March 17, 2004

BY SCOTT FORNEK AND ROBERT C. HERGUTH Staff Reporters

Maybe it wasn't such a bad ballot name after all.

Barack Obama, who went from Hawaii to Harvard to Hyde Park, won a landslide victory in the Democratic primary Tuesday, bringing him one step closer to becoming the only African American in the U.S. Senate.

Obama won with 53 percent of the vote, beating state Comptroller Dan Hynes, who had 24 percent, and five other candidates, with 95 percent of the precincts tallied.

BARACK OBAMA AGE: 42 GEOGRAPHY: Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. Now lives in Hyde Park. HISTORY: Bachelor's degree from Columbia University, 1983; law degree from Harvard Law School, 1991. Lawyer in private practice and senior lecturer at University of Chicago, 1992-present; state senator, 1997-present. PERSONAL: Married to Michelle, with two daughters, 5 and 2. FIRST JOB: "Working at Baskin-Robbins when I was . . . 14 or 15. . . . And I've never liked ice cream since." OBAMA ON OBAMA: "I'm somebody who feels great empathy for other people and makes a great effort to live by my values. And I think I'm somebody who tries to take my work seriously without taking myself too seriously."

"I am fired up! I am fired up!" a jubilant Obama told cheering supporters at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, reminding them of his campaign's turnaround.

"I think it's fair to say that the conventional wisdom was we could not win. We didn't have enough money. We didn't have enough organization. There was no way that a skinny guy from the South Side with a funny name like Barack Obama could ever win a statewide race.

"Sixteen months later, we are here, and Democrats all across Illinois -- suburbs, city, Downstate, upstate, black, white, Hispanic, Asian -- have declared, 'Yes, we can! Yes, we can!' "

Hynes conceded defeat about 9:20 p.m., telling his supporters at the Drake Hotel "the people have spoken, and unfortunately not quite enough of them said those magic words: 'I'll take Hynes.'"

Hynes, 35, congratulated Obama and pledged his full support in the general election.

"He ran a great campaign," Hynes said. "He's an unbelievably talented individual."

Obama steamrolled Hynes in Chicago, winning as much as 93 percent of the vote in predominantly black wards. Even in the Southwest Side wards that Hynes did carry, his margin was much smaller -- in the 51 percent to 52 percent range.

In the 19th Ward, where his father, former Cook County Assessor Thomas Hynes, is Democratic committeeman, Hynes only squeezed out a 52 percent victory.

M. Blair Hull, 61, who pumped $29 million of his own fortune into his bid, conceded shortly before 9 p.m., saying he called Obama to offer his congratulations and a pledge to help him in the general election. Hull took a mild poke at the media for its coverage of his stormy 1998 divorce.

"All I can say is I will never read the newspapers the same way again," a smiling Hull told the crowd.

For Obama, it was a picture-perfect end for a campaign that never faltered in a race with plenty of pratfalls.

Hynes started out the front-runner based on his name recognition as a statewide official for more than five years. But his solid but bland persona never captured the imagination of voters, and he soon found himself eclipsed by Hull's onslaught of television commercials.

Hull's numbers dropped when he fumbled questions about embarrassing details of his messy 1998 divorce from Brenda Sexton. Making matters worse, Hull revealed he had done cocaine and sought treatment for drinking in the 1980s.

Obama, 42, also admitted he used cocaine and marijuana as a teenager in Hawaii. But by then he was already rising in public opinion polls and his own past foibles were barely a footnote in media coverage of Hull's travails.

But Obama didn't just luck into the void left by Hull's drop. From the start, he positioned himself to win -- not conceding anything to his rivals.

When Hynes racked up big labor support, Obama peeled off a number of key unions for himself.

When Hull swamped the race with his own money, Obama plugged ahead, raising more than $4.3 million, equal to Hynes.

And while Obama spent much of his time campaigning in South Side churches, he refused to be pigeonholed as "the black candidate." He urged African Americans to "put your shoulder against history and just nudge it a little bit," but he cast it in terms of the national significance of the race, not the color of his skin.

His television commercials featured images of the late Harold Washington and testimonials from U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., but they also showcased the backing of U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky and Sheila Simon, who described Obama as "cut from that same cloth" as her father, the late U.S. Sen. Paul Simon.

Sheila Simon introduced Obama on Tuesday night, brandishing one of her father's trademark bow ties, calling it the only thing missing to complete the parallel.

Obama stressed his service to liberal causes in the state Senate, his background as the "first African-American" president of the Harvard Law Review and a civil rights lawyer.

He joked about his name, saying it's not Alabama or yo' mama.

He got his last name from his Kenyan father. His first name is Swahili for "one who is blessed by God."

Contributing: Cathleen Falsani and Art Golab