From the Crain's Chicago Business Newsroom

Obama takes a page from Dean’s book

July 29 15:01:00, 2004
By Paul Merrion and Greg Hinz
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BOSTON—The Internet has been a major factor in Barack Obama’s meteoric rise, and now it’s become a barometer of his political superstardom.
His Web site (www.obamaforillinois.com) was racking up 350 hits per second shortly after the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate from Illinois delivered the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday.
"We did not crash, but we almost crashed," says campaign manager Jim Cauley.
Good thing it didn’t: the campaign received nearly $60,000 from Internet contributors that night alone, even though it took nearly 30 minutes to get on the Web site due to the heavy load.
Similarly, Mr. Obama generated heavy traffic on America Online, which ran his picture and a "rate the speech" survey on its home page the next day. As of 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, about 17,000 respondents had taken the unscientific poll; by noon, the number exceeded 50,000, with 78% rating Mr. Obama’s address "excellent."
Besides using the Internet to raise money, the Blackberry-wielding state senator from Chicago has recruited online volunteers, kept in touch with supporters and used www.meetup.com to organize dozens of monthly Obama for Senate meetings, from Chicago and the suburbs to Cape Town, South Africa.
"You know when I knew it was amazing?" says Mr. Cauley. During the primary, the Kenyan newspaper East African Standard ran a story about Mr. Obama, whose father was from Kenya. The same day, "we got 6,000 hits out of the continent of Africa on a Sunday afternoon."
Obama who?
From the I-told-you-so file comes this tale from U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky.
Ms. Schakowsky, a liberal Evanston Democrat and early supporter of Mr. Obama’s U.S. Senate bid, showed up at a White House reception in February wearing a big "Obama" campaign button. When she got to George W. Bush in the receiving line, the president, with a puzzled look on his face, asked who Obama is. (Maybe the president thought Obama sounded like Osama, Ms. Schakowsky puckishly suggests).
Ms. Schakowsky says she explained to Mr. Bush that Mr. Obama was running for the U.S. Senate from Illinois. "I don’t know him," Mr. Bush said. Her reply: "You will."
Black youth in need
West Side U.S. Rep. Danny Davis is using the convention to put a spotlight on his expanding effort to figure out exactly what’s gone wrong with young African-American men.
Mr. Davis’ new program centers on visits to major cities where he and community leaders hold town hall meetings, weekend workshops and the like to try to figure out the nature of the problem and determine potential solutions.
Mr. Davis cites a brutal set of statistics to underline the need. One example: 60% of those in prison in Illinois are black men, who comprise just 6% of the state’s population. Another: black men are more likely to be involved in special education programs in school than any other population group.
He says he hasn’t figured out the answers yet, but suggests it has something to do with the waning of the church as an influence in the black community. "Nowadays, you just don’t see young black men in church," he says.
Whatever the reason, he adds, "Something sinister has happened to black males."
Money talks
There really are two conventions here—one for delegates, the other for the party’s financial Heavy Hitters.
The delegates travel by bus, hear speeches mostly from local officials, dine on decent but largely unremarkable hors d’oeuvres, and are expected to drop by the convention hall occasionally to vote and wave the right signs on cue.
The Heavy Hitters have their own leased luxury vehicles—plus a special drop-off zone right next to the convention hall if they’re a Really Heavy Hitter. They mingle with governors, senators and people named Clinton and Kerry. The food (at least the booze) is the best. They can do what they want, including getting a convention pass on a second’s notice, and can adjourn from the crowded convention floor to a comfy sky box whenever they want.
And these are the egalitarian Democrats. More on the Republicans in this space next month.
This is the fourth in a series of reports and observations filed by Messrs. Merrion and Hinz, who are covering the Democratic National Convention in Boston this week.