Contact: Brenda Velez                                                             

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

at 212-445-4078                                                                           Sunday, August 24, 2008

COVER: SPECIAL DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION ISSUE

BARACK OBAMA ASSESSES THE COMPLEX RELATIONSHIPS THAT

MADE HIM WHO HE IS TODAY: ‘ABSENCE OF A FATHER’ STRENGTHENED HIM

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OBAMA: ‘I HAD TO LEARN TO TRUST MY OWN JUDGMENT;

I HAD TO LEARN TO FIGHT FOR WHAT I WANTED’

New York—Barack Obama has been called cerebral, cool, steely and resilient, but his strength, he tells Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham, comes “from the absence of a father.” In the September 1 Special Democratic Convention Issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, August 25), Meacham opens with an in-depth look at the unique and often complex relationships Obama has had with his father, stepfather and grandfather and explores how these relationships shaped him into who he is today.

            Although Obama’s father was mostly absent while growing up, Obama’s attempt to live up to his high expectations was a driving force. “To put yourself through what is a pretty rigorous process of running for president, you’ve got to have learned to set up some pretty high expectations for yourself—something’s got to be driving you—and in my case if you have somebody that is absent, maybe you feel like you’ve got something to prove when you’re young, and that pattern sets itself up over time,” Obama tells Meacham in an interview. “The stories I heard about my father painted him as larger than life, which also meant that I felt I had something to live up to. You could argue that if you’re too well adjusted, you don’t end up running for president. So if the pattern sets in pretty early on where you’re pushing your comfort level, it probably has to do with those very early influences, and that can come from either the absence or the presence of a father who ends up motivating you in some way.”

Meacham writes that while growing up, Obama had to find a way to be comfortable in his own skin, reconciling his black and white ancestries while being raised largely by his white grandparents. “Without a father, he was forced to arm himself and to make his own way into the worlds he chose to join and to master.” Meacham adds that “Obama was left with two alternatives: either descend into chaos as a lost soul or steel himself against the world in order to rise in it. He chose steeliness over surrender.” The story of Barack Obama “is thus one of survival and defense, for of all the advice he was ever offered, the most significant, and the one perhaps most relevant to his rise and to his fate, was [his stepfather Lolo] Soetoro’s: always protect yourself.”       

As Obama accepts the Democratic nomination this week, he faces concerns about his toughness. The conventional wisdom of the moment is that Obama may be too soft to prevail. Obama, however, doesn’t necessarily see this as a bad thing. “The nice thing about it is that at least people tend to underestimate me,” he says. “I think [my strength] actually comes, in my case, from the absence of a father. At some level I had to raise myself. My mother obviously was the dominant influence in my life, and I had a stepfather and a grandfather who both participated in raising me and were good men who did good things for me. But if I think about how I have been able to navigate some pretty tricky situations in my life, it has to do with the fact that I had to learn to trust my own judgment; I had to learn to fight for what I wanted.”

The cover package also includes:

Contributing Editor Ellis Cose writes that this election was not supposed to be a journey into the terrain of religious fears and prejudice. “But because many Americans think Obama is not what he actually is, it has become that.” Cose adds that pollsters found that some 45 percent of voters were wary of Muslim candidates. For Obama, a Christian whom some falsely believe is really a Muslim, “that is a potential problem—particularly in a race that shows ever more signs of being extremely close.” Cose also argues that there should be room for an intelligent discussion of religious bigotry and whether religion actually makes a difference in how one governs. “At some point, these are issues thoughtful people will need to face head-on—rather than cede the ground to propagandists who traffic in intolerance, and who, deprived of the ability to make racial slurs with impunity, simply shift their focus to religion,” he writes.

            Special Correspondent Jacob Weisberg explores what an Obama loss would mean for the United States. “Many have discoursed on what an Obama victory could mean for America. We would finally be able to see our legacy of slavery, segregation and racism in the rearview mirror. Our kids would grow up thinking of prejudice as a nonfactor in their lives,” he writes. However, “if Obama loses, our children will grow up thinking of equal opportunity as a myth. His defeat would say that when handed a perfect opportunity to put the worst part of our history behind us, we chose not to. In this event, the world’s judgment will be severe and inescapable: the United States had its day, but in the end couldn’t put its own self-interest ahead of its crazy irrationality over race.”

Contributor Claire Messud writes that Obama’s magnetism is rooted less in flash than in his geekiness and sobriety. “The attraction of Barack Obama as a candidate has less to do with the cut of his suits or the fact that he’s championed by hip rock singers than with an almost geeky earnestness, a decency and sobriety that he projects when speaking to a crowd” she writes. “A large part of his mystique lies in his insistence on his message, and on the complexity of that message; and in his old-fashioned, almost stern will to cut the flim-flam and, in a way so retro it’s almost novel, to actually address the issues.”

Guest Writer Sean Wilentz, a Princeton University historian and author, writes that Obama’s nomination acceptance speech will quite possibly be reported and praised as one of the greatest political orations ever by much of the political press. “But will Obama, amid the pulsating theatrics, also attempt the less glamorous and more difficult task of explaining specifically where he wants to move the country, and how he proposes to move it, above and beyond reciting his policy positions?” Wilentz asks. “History, as well as recent public-opinion polls, suggests that he badly needs to do so.”

Cover:

 http://www.newsweek.com/id/155173

Interview:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/155175

Sean Wilentz

http://www.newsweek.com/id/154911

Claire Messud

http://www.newsweek.com/id/154899

Ellis Cose

http://www.newsweek.com/id/154909

Jacob Weisberg

http://www.newsweek.com/id/155117