On His Own

In his earlier days in Chicago politics and in the legislature in Springfield, some people thought Obama talked a bit too much about his Harvard Law degree. But Harvard is essential to understanding Obama. "From what he had learned about his dad, he was overidealistic, not practical, and that ended up in his not achieving anything effectively," says Jerry Kellman, Obama's community-organizing boss in Chicago. "Law school was a means to a kind of security. He spoke of it [his decision to apply to law school] in terms of what it meant in terms of him being effective."

It was not just law school that Obama was interested in—it was Harvard Law School. "If he was going to go to law school, he was going to go to the best law school," says Kellman. "It was very utilitarian: 'If I'm going to do this, this is where I'm going to form the right relationships'." That he was matching his father—and, by winning the Law Review presidency, surpassing him—is in keeping with the arc of Obama's life. He knew what he wanted: political stardom, not highbrow legal celebrity. Shortly after the Law Review election, David Wilkins, one of his professors, told him that he would be happy to talk about which Supreme Court justice Obama would like to clerk for. "He said to me, 'Professor Wilkins, thank you, but I'm not very interested'," Wilkins remembers. "And he said something like, 'I'm going to use these 15 minutes of fame to get a book contract' … and then he said, 'I'm going to go back to Chicago, continue the work I was doing beforehand, and then I want to run for elected office'."

In Chicago he courted and married Michelle Robinson, the daughter of Frasier Robinson, a formidable figure who, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 30, kept working at a water plant and sent two children to Princeton (and Michelle went on to Harvard Law). "I think in many ways Barack was really searching for something that might not have been evident in any one person," says Craig Robinson, Michelle's brother. "I think Reverend Wright had his place in his life as a young man and I think our father had [a] strong influence on him as well. Barack was very interested in any man who valued his family and respected his community. And I applaud Barack for where that search took him because it translated into him treating my sisters and nieces the way they should be. And as a brother, that's all I can ask."

Atonement for the sins of the fathers is a powerful drive for men who grew up the way Obama did. "He is a very loyal and dedicated family man," says his friend and campaign treasurer Martin Nesbitt. "It is my perspective that the fact that his dad was not around had some impact on that." There is complexity here, too: Obama works hard to be a good father to his two girls, but the ambition that is partly rooted in the absence of his own father has created a life in which he is one of the busiest human beings on the planet. But if anyone understands the perils, it is Obama. His children provide him with connection, even redemption.

A few days before leaving for Denver, as he answered my questions about Soetoro (who died in 1987) and the life lessons his stepfather taught him about power, he stepped back to assess what makes him who he is. His childhood, Obama said, created "impulses that continue in me to this day, and that is between the idealism of my mother and her sense of empathy and compassion, and the hard-headed realism that the world out there can be tough." As can he.

With Scott Johnson in Kenya, Sarah Kliff and Lisa Miller in New York, Richard Wolffe with the Campaign, Jessica Ramirez in Washington, D.C., Allison Samuels in Los Angeles and Erika Kinetz in Jakarta

© 2008