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Obama carries uneven record to first contest
At a debate two weeks later, Mr. Obama apologized for the remark.
From then on, Mr. Obama’s performances improved. At a debate in late January, Mrs. Clinton accused him of getting financial favors from a Chicago “slumlord,” a reference to Antoin Rezko . Mr. Obama shot back that while he was doing community organizing work, she had been sitting on the board of Wal-Mart. But he seemed uncomfortable with the exchange and a few minutes later lightened a tense moment with his answer to a question about whether Bill Clinton had been the first “black president.”
“I would have to investigate more Bill’s dancing abilities and some of this other stuff,” he said with a smile, “before I accurately judged whether in fact he was a brother.”
And, though he focused largely on his Democratic rivals during most of the primary campaign, he said of Mr. McCain at a Democratic debate in February, “Somewhere along the line the Straight Talk Express lost some wheels.”
Again in February, when Mrs. Clinton tried to goad him over his borrowing some speech lines, mockingly referring to “change you can Xerox,” he brushed off the swipe as part of the “silly season in politics.”
By the final debate of the primary season, on April 16 in Philadelphia, Mr. Obama was both more polished and at times exasperated by the process. He was subjected to repeated severe questioning that night about the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. , his association with William Ayers , a former member of the Weather Underground, and his refusal then to wear a flag pin. He endured the grilling, looking testy at times, but also won some points for empathy by recounting the stories of people he had met along the campaign trail, including a man in Latrobe, Pa., “who lost his job and was trying to figure out where he was going to get the gas money to go find a job.”
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Mr. Obama has been involved in high-stakes political debates since his first, unsuccessful race for Congress in 2000, when he took on a popular incumbent, Representative Bobby L. Rush of Illinois.
In the sole televised debate of that campaign, he aggressively attacked Mr. Rush until the moderator cut him off. Mr. Rush dismissed his challenger as an upstart with no record to run on.
“Just what’s he done?” Mr. Rush said, according to an account in “Obama: From Promise to Power,” by David Mendell. “I mean, what’s he done?”
A deflated Mr. Obama went on to lose the election by 30 percentage points.
In 2004, Mr. Obama was running for the Senate against Alan Keyes , a glib talk show host whom Republicans had imported from Maryland to oppose him after more credible candidates were disqualified by personal scandal.
Mr. Obama’s aloofness and windiness were on display in a debate against Mr. Keyes, but he was able to cut through the verbal clutter on occasion to deliver a biting response to him.
“Your logic was not that complicated,” Mr. Obama said to end one exchange on homosexuality and incest. “It’s just wrong.”
On another occasion, Mr. Keyes asserted that Jesus would not vote for Mr. Obama because of his support for abortion rights. Mr. Obama replied that if he had a chance to consult with Jesus, he would not ask him about a Senate race.
“I’d want to know if I was going up or down,” he said. “There’s all sorts of questions that I’d be interested in.”
This article, "Obama carries uneven record to first contest," first appeared in the New York Times.
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