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ANN KENEVAN on May 7, 2024

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ANN KENEVAN

FROM THE MINUTE BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA CAME ON THE SCENE HE HAS BEEN PLAYING FAST AND LOOSE WITH THE RULES! In his first race for office, seeking a state Senate seat on Chicago's gritty South Side in 1996, Obama effectively used election rules to eliminate his Democratic competition. As a community ... View MoreFROM THE MINUTE BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA CAME ON THE SCENE HE HAS BEEN PLAYING FAST AND LOOSE WITH THE RULES! In his first race for office, seeking a state Senate seat on Chicago's gritty South Side in 1996, Obama effectively used election rules to eliminate his Democratic competition. As a community organizer, he had helped register thousands of voters. But when it came time to run for office, he employed Chicago rules to invalidate the voting petition signatures of three of his challengers. Obama's past battles See how Barack Obama has used election rules to his advantage during his political career on AC 360. Obama's First Election The story of Obama's first election could be called: "The Political Execution of Alice Palmer." Palmer was a friend and early mentor to Obama when he was working as a grassroots organizer after law school. She was a longtime and popular state senator on Chicago's South Side. Then in 1996, Palmer decided to make a run for Congress. Obama was the chosen successor for her seat in the state Senate, says Alan Dobry, a longtime political activist who lived in Palmer's district. Dobry says Palmer called Obama a "fine young man" when she talked about who would replace her. But Palmer lost in the primary for that congressional seat and decided that she wanted her old Senate seat after all. Her protege Obama would have to step aside. It was a test, a Darwinian dilemma. In order to fulfill his own ambitions, Obama would have to kill his friend's political career. Obama stood his ground and went one step further. Using an aggressive procedural move, he challenged the signatures on Palmer's nominating petitions. And he even went beyond that: He challenged the petitions for all three of the opponents. It's not unusual for politicians to muscle rivals off the ballot, especially in Chicago, says longtime Chicago Alderman Toni Preckwinkle. "My view is that you're not ready for prime time if you can't get your petitions in order and file them according to the requirements of the law," Preckwinkle says. "If you fail to do that, then it's your problem." And there was a problem. It turned out all the opponents had faulty signatures. Back in that '96 race, Dobry was one of the people trying to verify signatures for Obama's campaign — and they found that Palmer's petitions were circulated by people named "Pookie." "We know what that means," Dobry says. "It means somebody got a bunch of kids from the local high school to circulate the petition, and they put down the name as Pookie." The maneuver worked. Obama knocked all of his opponents off the ballot. He cleared the field and sailed on to an easy victory in the heavily Democratic district. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95797455

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May 7, 2024