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17 minutes that changed his life forever
Obama's rise in the Democratic Party began with his 2004 keynote speech.
- By Eli Saslow, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post
- Published: 23:12 August 25, 2008
Washington: The Hawker jet lifted out of Springfield, Illinois, under midnight darkness, and Barack Obama leaned back into a leather chair. In his lap rested a copy of the keynote address he would deliver in three days at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. He thumbed through its pages again, even though he already had committed most of the 2,300 words to memory.
As the plane levelled, Obama told his wife and advisers about his previous trip to a Democratic convention, in 2000. He had booked a last-minute flight from Chicago to Los Angeles. Lacking political cachet, Obama had been unable to procure a floor pass into the convention. He watched speeches on a Jumbotron outside the arena before flying home, dejected, a few days before the finale. "Let's hope this convention goes a whole lot better," Obama said on the Hawker.
The pressure of the trip weighed on everybody aboard the charter flight. During the four weeks Obama had spent obsessing about his speech, he often repeated a refrain to his staff members: We have to nail this. For 17 minutes on July 27, 2004, the little-known state legislator from Illinois would stand alone in front of a prime-time television audience, 15,000 media members and the Democratic Party elite.
The first impression Obama crafted that night still forms the basis of his presidential campaign. In the most visible moment of his life to date, Obama discovered a formula for success in the public eye that he has relied on ever since. He prepared meticulously, but disguised his delivery as effortless. He told the story of his unique background, but offered few original ideas.
Obama approached the lectern in Boston a virtual nobody, a representative for 600,000 constituents in Illinois' 13th District. He exited having set the course for an unprecedented political ascent, with the fortified self-confidence that he could deliver when it mattered most.
Obama's staff had worked exhaustively to secure the chance for such a life-defining moment, even though the young politician doubted his qualifications for a keynote spot. He had restructured his schedule to campaign with presidential nominee John F. Kerry, who selected the convention speakers. Jim Cauley, who managed Obama's 2004 US Senate campaign, flew to Washington and lobbied Kerry's staff.
"The hesitation on him as a speaker was that he didn't even hold federal office yet, so how prominent could he be?" said Jack Corrigan, who ran the convention for Kerry's campaign. "He was unproven. But we became convinced that he also offered incredible promise."
Key moment
Two minutes into the speech on 2004, Obama mentioned Kansas, and that state's delegation roared in the upper deck. Surprised by the response, Obama pointed up at the group and smiled - his first unrehearsed gesture. The crowd chuckled. Obama's shoulders relaxed. "He became," Senator Terry Link said, "the Obama we all knew."
Over the next 15 minutes, Obama crafted a first impression that still stands at the foundation of his presidential campaign.
Obama possessed the vision, he said, of "not a black America and a white America and a Latino America and an Asian America - there is a United States of America." By the time he sped to his crescendo - "Out of this long political darkness a brighter day will come" - the crowd stood, transfixed.
"I was feeling like a proud older brother, and I had tears coming out of my eyes when he finished," Link said. "Wanting to be a tough guy, I was wiping tears on the corner of my suit coat and trying to clean up. Then I turn around and see there's not a dry eye in the whole place. He got to everybody. I firmly believe if they put his name on the nomination that night ahead of Kerry, Barack would have won."
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