Young Mr. Obama

When journalist David Remnick’s book “The Bridge” was released earlier this year, it was – justly – greeted as the Barack Obama biography we had been waiting for, a work that explains the 44th US president and his importance and context. Remnick’s book excelled at placing Obama in the context of African-American history, but was less successful in explaining the new president in terms of the Chicago political scene.

With Young Mr. Obama, Edward McClelland finishes what “The Bridge” started, showing how Obama navigated Chicago political life, which can be as rough as a Blackhawks game. A writer for the Chicago Tribune when the young Obama was a state senator, McClelland is a veteran local reporter, giving him a terrific understanding of the political terrain and state geography.

The book begins with Obama applying to be a community organization on Chicago’s South Side, an unusual, praiseworthy career choice for someone who could have built a much bigger bank account for himself working for a big corporation. Several reporters – and Obama himself – have identified the future president’s experiences as a community organizer as formative to his development. It was an experience that schooled him in the possibilities and limits of grass-roots-oriented social change.

“Young Mr. Obama” skips over Obama’s Harvard years, proceeding to his 1996 election to the Illinois Senate, his ill-fated run for Congress in 2000, and his subsequent, successful US Senate run in 2004.

Among the book’s revelations are Obama’s prospective success as a scholar – professors thought the future president would have been a first-rate academic. The dean of the University of Chicago Law School personally asked Obama to become a full-time scholar.

McClelland also offers an interesting portrait of Obama as professor. “Just don’t go with your gut,” Obama told his minority students. “As a Latino or African-American or an Asian lawyer, you’re going to have issues, but you’re going to have to keep that out of thinking like a lawyer.” The anecdotes taken from the classroom are of interest also because the moderate tone Obama adopted as a professor is so entirely at odds with the right-wing attempts to portray Obama as a radical.

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