By 2004, Obama had mastered the gam

By 2004, Obama had mastered the game. He got out of the gate early, declaring in January 2003 that he was going to seek the US Senate seat. He’d already become a local leader against the Iraq war. At a rally at Chicago’s Federal Plaza in 2002, long before anyone had heard of him nationally, he delivered an eloquent speech warning of the dangers of the war ahead. Just as Abraham Lincoln’s antislavery speech at New York’s Cooper Union in 1860 launched his national career, Obama’s Federal Plaza speech might be seen as his launching pad.