From Greek mythology, Obama learned a lesson

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From Greek mythology, Obama learned a lesson
The Associated PressPublished: June 4, 2008





WASHINGTON: To understand how Barack Obama won the presidential primary, you have to look at what he learned when he lost.

Obama defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton solidly in the Iowa caucuses in January, but five days later she beat him, painfully and unexpectedly, in New Hampshire. That loss showed him that toppling the royal family of Democratic politics would not come easily.

"I think this was meant to be," Obama said privately the next day, recalls adviser David Axelrod. "I think we were flying too close to the sun, like Icarus. When you're fighting for change, it's not supposed to be easy."

In Greek mythology, Icarus' father gives him wax wings that empower him to fly, but warns of the danger in soaring too high. Obama got similar warnings. When he arrived in Washington, Senate dean Robert Byrd cautioned him not to be in too much of a rush to leave for the White House.

But like Icarus, Obama wouldn't heed his elder's advice. Icarus would crash into the sea. Obama would learn from his own crash in New Hampshire and make history.

Obama got his first taste of the front-runner's curse in August, shortly after a poll put him at the head of the pack in Iowa. When candidates debated at Drake University, each was asked at the start whether Obama was ready to be president. He joked that riding the bumper cars at the Iowa State Fair had prepared him for their onslaught.

Someone should have told him to buckle up. The bumps were just starting.

Obama took heat for an ad-lib answer in an earlier debate. Asked whether he would meet with leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea to improve relations, he said: "I would."

His advisers winced. His rivals pounced, trying to turn the moment into a verdict on Obama's inexperience. Clinton called it "irresponsible and frankly naive."

Obama held a conference call with staff and ended any thoughts about softening his statement. "I'm right about this," Obama said. "And I'm ready to argue with anybody about it."

Obama used the position to weaken Clinton, saying her unwillingness to talk with foreign leaders showed she was just like President Bush.

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Obama spent a week practicing a speech for the Iowa Democratic Party's big fundraising dinner, an event that drew party activists from around the state and media from around the world. Although he usually delivered big speeches from a TelePrompTer, aides with experience in Iowa told him he had to own this one. So he would work on committing it to memory each night in his hotel room after long days of campaigning.

He had the good fortune of speaking last, right after Clinton, and accused her of running a poll-driven campaign out of fear of what Republicans might say about her in a general election.

He brought down the house. Iowa's top political analyst, David Yepsen, called the speech a turning point, "a point where he laid down the marker and began closing on Clinton."

He had turned Clinton's biggest asset — being a Clinton — against her by painting her as sharing all her husband's worst traits.

Two months later, Iowa voted Obama the winner of its all-important caucus.

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That win had special significance for the black candidate. It showed he could win in white America. It also showed that this time young people actually would cast ballots.

"Our entire strategy was predicated on slowing her down in Iowa," campaign manager David Plouffe said. "If she won Iowa or finished ahead of us in Iowa, she was going to be pretty hard to stop."

In Obama's victory speech, he gleefully responded to those who said he shouldn't reach for the sun.

"They said our sights were set too high," Obama said. "They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose."

He didn't notice his wings were melting.

Said Axelrod: "We went on to New Hampshire and did a victory tour that plied ourselves into defeat."

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Clinton had a miserable night in Iowa. She didn't even get second place — that belonged to John Edwards, by a thin margin. Edwards calculated if he could help Obama put Clinton away in New Hampshire, he might have a chance.

The two men ganged up on Clinton during a debate in New Hampshire, and it backfired. Clinton complained they were piling on, then teared up before the cameras. She peeled back the icy caricature of the calculating Clinton and became a sympathetic human being.

Obama's impending defeat never could have been predicted by the crowds he was drawing. Entrance at every rally was shut down by fire marshals. Even more remarkable was that hordes of people who couldn't get in stood outside his events in the biting cold. He had to give two speeches at each stop — one inside where he talked about his campaign in the context of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and John F. Kennedy's quest to reach the moon, and another briefer address to the crowds outside.

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