Illinois, United States - Obama Presidency Oral History Back Illinois, United States Index / Locations Transcripts Kylon Middleton ...wiry unknown candidate, a senator from Illinois who had announced himself, new senato... ...the inspiration of Barack Obama from Illinois during a time, particularly in 200... Yohannes Abraham ...of his Republican colleagues from the Illinois state senate talking about his capacit... Ron Kirk ...the day the story broke about former Illinois Governor [Rod R.] Blagojevich and hi... Rahm Emanuel ...If you really kind of go back to Illinois politics, not that I—Lisa Madigan, he... Max Baucus ...I've forgotten which—maybe governor of Illinois , one of the two. We had a long talk... Henry Paulson ...Buffett, and we had a new senator from Illinois : Barack Obama. And my friend Joh... John Podesta ...knew Obama because they had been in the Illinois delegation together—that was fine. An... Brian Mosteller ...met President Obama briefly in Illinois and things. Are you interacting wit... Jon Carson ...City, and Jon joins from Highland Park, Illinois . Thanks, Jon, for your time durin... ... Oh, great. So, obviously you're in Illinois , which is a pretty convenient place t... ...connections to Iowa—so, you're back in Illinois . Steve Hildebrand talks to you. Did h... ...role that you had of state director in Illinois ? Was there some other conversation? ... ...a lot of volunteers for Obama in Illinois would be quite useful to Iowa and othe... ...he's got to keep his politics good in Illinois . So we're going to have an Illinoi... ...in Illinois. So we're going to have an Illinois team to cover that side of it too. A... ...interview with me and the rest of the Illinois team, and we mentioned it [laughs] an... ...this, you come out to—get yourself to Illinois , get yourself to Chicago. You g... ...that you had built? So, I got the Illinois campaign up and running. Camp Obama wa... ...We were also coordinating a lot of Illinois volunteers who would then go voluntee... ...things we did, in summer of 2007, the Illinois legislature was all stuck i... ...Hampshire. And we had this cohort of Illinois legislators who'd worked with Barac... ...all, everyone who had witnessed him in Illinois saw how well he connected in the rura... ...go in to any state senate district in Illinois and connect with people in a VF... ...week in the job as—at the time, the Illinois state director, we had sort of a bi... ...plan. I was sitting down with some Illinois leaders to talk about what we wer... ...must have told him I was the new Illinois state director, and he's going to sa... ...you” to the Sierra Club president of Illinois . So what I say about the Obama worl... ...had been instrumental in his rise in Illinois that he just froze out. And in th... ...put everything away and run off to Illinois or run off to work on a campaign fo... ...being these GSA staffers in Chicago, Illinois , and you get to staff—you get to pu... ...assume, still joins from Highland Park, Illinois . Nice to see you, Jon. You too... ...her on the campaign back when I was the Illinois director. Illinois has a ver... ...back when I was the Illinois director. Illinois has a very convoluted way of pickin... Show more... Load more Transcripts Related Topics go to the Healthcare Healthcare go to the Immigration Immigration go to the Financial Crisis and the Economy Financial Crisis and the Economy go to the LGBTQ Policy LGBTQ Policy go to the Veterans Veterans