What do you recall about President Obama’s ascent to the White House?

Politics & Elections
1

I wasn’t engaged in politics at all until Scumbag # 1 threaded the needle of the Republican primary in 2016.

I documented in another thread a couple of years ago, how I wasn’t paying TOO much attention leading up to the 2008 Election, but the night President Obama won felt overwhelmingly historic to me, in the same way that watching the Cubs win the World Series eight years later did.

From what I recall, it was his speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention (on behalf of John Kerry) that really put him on the map? Did anyone outside of Illinois know his name before he took the stage that night? How long did it take before people started thinking “wow, this guy could really turn out to be a great two-term President”?

I’m bummed that it doesn’t seem like the country is “ready” to elect Pete Buttigieg, so was there that prevailing feeling back then that “he’s great, but we can’t run him because the country isn’t ready to elect a Black guy”?

I’m trying to think through “who the hell are we gonna find for 2024, to keep Desantis or Scumbag # 1 from getting in office and finishing off what’s left of the nation”.

I keep getting enamored with one bright shiny object after another (first I thought Cory Booker, then Katie Porter, then yesterday it was Stephanie Murphy – until I found out she was born overseas). Did President Obama totally “come out of nowhere” like what’s sort of etched in my memory?

I know there’s plenty of other threads where we’ve listed possible options if President Biden steps aside, and I’ve read back through President Obama’s Wikipedia page so I’m somewhat refreshed on facts and dates and stuff.

I’m just curious how some of y’all “felt” throughout that 2004 – 2008 time period, and what you recall about President Obama’s chances of ever being elected to the White House going from 1% (I suppose the night of his 2004 speech) to 100% (Election Night 2008, when he officially crossed the 270-electoral-votes finish line).

And perhaps give myself some hope that “maybe our best person is still ‘out there somewhere’ since nobody knew who President Obama was, two years and three months before he was elected to his first of two successful terms”. Y’know, if that’s even how it went down back then.

2

I wasn’t much more involved than you, although I did vote for Obama. And when he was elected, I was happy and thought that the world was trending in the right direction. Little did I expect such a backlash.

3

Obama wasn’t on my radar before the 2008 primary. I remember the primary that year as a duel between Obama and Clinton, and thinking at the time that this is the first competitive Democratic primary in my lifetime (born in 1977). I also remember it being a near certainty that McCain was going to lose either way because of the Great Recession, the War on Terror having turned into a slog, and McCain being seen as just another four years of Bush Jr. I also remember that time McCain smacked down one of his supporters for saying something racist about Obama. At that moment, even without looking at 538, I knew McCain didn’t have a chance.

4

Interesting question. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were also relative unknowns, nationally, at this point in their cycles.

I think soon after the 2006 midterms, my mother said — “remember that guy who gave that speech in Kerry’s convention?” (I vaguely did) — “they’re saying he might run for President” (she was excited about the idea).

Over 2007, I gradually got to know more about this guy (starting with “oh, he’s in Southside Chicago, where I lived once”). By the end of the year (as I recall), there were signs the economy was about to tank under Republican watch, and it started to dawn on me that we might very well have a black President (or a woman — by then it was looking “neck-and-neck” with Hillary as the primaries got underway). Now I was excited, too (but there were concerns about his lack of experience).

By summer ‘08, my wife and I were campaigning for the guy, and we were pretty confident he would win…but the election results still felt historic and jubilant.

(My wife was soon to become a US citizen, and was thrilled at the direction the country was headed. We were just talking last night about how her adopted country has taken a big step back in the interim, and how mixed our feeling are now. Still a glimmer of optimism, though… at least we HAVE something like the Jan. 6 hearings.)

5

That speech is rightly pointed to as his breakout moment in American politics.

I was trying to remember whether I saw that speech live, and Wikipedia says it’s one of the few convention keynote addresses not televised by commercial broadcast networks. So I probably heard about it afterwards and hunted it down online.

6

In 2008, I was a college junior. The main thing that stood out to me was how inevitable it was. Everyone knew he would win in November, no doubt. It was like an 8-month long coronation leading up to Election Day.

7

I think it was less a “backlash” than the voting public again hungering for someone new who was perceived as being outside the political norms.

What I most remember about Obama’s first run was a sense of relief that someone who was not only intelligent but could express himself without tripping over his tongue and doing a pratfall, was going to be elected.

8

My father certainly felt that way. He said almost exactly that. He was quite progressive, but ultimately didn’t have faith in the American voters. I’m glad he lived to see it happen.

He was a pretty high profile (for a short time) Senator. I think most people felt he would run in 4 to 8 years after 2008. He seized the moment, though, and I think surprised most of us by doing that.

I certainy didn’t think his election was inevitable. He had a tough primary run against Clinton, and McCain was expected to do very well too.

9

You mean this. It wasn’t racist per se, but she called him an Arab.

With a bit more context, McCain defends Obama

10

I think the Democratic Party has “rising stars” deliver things like the keynote address at its conventions. So in 1988, Ann Richards delivered the keynote address (with the famous line about George H W Bush being “born with a silver foot in his mouth” and Bill Clinton delivered a long, rambling, boring nomination speech. But it was enough to bring Clinton to national attention. So when Obama was delivering the keynote address in 2004, it was clear he was a rising star (and it helped that he oozed charisma).

11

I remember the 2008 election well. I was 48. We had a situation where no Republican could win. Banking deregulation had destroyed the economy and The War on Terra had gone on for 7 years to little result and everyone was tired of it. The Republican primaries had produced no obvious heir to the Bush years except McCain, a man of integrity (see above) but still right wing and a weak campaigner on the national stage because of his age. He represented the failed past (war and economy) and Obama represented a young and vital future.

12

I’m a political junkie, I don’t know which magazine or newspaper it was, but a relatively well-known paper ran a profile of sorts on Obama before his 2004 convention speech and prior to him being elected U.S. Senator. That was my only real exposure to him–at that point, I was less aware of him than I was of Cory Booker–who was involved in a real famous (to politics junkies) campaign for Mayor of Newark in 2002, and was seen as a rising black star in the party fighting against a very corrupt Newark Democratic political establishment that had long been entrenched. Obviously, Obama’s trajectory was far more ascendant than Bookers’ from then forward, but by most measures they both ended up doing relatively well for themselves in politics.

I’m a lifelong conservative and was a Republican until a point after the 2012 election–I voted against Obama twice.

What probably set me apart, and this is probably why me and the small minority of Republicans like me left the party–is I never hated Obama when I voted against him. I did not see him as a threat to the republic or my way of life, I saw him as a slightly more progressive Third Way Democrat, who was a tad naive and unexperienced in Washington politics and foreign relations. My antipathy towards him in '08 was mostly based on the fact that I found his mantra of “hope and change” to be empty drivel platitudes designed to make people feel good, I found some of his promises like banning lobbyists from the White House to be eye rolling to anyone who really understands how politics works. He was a mainstream Democrat, I wasn’t, so I disagreed with a number of his positions, and I found his campaign to be appealing to a simplistic and watered-down mentality in the electorate.

Now, one thing to note is Barack Obama is a million times the politician than I would ever be–he’s probably the best Democratic politician of the 21st century. The stuff I found to be banal platitudes…that’s actually what people wanted at that place and time, and while it may have been off-putting to people like me, I represented a minority of the voters, Obama understood what the majority wanted and that is how he structured his campaign.

Unlike a lot of partisans who 100% believe they will win until the election is over, I usually have a pretty realistic view on elections. I knew McCain was cooked very, very early in '08’s cycle, so I knew many months in advance we would have our first black President. While I disagreed with his style and policy positions, I had a lot of respect for Barack Obama the man and it did make me genuinely feel proud of my country that a lot of people who probably still harbored some element of racial resentment, put that aside to vote for him.

In 2012, I voted against him again, although for almost none of the made up and stupid controversies the Tea Party imbeciles promoted. My biggest issues with '12 Obama was I felt he was mismanaging American foreign policy, and I generally thought Romney had a better read on how to confront things like ISIS and Russia. He issued his “redline” proclamation in August of 2012 and then failed to do anything when Syria violated it. I was already starting to feel fairly alienated from the base of the party by 2012, though–if someone like Santorum had won the primary in '12 I likely would have voted for Obama in '12–as I did end up voting for Hillary in '16 (a politician I disliked a lot more than Obama.)

FWIW my take has kinda been in recent years that the country ‘wasted’ Obama’s talents by electing him in '08. He was the right man for the wrong time.

I actually think Hillary was better suited for the '08 era Presidency than Obama–and HRC would have beaten McCain. Hillary was probably better suited for the '08-16 era than Obama–it was an era of little ability to do much, but where what there was to be done was going to be done by administrative technocracy. I also think HRC is a little more willing to get in the mud and fight on things where Obama took the high road. HRC would have not had an amazingly impactful Presidency, but to be honest Obama’s Presidency was limited in impact because of the state of the country and the shift to pure Tea Party obstructionism after '10.

On the flipside I think Obama was the perfect antithesis to a Trump '16, if the '16 election had been Senator Obama vs Trump, I firmly believe Trump is never President and the country is on a better path–Obama’s skills in my opinion were much better suited for trying to douse the flames of irrational stupidity that have overtaken the country in these years than they were for maneuvering the State of play in the early 2010s.

13

I first noticed him when he gave a speech in Berlin in front of a massive crowd.

14

Lest anyone think this is a reportable post, they’re referring to this:
(Snippet from 2008 NY Times article):

TRANSCRIPT

Obama’s Speech in Berlin

July 24, 2008

The following is the prepared text of Senator Barack Obama in Berlin, Germany, as provided by his presidential campaign.

SENATOR BARACK OBAMA: Thank you to the citizens of Berlin and to the people of Germany. Let me thank Chancellor Merkel and Foreign Minister Steinmeier for welcoming me earlier today. Thank you Mayor Wowereit, the Berlin Senate, the police, and most of all thank you for this welcome.
….

15

I’m checking the archives of The New York Times. The first mention of him was in 1990, as the first Black person elected president of Harvard Law Review and then a couple more minor articles, followed by a 1995 review of his book “Dreams From My Father.” I remember that book getting some attention, so I think it may have been the start of him coming to public attention.

16

I don’t remember when I first became aware of Obama, or what I thought of him or his chances at the time. But I do remember that he formally announced his candidacy in Springfield (IL), and since I lived there at the time, I went downtown to see it.

This thread has inspired me to look up some old threads from well before the 2008 election, to see what the SDMB thought of him at the time. I’ll link to a couple of them here, in case anyone’s interested, but there are a lot more of the same. Looks like he had a lot of supporters here, but also a lot of doubters who thought America wouldn’t elect someone so inexperienced and/or so Black.

Response to the DNC speech in 2004:

Who the hell was Vilsack?

Prediction: Obama will win because of Bush:

17

Oh wow, thanks for pulling those! Yes, I want to peruse through those later this evening (even though I’m enjoying reading everyone’s hindsight and recall, that will make for a great “time capsule”).

18

I first noticed Obama during his 2004 US Senate campaign and I could see how charismatic he was, how well he talked to people and how people really responded to him. I thought that was an interesting race between Obama and Jack Ryan, who also seemed to be a really good candidate until the Republican candidate dropped out due to issues with his ex wife Jeri Ryan. With Ryan out, Mike Ditka teased throwing his hat in the ring but ultimately opted to stay out. The Illinois GOP brought in Alan Keyes to run against Obama but Illinois generally doesn’t respond to carpet baggers, at least not in this case.

19

I remember watching his convention speech in 2004 and thinking, “son of a gun! This guy is in the MLK class of orators! He could be the next president”.

I voted for him in the 2008 primary and of course both of his elections. Maybe Hillary could have beaten McCain, maybe not. I just liked Obama a lot more.

20

This is the race where Ryan sent a staffer to follow Obama and videotape him every day, all day long. Obama handled it well and the stunt did more to reveal Obama’s cool temperament than anything else.