Obama: A Promise of Change

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Chapter One

Got Some Game

I'm LeBron, baby.
—Barack Obama

The swagger in Barack Obama's step appeared even cockier than usual on the afternoon of July 27, 2004.

Obama led reporters, aides, and a couple of friends around a maze of chain-link security fences guarding the FleetCenter arena in Boston. A former high school basketball player, Obama walked as if he were heading to the free throw line for the game-winning shot. Hours later, Obama would take his first steps onto the stage to deliver his now famous 2004 keynote address to the Democratic National Convention—the meeting where the Democratic party would pick its nominee to run for president of the United States.

Obama would not be chosen to run for president in 2004. He wasn't even in the running. But his speech would take him from being a little-known politician from Illinois to someone recognized across the country.

I was a newspaper reporter covering Obama, and I was wondering if his strut was something of an act. Would he really make a national name for himself here?

I slipped up to Obama and told him that he seemed to be impressing many people.

Obama, his gaze fixed directly ahead, never broke his stride.

"I'm LeBron, baby," he replied. He was talking about LeBron James, the amazingly talented teenager who at the time was wowing crowds and teammates in the National Basketball Association. "I can play on this level. I got some game."

I wasn't so sure.

That evening, Obama introduced himself to America. He spoke of his beloved mother's belief in a humanity that all people share. He declared that America is a land of good-hearted people, a nation of citizens who have more to unite them than to divide them, a country held together by a belief in freedom and opportunity for all. "There's not a liberal America and a conservative America—there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America—there's the United States of America. . . . We are one people. . . ."

Democrats from many different states, many different races, had tears in their eyes. I heard myself speak aloud.

"Yes, indeed. Tonight, Barack, you are LeBron, baby."

But three years later, as Obama campaigned to win the Democratic Party's 2008 nomination for the U.S. presidency, there were questions: exactly how had Obama moved this far, this fast—and was it too fast? Did he have the experience and toughness needed for the White House? Was his mixed racial ancestry a problem, an advantage, or both? Could this young senator with an idealistic message survive the pressure of a race for the presidency?

And most of all, even though many voters were enchanted with Obama, would the rest of America trust this newcomer enough to make him the leader of their country?

David Mendell, a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, wrote about urban issues and politics for the Chicago Tribune from 1998 to 2007. He is now a Chicago-based freelance writer and an adjunct instructor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, GQ, the Washington Post and other places.