Rising Star by David Garrow

Author:David Garrow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062641854
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

DISAPPOINTMENT AND DESTINY

THE U.S. SENATE

NOVEMBER 2004–FEBRUARY 2007

On Thursday, November 4, less than forty-eight hours after his election victory, Barack resigned his Illinois Senate seat, ended his affiliation with Miner, Barnhill & Galland, and went on indefinite leave from the U of C Law School. He also formally retained prominent Washington lawyer Robert Barnett as his new literary representative, ending his fourteen-year relationship with Jane Dystel. Weeks earlier, Dystel had secured a two-book contract for Barack, one of which would lay out “What I Believe,” but Washington attorney Vernon E. Jordan had told Barack to consider Barnett prior to signing. Eleven years earlier, Dystel had all but saved Barack’s life when she succeeded in reselling “Journeys in Black and White” following Poseidon’s cancellation of his initial contract, but Barnett was Washington’s superagent for political stars, charging an hourly rate for his services rather than taking a traditional 10 or 15 percent agency commission on a contract’s total value.

On Saturday, the Democratic ward committeemen from the 13th Senatorial District met to elect Barack’s successor. Barack’s young protégé Will Burns, now back on Senate staff, was one of several highly qualified applicants, and Barack and Senate president Emil Jones Jr. both supported his candidacy. Fourth and Fifth Ward aldermen Toni Preckwinkle and Leslie Hairston effectively controlled the choice, and neither felt that Barack or Jones had gone out of their way to be helpful to their wards. Forty-year-old attorney Kwame Raoul, a Haitian American Hyde Park native and Trinity UCC member who had twice challenged Preckwinkle and possessed a $60,000 campaign bankroll, was Burns’s top competitor. “I was Barack’s guy,” Will recalled, but Barack did not press Preckwinkle or Hairston to select Burns. “Barack stayed out of the competition,” Kwame confirmed, and when the committeemen cast their votes, Raoul was their almost unanimous choice. Barack’s disinterest infuriated Burns’s closest friends, and when Kwame called Barack on his cell phone a few hours later to ask his advice, Barack semiseriously responded, “Stay out of jail!” Barack added that Raoul should be very careful about who worked in his district office, but then quickly said he was at a theater and ended the call by saying, “Hey, man, this is family time. I have to see a movie with my daughters, so I have to let you go.” Many in the audience applauded when they saw Barack with Malia and Sasha.

Jennifer Mason handled the district office transition to Kwame. Within days she and Cynthia Miller discarded all of Barack’s old files, but on Tuesday, Barack returned to Springfield for several send-off events with his ex-colleagues. Emil Jones introduced a resolution congratulating Barack, saying that his DNC speech represented “my proudest moment in politics.” Then Barack took the podium, acknowledging that it was “a bittersweet moment” and saying “I have to give special credit to President Jones for his friendship and support, because if it weren’t for him, I don’t think I would be standing here today.”

Those in the know throughout the statehouse and all of Illinois politics unanimously concurred.

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