Obama in 2004

I'm trying to recall when I first heard of Barack Obama.

I think it was back during spring break of 2004 (very early April, about four or five months before the DNC in Boston), when my family visited Chicago. One day, we went to the Hyde Park neighborhood to see the Museum of Science and Industry and poke around the area near the University of Chicago.

I recall noticing political lawn signs that caught my attention: They were blue and said OBAMA for U.S. Senate. It's possible I had heard of him before this (if so, it would have been from NPR, which ran stories on the Senate race in mid-March), but the signs may have been the first time.

I do remember being startled by his name. I think I commented on how he wouldn't get very far with a name like that "these days" (context: this was the week that four private military contractors were killed and hung on a bridge in Fallujah, Iraq).

If you remember, it was a strange Senate race that year. Obama had just won the Democratic endorsement to run against Jack Ryan, a well-funded Republican and husband of actress Jeri Ryan who had played Seven of Nine on Star Trek the Next Generation. But Ryan withdrew from the race in the midst of a nasty divorce scandal. He was then replaced by Alan Keyes, the well-known conservative gadfly who is not even from Illinois.

But all that happened in June, after I had seen the signs in Hyde Park. And then in July it was announced that Obama would be keynoting the DNC. And after that, he became a household name.

A site called ILSenate.com, dedicated to the 2004 race for the Senate in Illinois, is still up, and you can see Obama's page on it.