CHICAGO — At a tense point in Barack Obama's campaign, his closest friends got together and decided that, whatever it took, they would make him laugh.
It was early May, and Obama was trying to stave off a comeback by Hillary Rodham Clinton. Chatting privately with the candidate before a late-night stop in Indiana, Marty Nesbitt, Valerie Jarrett and Eric Whitaker started riffing about how utterly draining the campaign had been. They began laughing and couldn't stop -- until strategist David Axelrod walked up with a set of distressing poll numbers.
"We were telling stories and teasing him and trying to lighten the mood," Jarrett recalled. "Then Axelrod came in and threw cold water on it. It was like, man, all that hard work!"
At the upper reaches of the Democratic Party, "FOB" used to mean "Friend of Bill," as in Clinton. With Obama's victory on Tuesday, "FOB" is the new acronym for the close-knit corps of Chicago neighbors, graduate school classmates, pickup basketball teammates and family friends of the incoming president.
A few Friends of Barack are likely to follow him to the White House, Jarrett being the most probable candidate. Others expect to stay close to Obama through the thicket of personal and business ties that have evolved over decades.
The Obama inner circle is largely a high-achieving group of professionals clustered around Chicago. They vacation with the president-elect's family; play Scrabble with Obama and his wife, Michelle; and stay in touch by e-mail and at dinner parties when time permits.
Some played advisory roles in the campaign, sitting with the candidate at the front of his plane and serving as sounding boards and confidants.
Nesbitt is one of Obama's intimates, referred to by a mutual friend as "FOB #1." Nesbitt, a resident of the Obamas' Hyde Park neighborhood, founded an off-airport parking operation called the Parking Spot and is chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority.
As with many of Obama's closest friends, he met the president-elect through Michelle's side of the family. In high school, Nesbitt was recruited by Princeton -- where Michelle's brother Craig Robinson was a standout basketball player. Nesbitt wound up going to college elsewhere, but the two became close. When Obama and Michelle began dating, Nesbitt met the new boyfriend, and a close friendship evolved.
Obama is godfather to Nesbitt's 4-year-old son. And Nesbitt's wife, a physician, delivered the Obamas' two daughters.
