Their regular Friday "date nights" make the television news, and there was a stir recently when they caught Air Force One for a night at the theatre in Manhattan. This weekend, in the aftermath of the D-Day celebrations, they are in Paris with their young daughters - having turned down an invitation for dinner with President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla in favour of a more intimate family event. But it was not always wedded bliss for the First Couple. A new book, Renegade, about Mr Obama's unlikely run for the presidency, recounts a tense period in 2000 when the Obamas' marriage was on the brink of collapse because of his restless political hunger and the family's shattered finances. "There was little conversation and even less romance," wrote the Birmingham-born Mr Wolffe, who covered Obama's campaign for Newsweekmagazine. "She was angry at his selfishness and careerism; he thought she was cold and ungrateful." At the time, Mr Obama was stuck on the lowest step of the political ladder. As a mere state senator in Illinois, he had challenged a popular incumbent in a Democratic primary by running against Bobby Rush, a former Black Panther from Chicago. Mr Obama was trounced by a dismal 2-1 margin. His wife was new to motherhood, at home with their first daughter Malia, just two years old at the time. "She hated the failed race for Congress in 2000, and their marriage was strained by the time their younger daughter, Sasha, was born. Politics seemed like a waste of time to Michelle," the book says. Mr Obama's troubles were compounded when he discovered that he was not on the guest list for the 2000 Democratic National Convention that year, because he had annoyed party officials. With maxed out credit cards he took the cheapest flight to Los Angeles where he found himself excluded from the convention floor. That was a mere eight years ago. The first couple seem to have put any past issues behind them -- "Things are much better," Mr Wolffe noted on television last week. "We're going to be fine," Wolffe quoted Mrs Obama as saying. "We just have to make sure the girls are fine. We're strong enough to take anything on and be OK at the end." The book also describes the moment Mrs Obama first realised she was in love with her future husband. It was 18 years ago and he was being paid to train 120 black church leaders how to be community organisers in the basement of a church. "There was really something powerful there. And I was like, "This guy is different. He is really different in addition to being nice and funny and cute and all that," she recounted. Several years later, by the time then US Senator Obama had made his mark with a remarkable speech to the 2004 Democratic convention and was preparing a run for the White House, Mrs Obama was resigned to a life in politics. "Renegade" was the codename the Secret Service assigned to Mr Obama while he was a no-hoper candidate. As he launched his audacious bid for power, he even suggested to the author that he write a fly on the wall book. He then granted Wolffe extraordinary access. On the campaign trail Mr Obama would even invite Wolffe to join in early morning basketball workouts. The journalist was once seen sharing a piece of frosted carrot cake with the candidate while the rest of the press corps was herded on to a waiting bus. The access produced dividends, including Mr Obama's revelation of his deep distrust during the campaign of Bill Clinton, who was campaigning ruthlessly on behalf of his wife, Hillary. "We had to figure out how to deal with a former president who was just lying, engaging in bald-faced lies," Mr Obama told the author. There were mind games on both sides and Mr Obama succeeded by keeping his cool while rattling his opponent. After a tense encounter with Mrs Clinton at an airport, Mr Obama turned to an aide and said: "I never saw that look of concern in her eyes before. I think we can win this one." Despite the candidate's promise of transparency there was plenty of sleight of hand from the Obama camp during the campaign. The greatest fiction was the myth that the campaign's vast war chest was raised online in $5 and $10 donations from hundreds of thousands of people. "It wasn't the Internet," admitted Penny Pritzker, who headed Mr Obama's national finance committee. It was in fact, classic old fashioned high dollar contributions from wealthy Americans. The book also reveals that the campaign's famous "Yes We Can" chorus was almost vetoed by the president's chief speechwriter, Jon Favreau. "Why don't we use that?" two junior speechwriters asked after hearing Mr Obama use the words "Yes we can" in a television debate. He had pushed back at Mrs Clinton's claim that he was all empty talk. After Mr Obama lost the New Hampshire primary the air seemed to go out of his campaign. Aides wrestled over the correct tone to use in his concession speech. Mr Favreau didn't want "Yes We Can" in the speech because he feared the audience would start chanting it. That's exactly what happened. From that defeat the Obama campaign was suddenly viewed as resurgent, exactly as a renegade would have wished.Obama's marriage was on brink of collapse, says book
Barack and Michelle Obama's fairytale love story of an adoring couple propelled on to the international stage has caught the imagination of millions.
Sunday, 7 June 2009
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