Free Game Change by John Heilemann Page B

withstand the sheer, unrelenting hell of a presidential race: the constant pummeling by his opponents, the withering scrutiny and X-ray intrusions of the media?
    But even as most of Clintonworld dismissed Obama, one dissenter stewed. All that talent. The antiwar credentials. The desire for something different in the country. The combination could be deadly, Bill Clinton kept saying. This guy could be trouble.

Chapter Four Getting to Yes
    OBAMA FLEW OUT OF Washington on August 18, 2006, and arrived the next morning in Cape Town, South Africa, to start his two-week tour of the continent—and the two-and-a-half-month rocket ride that would carry him to the day of the midterm elections. “Rocket ride” was Gibbs’s term, and he wasn’t exaggerating. The period would include the publication of Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope , the national book tour to publicize it, and a marathon stretch of campaigning for Democratic candidates from coast to coast. Everyone around Obama understood that the interval would be pivotal to his decision about running for president, which he had consciously put off until November. But most of them assumed that in the end, however tempting he found the idea, practicality would prevail.
    The Africa trip turned out to be a revelation for both Barack and Michelle. The last time he had been there was fourteen years earlier, with a pack on his back and not much more than a packet of cigarettes in his pocket. Now, from Chad to Ethiopia to Djibouti, and especially in his father’s Kenyan homeland, he was treated like a head of state—or Muhammad Ali in Zaire for the Rumble in the Jungle. In Nairobi, thousands lined the streets and stood on rooftops chanting, “Obama biro, yawne yo!”—“Obama’s coming, clear the way!” The crowds were bigger than any he had experienced since the Democratic convention, but unlike that audience, the African throngs were there for him and him alone. Michelle found the spectacle discomfiting. “Part of you just wants to say, ‘Can we tame this down a little bit?’” she said at the time. “Does it have to be all this? This is out of hand.”
    But what Michelle saw as overwhelming, her husband viewed as possibility. He began to entertain the notion that he’d tapped into something remarkable; that by virtue of what he represented, he might be able to effect change on a global scale. It was heady and humbling at the same time, nothing short of an epiphany.
    When Obama got home, he had one event on his calendar before the madness of the book tour began: the 29th Annual Harkin Steak Fry. And in its way, it was an even bigger deal than the Africa trip. Taking place every September in Indianola, Iowa, the steak fry was a political fair sponsored by Senator Tom Harkin and attended by hundreds of the state’s hardcore Democratic activists—and was thus a coveted speaking venue for any aspiring presidential candidate. Eager to avoid an awkward choice between Clinton, Edwards, Warner, or Vilsack, Harkin offered Obama the keynote slot on the assumption that he wasn’t running. Obama’s advisers were fully aware that if he accepted, the political world would erupt with speculation about his intentions.
    “You have to understand what this is going to indicate to a lot of people,” Gibbs told Obama, in a meeting with the senior staff. “They’re going to think you’re running.”
    “I understand,” Obama said.
    The truth was, he was ready to stir the pot. Going to the steak fry didn’t commit him to anything. The media might whip itself up, but attending the event would let him take the temperature of Iowa activists—another important data point for decision time after the midterms. Obama was intent on not being sloppy about it, not showing too much or too little leg. “If we’re gonna do this, we have to do it right,” he said, then glanced around the room. In case he wasn’t being sufficiently clear, he added, “Don’t fuck this up.”
    Obama,