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Barack Obama Wins Illinois Senate Race
Barack Obama Wins Illinois Senate Race
Beats Conservative Republican Alan Keyes
http://cbsnewyork.com/topstories/to..._307202600.html
Nov 2, 2004 8:00 pm US/Eastern
CHICAGO (CBS) Illinois voters across the spectrum embraced Barack Obama, whose message of optimism and unity made him a Democratic Party superstar, electing him Tuesday to become only the fifth black U.S. senator in history.
Obama's win over conservative commentator and former ambassador Alan Keyes was based on a statistical analysis of the vote from voter interviews conducted for The Associated Press by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.
Obama, a 43-year-old liberal state senator from Chicago, catapulted to political prominence with a stirring keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.
The speech, like his entire campaign, urged people to put aside their differences to help improve America.
He offered his own life as an example of what can be achieved by bridging differences. The son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas, he was raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, became the first black president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review and ended up teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago.
Obama is "young, vibrant and presents new hope," said voter Chester Tindall, 53, a Democrat from Chicago.
Obama quickly became a sensation in Democratic political circles, and with Keyes trailing badly in Illinois, Obama was able to crisscross the country to raise money for other Democrats and send his volunteers to aid other candidates.
Keyes, who twice lost bids for president and for U.S. Senate from his home state of Maryland, pledged to reinvigorate an Illinois Republican Party scarred by corruption scandals. But his strong focus on morality and his penchant for controversy strained relations between the conservatives who drafted him and the moderates who predicted it would be hard for him to win in the Democratic-leaning state.
The 54-year-old former ambassador often instigated controversy in the campaign. He described Obama as a socialist and compared his position in favor of abortion rights to that of slaveholders.
There were major differences between the candidates on the war in Iraq, taxes and social policy. But Keyes focused on abortion and gay rights and lacked the resources to mount a major attack on Obama, who often dismissed his opponent as out of touch.
"The man is always lecturing. I will not be lectured to," said Chicago voter Charlene Parks-Ward, 57.
Associated Press exit polling showed overwhelming support for Obama from black voters, as well as from other typical Democratic groups, including union members, but also support from Republicans.
Keyes, who is also black, drew his strongest backing from white Protestant conservatives, according to the poll of 770 Illinois voters. Results were subject to sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points, higher for subgroups.
The race to replace incumbent Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, who declined to run for a second term, created one of the strangest Senate campaigns in Illinois history. It also virtually guaranteed Illinois would elect only the third black U.S. senator since Reconstruction.
The last, also from Illinois, was Democrat Carol Moseley Braun, who lost her re-election bid to Fitzgerald in 1998.
Obama got a major break in the waning days of the crowded March primary when the campaign of leading Democrat Blair Hull imploded over the disclosure that Hull had once struck his ex-wife.
On the Republican side, investment broker-turned-teacher Jack Ryan won the primary despite rumors about his divorce records. Three months later, he dropped his campaign after the records were unsealed, revealing gritty sex club allegations from his ex-wife, actress Jeri Ryan.
While Obama was making his star turn at the DNC, the Republicans were searching for a replacement candidate and getting turned down by a string of former governors, state senators and even Chicago Bears great Mike Ditka.
It was August before the Republican Party finally offered the role to Keyes, a Maryland resident and staunch conservative whose name surfaced as the party was conducting its final round of interviews.
To the pleasure of some Illinoisans and the horror of others, Keyes quickly demonstrated a willingness to say whatever was on his mind.
He said homosexuals, including Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter, are "selfish hedonists." He argued Jesus would not vote for Obama. And he likened abortion to the evil committed by terrorists.
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?? Your hero George W Bush is all in favor of suppressing African Americans in this country, especially by sending them on the battle field as means of cheap collateral 
