The Audacity of Hope

the Democratic primary for the Illinois First Congressional District seat, and was
determined to spend most of the summer catching up on work at the law practice that
I’d left unattended during the campaign (a neglect that had left me more or less broke),
as well as make up for lost time with a wife and daughter who had seen far too little of
me during the previous six months.
At the last minute, though, several friends and supporters who were planning to go
insisted that I join them. You need to make national contacts, they told me, for when
you run again—and anyway, it will be fun. Although they didn’t say this at the time, I
suspect they saw a trip to the convention as a bit of useful therapy for me, on the theory
that the best thing to do after getting thrown off a horse is to get back on right away.
Eventually I relented and booked a flight to L.A. When I landed, I took the shuttle to
Hertz Rent A Car, handed the woman behind the counter my American Express card,
and began looking at the map for directions to a cheap hotel that I’d found near Venice
Beach. After a few minutes the Hertz woman came back with a look of embarrassment
on her face.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Obama, but your card’s been rejected.”
“That can’t be right. Can you try again?”
“I tried twice, sir. Maybe you should call American Express.”
After half an hour on the phone, a kindhearted supervisor at American Express
authorized the car rental. But the episode served as an omen of things to come. Not
being a delegate, I couldn’t secure a floor pass; according to the Illinois Party chairman,
he was already inundated with requests, and the best he could do was give me a pass
that allowed entry only onto the convention site. I ended up watching most of the
speeches on various television screens scattered around the Staples Center, occasionally
following friends or acquaintances into skyboxes where it was clear I didn’t belong. By
Tuesday night, I realized that my presence was serving neither me nor the Democratic
Party any apparent purpose, and by Wednesday morning I was on the first flight back to
Chicago.
Given the distance between my previous role as a convention gate-crasher and my
newfound role as convention keynoter, I had some cause to worry that my appearance in
Boston might not go very well. But perhaps because by that time I had become
accustomed to outlandish things happening in my campaign, I didn’t feel particularly
nervous. A few days after the call from Ms. Cahill, I was back in my hotel room in
Springfield, making notes for a rough draft of the speech while watching a basketball
game. I thought about the themes that I’d sounded during the campaign—the
willingness of people to work hard if given the chance, the need for government to help
provide a foundation for opportunity, the belief that Americans felt a sense of mutual
obligation toward one another. I made a list of the issues I might touch on—health care,
education, the war in Iraq.
But most of all, I thought about the voices of all the people I’d met on the campaign
trail. I remembered Tim Wheeler and his wife in Galesburg, trying to figure out how to
get their teenage son the liver transplant he needed. I remembered a young man in East