Illinois Attorney Lawyer

Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Illinois, Keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. The speech is a highly coveted opportunity, an opportunity for the silver-haired politicos that his swan song in adoration of a crowd, or bright new talent in its infancy. Obama is clear in new talent. If elected November this year, there is only one third of blacks in the USA since Senator reconstruction of the year ending in 1876. Millions of people see July 27. A young man named Justin Warfel is not one of them.

“Maybe I will be informed of the paper,” said Warfel recently by phone as he went outside his apartment in Springfield, Illinois. For a while, he went to see a 42-year-old Obama. Can be too. For about two weeks in May, Warfel, Panasonic Digital Video Recorder by hand, then Obama, the candidate is gone everywhere, that this campaign events in downstate Illinois, that in the speech Capitol in Springfield, press Outside the campaign gaggles Headquarters - From day day sunrise until sunset.

Warfel there was no Stalker. He was a Tracker: an operational campaign, is committed in opposition hands-on research by the inclusion of all that opponents say or do. Tracking is not a novelty. Before the video cameras Tracker - often young, ambitious party flacks - would be candidates to follow with recording equipment. Previously, the tools of the election was block and pencil. “It is something countless other campaigns have done before,” said Warfel. “Obama had followed his people as well-Jack.”

“Jack” Jack Ryan, until recently, was Obama’s Republican opponent, and Warfel of the employer. In June, however, Ryan has withdrawn from the race. The court released embarrassing testimony of a child custody battle with his ex-wife, actress Jeri Ryan. Warfel, now spends his days “relaxation”, said Ryan was betrayed by the Illinois Republican Party in general and chairman Judy Baar Topinka in particular. “Jack’s campaign has been a good campaign,” said Warfel. “She had a superlative candidate. She had a man with strong convictions. And if you had a situation in which troops Illinois Republican Party around their candidates, the Tribunal would have produced a day or two story, and Jack could have, for a win in the end. ”

And yet, when he went, it was clear Ryan loses the race to Obama. A survey has shown too much more than 20 points behind. A combination of factors-infested Ryan campaign: Illinois separation agreement has been democratic for one. Ryan, a former investment banker, the Government has not had the experience of another.

Then there’s Obama. It is a brilliant man and an impressive array of speakers. In addition, it has an unusual life story - oddly enough, a souvenir he had dreams of my father, before becoming a senator Illinois State. Obama, born in 1961 in Hawaii, where his father, a student from Kenya, has studied economics. His mother was 18

If Obama 2, his father left the family to return to Kenya, where he was finally Minister of Finance. Mis, ’s mother-Obama, an anthropologist, married, a man worked in the oil sector. The family in Indonesia, where she spent four years. So Obama referred only to Hawaii, where he is by his grandparents and visited Punahou, tony prepare a school. The Ivy League track: Columbia first, and then, after four years of activity as a community activist in Chicago, Harvard Law. In 1990, he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review and saw his first tour of adulatory press. It was already clear that Obama has sought in the policy. He told journalists he would be back, finally, in Chicago. Chicago, he says, is “an ideal laboratory”. He won his seat in the Senate in 1996.

I asked him if Justin Warfel Obama’s biography says his vocation.

It verspottete. “Obama himself is not really interested in me,” he said. His voice was intense. “What is frightening, there is, however, that the situation will portray a moderate lighting. He also many people the thought, it is not quite left, he is a candidate. But if one considers matters concerning abortion, the Handgun problem, well, it is worrying. ”

Warfel, 24, Jack Ryan’s joined the campaign in October last year, starting as a regional coordinator, responsible for central Illinois. His assignment is Obama arrived much later. After Obama bested six other candidates (including increased from about $ 29 million) in primary schools Democrats, who wanted to compare Ryan liberal Obama campaign’s main message with its new, slightly more modest general elections. The question would be nearly Obama has been the subject of some discussion in the camp Ryan, however. “Do you have a voluntary,” said Warfel, and someone in this position? Or do you have another person, renting an external agents? Its leader chose Warfel.

The work is not important than anticipated. One day in May, was a hall Warfel the State Capitol to senior management, thin Obama, spoke to a group of journalists, photographers and television cameramen. “I heard my name comes from his mouth,” said Warfel. The cameras, lights, and the press all moves its attention by the candidates Warfel. Suddenly, “they were tracking me.