Durbin compares Obama effort to Paul Simon

by John McCormick

It was a speech Sen. Dick Durbin is almost certain to give again, on both the west and east sides of the Mississippi River.

With about 100 Barack Obama volunteers gathered around him on the 10th floor of a Loop high-rise, the senior senator from Illinois reminded the audience of another time when an Illinois senator was running for president.

It was 1988 and the field was crowded with Democratic opponents, much like it is today. Illinois volunteers flooded Iowa in advance of the leadoff caucuses there, just as Obama's campaign is planning for this election cycle.

"We created what we called the Bow Tie Brigade," Durbin said Friday afternoon, speaking at an opening reception for a new Obama volunteer headquarters at 300 W. Adams. "We introduced ourselves to Iowans and asked them to consider voting for Paul Simon."

But the 1988 effort fell short, with Simon finishing second. His campaign ended shortly thereafter.

"Iowa was the ballgame," Durbin said, holding up his fingers to measure part of an inch. "We missed it by this much."

Durbin said he does not want to feel any regret again after the Iowa caucuses are held Jan. 14. "This time, I want to make sure that when the Iowa caucuses are complete, we have done it right," he said.

The speech and a later one by Michelle Obama, the candidate's wife, marked the formal opening of roughly 8,000 square feet of new campaign office space in downtown Chicago.

The space, to be open seven days a week, has been used for weeks for "Camp Obama" training sessions and will now provide a headquarters for Illinois volunteers and for the effort of winning the Feb. 5 Illinois primary.

It is about a quarter of the room that Obama's campaign has on North Michigan Avenue for his national headquarters.

Michelle Obama gave her standard stump speech, while also reminding the volunteers that even small efforts like babysitting for an Iowa caucuses participant could prove vital.

"You can't sit on the sideline," she said. "We want this office bursting at the seams with people."

Following her speech, she said she has had to talk to her daughters about the sometimes risqué "Obama Girl" videos that have appeared on the Internet in recent weeks.

"'Daddy, you have Mommy, right?'" Michelle Obama quoted one of her two girls asking her father, after hearing about the videos.

She also used the question to try to remind adults that their actions have consequences. "What we do as adults affects the children around us," she said.

Michelle Obama said she has no concerns about a new CBS News/New York Times poll that shows 77 percent of black women view Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York in a favorable way.

"We're not focusing on the polls at all. It's early," she said, adding that people are still learning about her husband. "I have no doubt that we are going to get not just the black vote, but the women's vote, the independent vote, the Republican vote."

Asked how much of an asset she will be in winning over African-American women, she refused to be limited to just one demographic.

"I think that I'm going to be an asset in every aspect of this campaign," she said. "I'm really passionate about this election...I don't have a target just to black women, or to women. I'm talking to everybody."