand gives creditors more recourse to recoverdebts. Obama voted against the bill, butWilliams was pleased that he did side with TheBond Market Association position on a num-ber of provisions. Most were minor technicalmatters, but he also opposed an importantamendment, which was defeated, that wouldhave capped credit-card interest rates at 30percent. "He studied the issue," Williams said."Some assumed he would just go along withconsumer advocates, but he voted with us onseveral points. He understood the issue. He

wasn't closed-minded. A lot of

A people found that very refreshing."

s of this summer, Obama had raisednearly $16 million for his original Senate runand for his 2010 reelection war chest. He hastaken in an additional $3.8 million for theHopefund, his leadership PAC. Such PACs aresubject to fewer restrictions on raising andspending money than general campaign funds.Over a six-year term, a senator can raise a max-imum of $4,200 per individual donor; the samedonor can give as much as $30,000 to the sena-tor's leadership PAC during that same period.Traditionally, leadership PACs were estab-lished by veteran members of Congress, butnow they are set up by anyone who hopes towork his or her way up through party ranks.Last year, the Hopefund took in more than anyother leadership PAC except for those of BillFrist, John McCain, and John Kerry, accordingto the Center for Responsive Politics.

In several primaries, Obama's PAC has giv-en to candidates that have been carefullyculled and selected by the Democratic estab-lishment on the basis of their marketability aspalatable "moderates"-even when they arefacing more progressive and equally viablechallengers. Most conspicuously, Obamabacked Joe Lieberman over Ned Lamont, hisDemocratic primary opponent in Connecticut,endorsing him publicly in March and con-tributing $4,200 to his campaign. The Hope-fund also gave $10,000 to Tammy Duckworth,a helicopter pilot in the National Guard wholost both legs in Iraq and who is running forthe seat of retiring G.O.P. Congressman HenryHyde in Chicago's western suburbs. Despite hersupport from the party establishment, an enor-mous fund-raising advantage, and sympathyshe had due to her war record, Duckworth wonthe primary by just 1,100 votes over a vocalwar opponent named Christine Cegelis.(When asked about her stand on the Iraq war

REPORT 37

by a reporter, Duckworth had replied, "There isgood and bad in everything.")

The calibration of Obama's own politicalrhetoric has been particularly evident in regardto the war in Iraq. At an antiwar rally inChicago in October 2002, when Obama wasstill a state senator, he savaged the Bush Ad-ministration for its by then obvious plans to in-.vade. "I don't oppose all wars," he said thatday. "What I am opposed to is a dumb war.What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I amopposed to is the cynical attempt by RichardPerle and PaulWolfowitz and other armchair,weekend warriors in this administration toshove their own ideological agendas down ourthroats, irrespective of the costs in lives lostand in hardships borne."

Since taking office, Obama has become farmore measured in his position. After Pennsyl-vania Congressman John Murtha called for with-drawal from Iraq last fall, Obama rejected sucha move in a speech before the Chicago Councilon Foreign Relations, saying the United Statesneeded "to manage our exit in a responsibleway-with the hope of leaving a stable founda-tion for the future." His stance won him praisefrom Washington Post columnist David Broder,the veritable weather vane of political conven-tional wisdom. Murtha's was "not a carefully rea-soned analysis of the strategic consequences ofleaving Iraq," Broder wrote, whereas Obama washelping his party define "a sensible commonground" and had "pointed the administrationand the country toward a realistic and modest-ly hopeful course on Iraq." Obama continues toreject any specific timetable for withdrawal fromIraq, even as public opposition to the war grows

and as the militarv rationale for stay-

E ing becomes less and less apparent.

or the past several decades, the two senatorsfrom Illinois have held a weekly meeting onThursday mornings called the Constituent Cof-fee, where visitors from the Prairie State canmeet and ask questions of their elected officials.Traditionally, the coffees have been low-key af-fairs, but since Obama took office they havebeen moved to a larger room---often on the topfloor of the Hart Building, which looks our onthe Capitol dome-that can accommodate thecrowds they now invariably attract.

Obama and Richard Durbin, Illinois's seniorsenator and the Democrats' Senate minoritywhip, are a winning team. At one coffee I at-tended this summer, Obama noted in introduc-ing Durbin that his colleague had recently beenselected by Time magazine as one of the tenbest members of the Senate. "Only ninety sena-tors disagree," said Durbin in rejoinder, adding,"I haven't done the cover of Newsweek or won a

38 HARPER'S MAGAZINE / NOVEMBER 2006

Grammy. There's a pretty important junior sen-ator from Illinois too." (Obama won a Best Spo-ken Word Grammy this year, for his reading ofhis autobiographv.) At another coffee, Durbinmentioned to the crowd that Obama hadthrown out the first pitch at a Chicago WhiteSox game last year; this, he noted, had sparkeda long winning streak, at the end of which theteam won its first World Series in eighty-eightyears. Later, a student at the University of Illi-nois asked Obama if he might also throw outthe first pitch for the perennial sad-sack Cubs,in order to impart similarly good luck. "Myarm," Obama deadpanned, "is only so good."

By 8:30 A.M. on July 13, when that week'scoffee was scheduled to begin, about 150 peoplehad filled the seats and several dozen more werestanding at the back. The top-floor space atHart was not available that day, so the coffeehad been moved to a large hearing room in thebasement of the neighboring Dirksen Building.A few stragglers huddled around a table nearthe entrance, picking from a platter of dough-nuts and filling cups of coffee from a shiny met-al urn. "The doughnuts are the main reasonpeople come," Obama joked, opening the affairfrom a podium at the head of the room. In fact,it was clear that many in attendance-s-especial-ly among the sizable contingent who weren'tactually from Illinois, including many congres-sional interns and pages-had turned up just tosee Obama.

Although Obama and Durbin did field somequestions on foreign policy, especially on Is-rael's conflict with Hezbollah, the audienceseemed more interested in domestic issues-health and education and basic pocketbookworries. What, one middle-aged woman askedpointedly, was Congress planning to do aboutthe soaring price of gasoline?

Like the natural politician he is, Obamapackaged his reply to appeal to the broadestspectrum of opinion. Energy, he said, was notjust an economic issue but a national-securityissue ("We now are dependent on the mostvolatile regions of the world for running oureconomy") and an environmental issue as well("There are a lot of farmers in the room whosecroplands could be impacted by global warm-ing"). President Bush, said Obama, had finallyacknowledged the need to break America's ad-diction to foreign oil, "but with the twelve-stepprogram there are eleven other steps after youacknowledge your addiction." One step, hesaid, in bringing the issue home to Illinois in-terests, was to support biofuels such as ethanol,which are "a terrific way for us to start cuttingdown our use of imported oil."

Obama's support among traditional Demo-cratic constituencies wasapparent in the audience

members, a number of whom worked for low-income housing, civil rights, and pro-choicegroups. Grateful representatives of big-money in-terests were on hand as well, in the form of offi-cialsfrom the IllinoisSoybean Association and theIllinois Corn Growers Association. "We appreci-ate the relationship and the help," said the lat-

ter, who was in town aspart of a lobby-

A ing blitz called the Corn Congress.

nd indeed Obama has delivered for hisconstituents-for social activists, but also forbusiness groups whose demands are invariablymore costly. Although this is not the place toreview the full history of ethanol, it's beyond dis-pute that it survives only because members ofCongress from farm states, whether liberal orconservative, have for decades managed to winbillions of dollars in federal subsidiesto underwriteits production. It is not, of course, family farmerswho primarily benefit from the program but ratherthe agribusiness giants such as Illinois-basedAventine Renewable Energy and Archer DanielsMidland (for which ethanol accounts for just 5percent of its sales but an estimated 23 percent ofits profits). Ethanol production, as Tad Patzek ofUC Berkeley's Department of Civil and Envi-ronmental Engineering wrote in a report thisyear, is based on "the massive transfer of moneyfrom the collective pocket of the U.S. taxpayersto the transnational agricultural cartel."

Since arriving on Capitol Hill, Obama hasbeen as assiduous as any member of Congressin promoting ethanol.? He has introduced anumber of measures that benefit the industry-such as the "Obama Amendment" that offeredoil companies a 50 percent tax credit for build-ing stations that offer E85 fuel-and voted forthe corporate-welfare-laden 2005 energy bill,which offered billions in subsidies to ethanolproducers as well as lavish incentives for devel-oping cars that run on alternative fuels.

Meanwhile, Obama, Durbin, and three otherfarm-state senators opposed a proposal this yearby the Bush Administration to lower stiff tariffson cheaper sugarcane-based ethanol from Braziland other countries. To lower such tariffs, thesenators suggested, would leave the nation dan-gerously dependent on foreign ethanol. "Our fo-cus must be on building energy security throughdomestically produced renewable fuels," wrotethe senators in a letter to Bush. That Obamawould lend his name to such an argument-with its dubious implication that Brazilian

2 ADM has apparently not contributed money to Oba-rna, but during his first year in office he traveled on thecompany's private jets at least twice. All told, Obarnatook twenty-three flights on corporate planes; after someatypically bad press for accepting the flights, Obarna im-posed a ban at his office on privately subsidized travel.

40 HARPER'S MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2006

ethanol is a national-security liability compara-ble to Saudi crude-indicates that he is at leastas interested in protecting domestic producersof ethanol as he is in weaning America fromimported petroleum.

I recall a remark made by Studs Terkel in 1980,about the liberal Republican John Anderson, whowas running as an independent against RonaldReagan and Jimmy Carter: "People are so tired of.dealing with two-foot midgets, you give themsomeone two foot four and they start proclaiminghim a giant." In the unstinting and unanimousadulation of Barack Obama today, one wonders ifa similardynamic might be at work. If so, his is lessa midgetry of character than one dictated bychanging context. Gone are the days when, as inthe 1970s, the U.S. Senate could comfortablyhouse such men as Fred Harris (from Oklahoma,of all places), who called for the breakup of the oil,steel, and auto industries; as Wisconsin's WilliamProxmire,who replacedJoe McCarthy in 1957andsurvived into the 1980s, a crusader against bigbanks who neither spent nor raised campaignmoney; as South Dakota's George McGovern,who favored huge cuts in defense spending and aguaranteed income for all Americans; as FrankChurch of Idaho, who led important investigationsinto CIA and FBI abuses.

Today, money has all but wrung such dissentfrom the Senate. Campaigns have grown in-creasingly costly; in 2004 it took an average ofmore than $7 million to run for a Senate seat.As Carl Wagner, a Democratic political strate-gist who first came to Washington in 1970, re-marked to me, the Senate today is a fundamen-tally different institution than it was then."Senators were creatures of their states and re-flected the cultures of their states," he said. "T0-

day they are creatures of the people who pay fortheir multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns.Representative democracy has largely been tak-en off the table. It's reminiscent of the 1880sand 1890s, when senators were chosen by statelegislatures who were owned by the railroadsand the banks." Accordingly, as corporatemoney has grown increasingly important tocandidates, we have seen the rise of the smoth-ering K Street culture and the revolving doorthat feeds it-not just lobbyists themselves butan entire interconnected world of campaignconsultants, public-relations agencies, pollsters,and media strategists.

All of this has forged a political culture thatis intrinsically hostile to reform. On conditionof anonymity, one Washington lobbyist Ispoke with was willing to point out the obvi-ous: that big donors would not be helping outObama if they didn't see him as a "player."The lobbyist added: "What's the dollar valueof a starry-eyed idealist?" _