Lord, let me tell their stories right, I said to myself. Then I walked onto the stage.
I WOULD BE lying if I said that the positive reaction to my speech at the Boston convention — the letters I received, the crowds who showed up to rallies once we got back to Illinois — wasn’t personally gratifying. After all, I got into politics to have some influence on the public debate, because I thought I had something to say about the direction we need to go as a country.
Still, the torrent of publicity that followed the speech reinforces my sense of how fleeting fame is, contingent as it is on a thousand different matters of chance, of events breaking this way rather than that. I know that I am not so much smarter than the man I was six years ago, when I was temporarily stranded at LAX. My views on health care or education or foreign policy are not so much more refined than they were when I labored in obscurity as a community organizer. If I am wiser, it is mainly because I have traveled a little further down the path I have chosen for myself, the path of politics, and have gotten a glimpse of where it may lead, for good and for ill.
I remember a conversation I had almost twenty years ago with a friend of mine, an older man who had been active in the civil rights efforts in Chicago in the sixties and was teaching urban studies at Northwestern University. I had just decided, after three years of organizing, to attend law school; because he was one of the few academics I knew, I had asked him if he would be willing to give me a recommendation.
He said he would be happy to write me the recommendation, but first wanted to know what I intended to do with a law degree. I mentioned my interest in a civil rights practice, and that at some point I might try my hand at running for office. He nodded his head and asked whether I had considered what might be involved in taking such a path, what I would be willing to do to make the Law Review, or make partner, or get elected to that first office and then move up the ranks. As a rule, both law and politics required compromise, he said; not just on issues, but on more fundamental things — your values and ideals. He wasn’t saying that to dissuade me, he said. It was just a fact. It was because of his unwillingness to compromise that, although he had been approached many times in his youth to enter politics, he had always declined.
“It’s not that compromise is inherently wrong,” he said to me. “I just didn’t find it satisfying. And the one thing I’ve discovered as I get older is that you have to do what is satisfying to you. In fact that’s one of the advantages of old age, I suppose, that you’ve finally learned what matters to you. It’s hard to know that at twenty-six. And the problem is that nobody else can answer that question for you. You can only figure it out on your own.”
Twenty years later, I think back on that conversation and appreciate my friend’s words more than I did at the time. For I am getting to an age where I have a sense of what satisfies me, and although I am perhaps more tolerant of compromise on the issues than my friend was, I know that my satisfaction is not to be found in the glare of television cameras or the applause of the crowd. Instead, it seems to come more often now from knowing that in some demonstrable way I’ve been able to help people live their lives with some measure of dignity. I think about what Benjamin Franklin wrote to his mother, explaining why he had devoted so much of his time to public service: “I would rather have it said, He lived usefully, than, He died rich.”
That’s what satisfies me now, I think — being useful to my family and the people who elected me, leaving behind a legacy that will make our children’s lives more hopeful than our own. Sometimes, working in Washington, I feel I am meeting that goal. At other times, it seems as if the goal recedes from me, and all the activity I engage in — the hearings and speeches and press conferences and position papers — are an exercise in vanity, useful to no one.
When I find myself in such moods, I like to take a run along the Mall. Usually I go in the early evening, especially in the summer and fall, when the air in Washington is warm and still and the leaves on the trees barely rustle. After dark, not many people are out — perhaps a few couples taking a walk, or homeless men on benches, organizing their possessions. Most of the time I stop at the Washington Monument, but sometimes I push on, across the street to the National World War II Memorial, then along the Reflecting Pool to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, then up the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial.
At night, the great shrine is lit but often empty. Standing between marble columns, I read the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural Address. I look out over the Reflecting Pool, imagining the crowd stilled by Dr. King’s mighty cadence, and then beyond that, to the floodlit obelisk and shining Capitol dome.
And in that place, I think about America and those who built it. This nation’s founders, who somehow rose above petty ambitions and narrow calculations to imagine a nation unfurling across a continent. And those like Lincoln and King, who ultimately laid down their lives in the service of perfecting an imperfect union. And all the faceless, nameless men and women, slaves and soldiers and tailors and butchers, constructing lives for themselves and their children and grandchildren, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, to fill in the landscape of our collective dreams.
It is that process I wish to be a part of.
My heart is filled with love for this country.
Acknowledgments
T HIS BOOK WOULD have not been possible without the extraordinary support of a number of people.
I have to begin with my wife, Michelle. Being married to a senator is bad enough; being married to a senator who is also writing a book requires the patience of Job. Not only did Michelle provide emotional support throughout the writing process, but she helped me arrive at many of the ideas that are reflected in the book. With each passing day, I understand more fully just how lucky I am to have Michelle in my life, and can only hope that my boundless love for her offers some consolation for my constant preoccupations.
I want to express as well my gratitude to my editor, Rachel Klayman. Even before I had won my Senate primary race, it was Rachel who brought my first book, Dreams from My Father, to the attention of Crown Publishers, long after it had gone out of print. It was Rachel who championed my proposal to write this book. And it has been Rachel who’s been my constant partner in what’s been the frequently difficult but always exhilarating effort of bringing this book to completion. At each stage of the editorial process, she’s been insightful, meticulous, and unflagging in her enthusiasm. Often she’s understood what I was trying to accomplish with the book before I did, and has gently but firmly brought me into line whenever I strayed from my own voice and slipped into jargon, cant, or false sentiment. Moreover, she’s been incredibly patient with my unforgiving Senate schedule and periodic bouts of writer’s block; more than once, she’s had to sacrifice sleep, weekends, or vacation time with her family in order to see the project through.
In sum, she’s been an ideal editor — and become a valued friend.
Of course, Rachel could not have done what she did without the full support of my publishers at the Crown Publishing Group, Jenny Frost and Steve Ross. If publishing involves the intersection of art and commerce, Jenny and Steve have consistently erred on the side of making this book as good as it could possibly be. Their faith in this book has led them to go the extra mile time and time again, and for that I am tremendously grateful.