A Rusty Toyota, a Mean Jump Shot, Good Ears

WP: A Rusty Toyota, a Mean Jump Shot, Good Ears
Sunday, February 11, 2007; B03

Today Outlook begins a series of portraits of presidential candidates based in the words of people who knew them at earlier points in their lives and careers. The first is about Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who made his candidacy official yesterday. Over the next several months, Outlook will contact clergy members, former political opponents, high school and college friends, teachers, business partners and others in an attempt to provide readers with a fuller picture of the character and personality of those running for the highest office. The purpose is not to explain the policy positions of this handful of candidates, but to provide insights into their human qualities....

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I'd like to say I knew in (Harvard) law school that Barack would be a presidential candidate. But I didn't. Like many of my colleagues, I knew he was different -- more mature, intellectually rigorous, politically adept and capable of demonstrating real leadership -- than your average law student.

And we all had our suspicions that he would do something interesting in politics, but few if any of us had the foresight to predict that he would become the sort of national figure he is today.

Fast-forward to August 2004, sitting in one of the last rows, near the ceiling, of the Fleet Center in Boston, in the moments leading up to Barack's speech to the Democratic National Convention. The crowd was electric. We were surrounded by dozens of young volunteers, frantically waving Obama placards. He hadn't said a word yet, but the anticipation was palpable. By the time he was done, the crowd had exploded. My wife and I looked at each other, frankly amazed. This was the guy we ate doughnuts with at midnight?

And yet, in retrospect, one could see the seeds of his strengths today in his days at the Law Review: his ability to lead, to guide a group of politically diverse -- and divisive -- people toward a common goal, to wrestle intellectually with some of the most difficult and complex problems of the day, understand different perspectives and take a position based on principle but made all the more sound by his appreciation of alternative points of view.

-- Michael Froman, Obama's Harvard Law School classmate....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/09/AR2007020901911_pf.html

It's nice to learn about the side of Obama (or any candidate) that the public doesn't get to see.