Untitled Document
Like it or not — regardless of whether you
think he has a mortal or political death wish or are concerned that
he’s too green, too black, or not black enough — Barack Obama
is running for president. This weekend, the Democratic junior senator from
Illinois will make his candidacy
official in Springfield.
Most of downtown will be closed off, according to
Mayor Tim Davlin, who is also committing personnel from the city’s
public-works, fire, and police departments to provide support to the event.
“Everything that we’re putting forward
— from our police department to our public-works department,
certainly — is going to pay off in dividends for everything that
we’re going to get in return,” Davlin says. Exactly how many people will flock to Springfield is
unknown, however. “We don’t know the numbers, but we do
know that Springfield, Ill., is going to get some great press,”
Davlin says. He says that about 100 representatives of national
and international media outlets, some of whom have already begun trickling
into town, are expected. So far, Davlin says, the city has fielded calls from
news organizations in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and “a
number of African countries” wanting to profile the capital city.
Groups of Obama supporters in cities around Illinois
will pile onto chartered buses early Saturday morning to make the trek to
Springfield. Davlin also says that Illinois Democratic leaders, such as Gov.
Rod Blagojevich and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, have been invited but, as of
press time Wednesday, had not indicated whether they will attend. Nor is
the mayor certain that he will participate in any part of the program.
For “obvious reasons,” Davlin says, he
won’t go into specifics about security arrangements, other to say
that the city’s emergency-operations center — which was first
put to use when President George W. Bush visited Springfield in 2005 for
the grand opening of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
— will be running. But reports suggest that Obama’s campaign has
gradually added layers of protection around the candidate, the man
considered by many the first African-American who could actually win a
major party nomination for the presidency. His wife, Michelle, expressed
concern early on that her husband would be vulnerable to an assassination
attempt by racist extremists. Some leading voices in the black community believe
that Obama is jeopardizing his political career, because, as Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial-page
editor Cynthia Tucker opines, America just isn’t yet ready to elect a
black president. Obama thinks he’s ready, though. “As I’ve spoken to many of you in my
travels across the states these past months; as I’ve read your
e-mails and read your letters; I’ve been struck by how hungry we all
are for a different kind of politics,” he wrote in a statement to
supporters last month. “Running for the presidency is a profound
decision — a decision no one should make on the basis of media hype
or personal ambition alone — and so before I committed myself and my
family to this race, I wanted to be sure that this was right for us and,
more importantly, right for the country.”
But Obama, now just a third of the way through his
first term in the Senate, is the first candidate in the field of hopefuls
to announce his plans with so much fanfare. Others, including his
Democratic Senate colleagues, have all launched their presidential bids
with less pomp and circumstance. Several candidates — including
former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton
of New York, and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson — made their
intentions official via their Web sites.
The Obama show gets under way this Saturday, Feb. 10,
most likely on the southeast lawn of the Old State Capitol. The gates to
the free event open at 9 a.m.; Obama is scheduled to speak at 10 a.m. Anticipating below-freezing temperatures, Davlin
isn’t sure whether hot liquids will be permitted at the event.
However, he says, several vendors will be set up, just in case.
Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@illinoistimes.com
This article appears in Feb 1-7, 2007.
