That first race cemented ties with Johnson and Rezko that have spanned Obama's political career. Both made significant donations. And Rezko became one of Obama's most important patrons. He and his associates are responsible for $160,000 in campaign aid over the past 12 years.
Rezko has helped numerous politicians from both parties. In 2003, he gave President Bush $4,000 and co-hosted a fundraiser in downtown Chicago said to have generated $3 million for the president's reelection.
But Rezko also represents another rule of old-style politics: Beware of your friends. Last fall, Rezko was indicted here on federal public corruption charges, forcing politicians, including Obama, to distance themselves.
Armed with ambition
Obama arrived in Springfield with another familiar tool from the kit of Chicago politics -- ambition.
Cynthia K. Miller, who ran his district office, recalls an incident shortly after Obama's election. She had taken a longer-than-normal lunch break and returned to find an impatient state senator waiting for her.
He didn't raise his voice, she said, but he turned stern as he explained the importance of time management and the need to focus on goals. Then he shared his own goal: "I plan to be president."
"When he said it, he wasn't just whistling Dixie. I believed," Miller said. "I thought I needed to work harder" to help make it happen.
Obama's state Senate district was a mix of mansions, trendy town homes and tenements. It encompassed the leafy campus of the University of Chicago, where Obama worked part time as a law school lecturer before and after his election.
Talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, who is having a fundraiser for Obama at her Montecito estate in Santa Barbara County today, keeps a residence in the old district. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has endorsed Obama, and Minister Louis Farrakhan, head of the black separatist Nation of Islam, live within three blocks of Obama's home.
As the new state senator, Democrat Obama cut an independent swath in Springfield.
He teamed with Republican state Sen. Kirk Dillard to revoke a law that allowed lawmakers to convert campaign money to personal use, for some legislators a source of substantial largesse.
"It didn't take long to see he is a man of intelligence and ethics," said Dillard, who recently taped a pro-Obama television ad that aired in neighboring Iowa.
