How Obama went from underdog to alpha

"Well?" Obama asked.

"Well," Margolis recalls replying. "I guess we're going to have to do it the hard way."

It was never going to be easy. Whatever happens in the general election, Obama's victory over Clinton after an epic 16-month battle for the Democratic nomination will go down as one of the great political upsets of all time.

Just three years out of the Illinois Legislature, saddled with an odd-sounding name and bearing the added burden of race, Obama beat a candidate boasting the party's most vaunted political operation, its premier fundraising machine and its most popular brand name.

It was a triumph of charisma and soaring oratory -- two of the oldest commodities in politics -- fused with a thoroughly modern campaign that harnessed the Internet like never before.

Obama could not compete with Clinton for the support of the political establishment, so he attracted hundreds of thousands of new voters. He could never out-raise Clinton among big donors, so he created an online network of small donors, stunning even his own advisors by raising more than $265 million. He couldn't overcome Clinton's name recognition in big states -- at least starting out -- so he focused on small ones, a strategy that proved decisive when the nominating contest became an incremental fight for delegates.

He started as an underdog, but that worked to Obama's advantage. His strategists felt free to challenge conventional thinking, like the notion that targeting young people and Republican-leaning states would be a waste of time and resources. Both proved crucial to Obama's success.

The freedom to fail buoyed the Illinois senator and his team when national polls last fall showed Obama trailing by as much as 30 points, leading many political pundits to write him off. "We didn't have the burden of expectations and a lifelong career path," said David Plouffe, Obama's preternaturally calm campaign manager. "We were very much, 'If it works out, it works out.' "

Obama also benefited from blunders committed by the Clinton camp, among them the failure to appreciate the importance of the Iowa caucuses; an expectation that the race would end quickly -- which meant the candidate was left flat-footed and broke when it didn't; and, perhaps above all, Clinton's decision to run as the candidate of experience at a time when Democratic voters were ravenous for change.