Obama’s Other Pastor

He recalls his first impression of Obama, whom he met not for the first time but most memorably at a fund-raiser last summer. "As he shook my hand, he looked me in the eye, just like you're doing right now, and he said, 'We're going to win this thing'." Caldwell exhales with a whistle. "There was something about that look in his eyes, and the confidence in his voice, it was just like … man."

Days after that meeting, Caldwell did the honorable thing. He called his friend the president to tell him that he would be supporting Obama. The call went as well as could be expected. "He didn't jump up and down and shout 'Hallelujah,' but he understood and he was comfortable," says Caldwell. Former president George H.W. Bush says he is neither disappointed nor surprised by Caldwell's decision, and he praises Caldwell and the contributions his church has made to Houston. "Obama is lucky to have this fine man in his corner," he says.

Caldwell's own story reflects the values he so admires in Obama and that first attracted him to Bush. He grew up near, but not in, one of the worst neighborhoods in Houston. His father was a successful tailor who in the 1960s made suits for the biggest names in R&B: Otis Redding, James Brown and B. B. King. His mother was a high-school guidance counselor. The family went to the local Methodist church each Sunday. Caldwell played in the marching band, got good grades, and when he graduated from high school left Houston to attend a small liberal-arts college in Minnesota called Carleton. (In 1996, he told Texas Monthly that the University of Texas was too big and too racist.) From there, Caldwell went to Wharton, where he earned an M.B.A. In his 20s he was a bond salesman; when making sales calls, he called himself "K.J."

Then one workday afternoon he had an overwhelming sense of calling, what he calls "a knowing." He quit his job, and to the surprise of his parents and the incredulity of some colleagues—why would he forfeit a shot at the big money, they wondered—he enrolled in seminary at Southern Methodist University. Over 26 years, he built Windsor Village United Methodist Church, a ragtag congregation in what his PR man Irv White calls "the hood," from 25 people to 14,000, making it one of the two largest churches in the Methodist denomination. His first wife, Patrice, died in a plane crash; he met Suzette through her mother, a minister who came to Windsor Village one afternoon to run a seminar for single parents. Caldwell courted Suzette, who lived in Oklahoma, for months by phone until a friend persuaded her to give the pastor a chance. They married in 1992 and have three young children.

In Obama's unconventional biography, Caldwell clearly sees himself. The hypocrisy of Republican attacks on Obama disappoints him greatly, he says. "Senator Barack Obama went to two good schools. In the neighborhood I grew up in, that's what they said: 'Get a high-school education, get into a good school.' He did that. And now, they are taking his educational background and trying to twist it to make him an elitist."

Caldwell twists his salad with a fork, visibly angry. "In the church I grew up in they told me, 'Son, we want you to get married, but you'll mess up your life if you marry the wrong woman.' Senator Obama and his wife have a great marriage. He confesses Jesus Christ. He practices his faith …" Here Caldwell pauses. "Do you want me to let loose on brother McCain?" Then he calls out McCain especially for his crass language, which he says is "rude, crude, lewd and unbecoming a presidential candidate."