The whole operation would be overseen by the two deeply invested Davids—Axelrod and Plouffe. Axe, as everyone called him, had a soft voice, a courtly manner, and a brushy mustache that ran the length of his top lip. He’d worked as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune before turning to political consulting and would lead the messaging and media for Barack. Plouffe, who at thirty-nine had a boyish smile and a deep love of numbers and strategy, would manage the overall campaign. The team was growing rapidly, with experienced people recruited to look after the finances and handle advance planning on events.
Someone had the wisdom to suggest that Barack might want to formally announce his candidacy in Springfield. Everyone agreed that it would be a fitting, middle-of-America backdrop for what we hoped would be a different kind of campaign—one led from the ground up, largely by people new to the political process. This was the cornerstone of Barack’s hope. His years as a community organizer had shown him how many people felt unheard and disenfranchised within our democracy. Project VOTE! had helped him see what was possible if those people were empowered to participate. His run for president would be an even bigger test of that idea. Would his message work on a larger scale? Would enough people come out to help? Barack knew he was an unusual candidate. He wanted to run an unusual campaign.
The plan became for Barack to make his announcement from the steps of the Old State Capitol, a historic landmark that would of course be more visually appealing than any convention center or arena. But it also put him outdoors, in the middle of Illinois, in the middle of February, when temperatures were often below freezing. The decision struck me as well-intentioned but generally impractical, and it did little to build my confidence in the campaign team that now more or less ran our lives. I was unhappy about it, imagining the girls and me trying to smile through blowing snow or frigid winds, Barack trying to appear invigorated instead of chilled. I thought about all the people who would decide to stay home that day rather than stand out in the cold for hours. I was a midwesterner: I knew the weather could ruin everything. I knew also that Barack couldn’t afford an early flop.
About a month earlier, Hillary Clinton had declared her own candidacy, brimming with confidence. John Edwards, Kerry’s former running mate from North Carolina, had launched his campaign a month prior to that, speaking in front of a New Orleans home that had been ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. In all, a total of nine Democrats would throw their hats into the ring. The field would be crowded and the competition fierce.
Barack’s team was gambling with an outdoor announcement, but it wasn’t my place to second-guess. I insisted that the advance team at least equip Barack’s podium with a heater to keep him from appearing too uncomfortable on the national news. Otherwise, I held my tongue. I had little control anymore. Rallies were being planned, strategies mapped, volunteers mustered. The campaign was under way, and there was no parachuting out of it.
In what was probably a subconscious act of self-preservation, my focus shifted toward something I could control, which was finding acceptable headwear for Malia and Sasha for the announcement. I’d found new winter coats for them, but I’d forgotten all about hats until it was nearly too late.
As the announcement day neared, I began making harried after-work trips to the department stores at Water Tower Place, rifling through the dwindling midseason supply of winter wear, hunting the clearance racks in vain. It wasn’t long before I became less concerned with making sure Malia and Sasha looked like the daughters of a future president than making sure they looked like they at least had a mother. Finally, on what was probably my third outing, I found some—two knit hats, white for Malia and pink for Sasha, both in a women’s size small, which ended up fitting snugly on Malia’s head but drooping loosely around Sasha’s little five-year-old face. They weren’t high fashion, but they looked cute enough, and more important they’d keep the girls warm regardless of what the Illinois winter had in store. It was a small triumph, but a triumph nonetheless, and it was mine.
* * *
Announcement day—February 10, 2007—turned out to be a bright, cloudless morning, the kind of sparkling midwinter Saturday that looks a lot better than it actually feels. The air temperature sat at about twelve degrees, with a light breeze blowing. Our family had arrived in Springfield the previous day, staying in a three-room suite at a downtown hotel, on a floor that had been rented out entirely by the campaign to house a couple dozen of our family and friends who’d traveled down from Chicago as well.
Already, we were beginning to experience the pressures of a national campaign. Barack’s announcement had inadvertently been scheduled for the same day as the State of the Black Union, a forum organized each year by the public-broadcasting personality Tavis Smiley, who was evidently angry about it. He’d made his displeasure clear to the campaign staff, suggesting that the move showed a disregard for the African American community and would end up hurting Barack’s candidacy. I was surprised that the first shots fired at us came from within the black community. Then, just a day ahead of the announcement, Rolling Stone published a piece on Barack that included the reporter making a visit to Trinity Church in Chicago. We were still members there, though our attendance had dropped off significantly after the girls were born. The piece quoted from an angry and inflammatory sermon the Reverend Jeremiah Wright had delivered many years earlier regarding the treatment of blacks in our country, intimating that Americans cared more about maintaining white supremacy than they did about God.
While the profile itself was largely positive, the cover line of the magazine read, “The Radical Roots of Barack Obama,” which we knew would quickly get weaponized by the conservative media. It was a disaster in the making, especially on the eve of the campaign launch and especially because Reverend Wright was scheduled to lead the invocation ahead of Barack’s speech. Barack had to make a difficult call, phoning the pastor and asking whether he’d be willing to step back from the spotlight, giving us a private backstage blessing instead. Reverend Wright’s feelings were hurt, Barack said, but he also seemed to understand the stakes, leading us to believe that he’d be supportive without dwelling on his disappointment.
That morning, it hit me that we’d reached the no-turning-back moment. We were literally now putting our family in front of the American people. The day was meant to be a massive kickoff party for the campaign, one for which everyone had spent weeks preparing. And like every paranoid host, I couldn’t shake the fear that when the time finally came, no one would show up. Unlike Barack, I could be a doubter. I still held on to the worries I’d had since childhood. What if we’re not good enough? Maybe everything we’d been told was an exaggeration. Maybe Barack was less popular than his people believed. Maybe it just wasn’t yet his time. I tried to shove all doubts aside as we arrived through a side entrance to a staging area inside the old capitol, still unable to see what was going on out front. So that I could get a briefing from the staff, I handed Sasha and Malia off to my mother and Kaye Wilson—“Mama Kaye”—a former mentor of Barack’s who had in recent years stepped into the role of second grandmother to our girls.