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Obama: the Accidental Candidate

Posted Aug 12, 07 7:58 AM CDT in Politics,  US 

(Newser) – Barack Obama’s rapid ascent to top-tier presidential candidate was the stuff of lucky break after lucky break, as quiet charisma and other people’s sex scandals catapulted him to the top, the Washington Post reports. It was a chance opening that first took him to Chicago and chance again that opened up a US Senate seat from Illinois. “It’s like he’s cut in line,” a Hill staffer observed.

Three sex scandals cleared the Democrat’s way to the state senate and then to Washington—and he’d “probably have stepped out of politics for a while” if his 2004 competition had been different. In fact it's Obama’s cool character that has been winning him elections for decades; conservative classmates chose him as the most level-headed liberal in the race for Harvard Law Review president.

Source Washington Post

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Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., greets members of the National Association of Black Journalists after speaking at the 32nd NABJ Convention at Bally's hotel-casino in Las Vegas,...   (Associated Press)
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. smiles during an interview Thursday, Aug. 9, 2007, with talk show host Eddie "Piolin" Sotelo (not shown) during his nationally syndicated radio...   (Associated Press)
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., talks to the media during a news conference in Oakland, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2007. Senator Obama worked with health care worker Pauline...   (Associated Press)
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Barack Obama • Election 2008 • Chicago • presidential campaign • Illinois • senator • Harvard Law School


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