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Like so many in the liberal
powerbase
that served as a springboard for Obama,
Marilyn Katz’s activist roots
stretch back to
her days as a Students for a Democratic
Society operative.
Today, Katz is an
influential political operative in Chicago
who has visited
the White House
26 times since 2009.
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CHAPTER III: The 1997 Speech That Launched Obama
From the Washington Examiner
From the Washington Examiner
Few
doubt that Barack Obama's stirring oration before the 2004 Democratic National
Convention vaulted him into the national limelight.
But
another, less-heralded Obama address -- delivered on Valentine's Day 1997 at
First Chicago Bank -- was equally essential to his later successes. Without it,
it is doubtful that he would have ever been in position to assume so prominent
a role in 2004.
Obama
was a newly elected Illinois state senator in 1997 when he addressed an
audience that included many of Chicago's most powerful political insiders and
activists, nonprofit executives, business movers and shakers, and philanthropic
funders.
