| Moon over Chicago | Music | 00:10 |
| Art deco skyscrapers | CORCORAN: Chicago -- it’s the place Hollywood didn’t have to invent. | 00:20 |
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| Music | 00:24 |
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| CORCORAN: This is a real-life Gotham City that fuses hardball politics, corruption and organised crime – they call it “The Chicago Way”. ROSE: I hear there’s trouble in certain kinds of precincts, | 00:30 |
| Rose. SUPER: DON ROSE | usually you send a lawyer. Sometimes I have to send a lawyer along with a guy who’s about 6’4”, 300 pounds (laughter) | 00:49 |
| Kass. SUPER: JOHN KASS | KASS: Guess what? – it hasn’t changed! – it didn’t change! | 00:57 |
| Government buildings | 27 councilmen have gone to prison in the last 25 years, 3 governors. | 01:03 |
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| The whole town is basically one crooked mess. | 01:09 |
| Train | Music | 01:13 |
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| CORCORAN: Jump on board the old rattlers of the L train – and you’re on the way to another Chicago. | 01:22 |
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| Music | 01:29 |
| South Side from train | CORCORAN: This remains one of America’s most segregated cities. A short ride from the prosperous downtown lies the vast South Side – almost exclusively black and poor. | 01:31 |
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| This was a journey Barack Obama first made in the early 1980s. It was here, over the next two decades where he learnt to play politics – the Chicago Way. | 01:46 |
| Bud Billiken Parade | Parade band music | 01:56 |
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| CORCORAN: Every August more than a million people line the streets of the South Side for the Bud Billiken Parade -- the biggest African-American march in the country. | 02:11 |
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| Bud Billiken – is a fictional character – a kind of guardian angel protecting vulnerable black children. | 02:28 |
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| This year he’s overshadowed by a very real champion of the poor and dispossessed. | 02:36 |
| Obama supporters in parade | Obama cheer squad: Obama 08!... Obama 08... Obama 08! | 02:43 |
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| CORCORAN: The South side is as much a state of mind as a city region. There’s a great tradition of political activism. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King spent much time here in the ‘60s. African-Americans outnumber whites in this city and segregation made the South Side a natural base for black politicians. | 02:47 |
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| Obama recognised this – and after a stint away at prestigious Harvard University, he returned here as a lawyer and began his meteoric political rise. Now as he runs for the White House, Obama offers these people that rarest commodity - hope. | 03:10 |
| Women at parade | YELLOW SHIRT LADY: There was fightin’ every day, shootin and killin’ – it not like that now – they’re slowin' down. CORCORAN: Why? YELLOW SHIRT LADY: Why -I guess because they want to see a brother be President. Change. We need a change, baby! | 03:34 |
| Preckwinkle in parade | CORCORAN: Toni Preckwinkle is an influential Chicago Alderman. She was both mentor and friend to Obama as he started his climb up the political ladder, from organiser, to State politician to US senator. He’s been portrayed by his opponents as a political innocent – with an idealistic vision – Preckwinkle says he’s neither. | 03:48 |
| Photo. Preckwinkle with Obama | PRECKWINKLE: I think he’s a very pragmatic person – I wouldn’t describe him as an idealist. I think it’s hard, | 04:11 |
| Preckwinkle. SUPER: | it’s hard to be where he is and be an idealist. You’ve got to be a pretty hard nosed pragmatic person. | 04:17 |
| Chicago skyline. Superimposed photos of Daley and father | CORCORAN: Chicago is controlled by this man – Mayor Richard M Daley. It’s a family business -- he’s been City Boss for 19 years, his father Richard J. Daley was mayor for two decades. | 04:25 |
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| Daley runs what’s called the Chicago machine – now whole heartedly embraced by Obama in his race for the White House. | 04:39 |
| Kass. SUPER: JOHN KASS | KASS: There are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only permanent interests. And the interests of the machine in Chicago is to do things the Chicago way and not go to prison. CORCORAN: John Kass has been | 04:50 |
| Michigan Ave traffic/ Tribune building | pounding the mean streets for decades – he’s an influential columnist for the Chicago Tribune. A trenchant critic of Mayor Daley’s machine, John Kass says every successful politician in this town makes serious compromises – and Barack Obama is no different. | 05:05 |
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| KASS: You can’t have machine politics in a town with the Outfit being so strong – the Outfit being the Chicago Mob – without corruption – it just doesn’t happen. | 05:24 |
| Preckwinkle. SUPER: | PRECKWINKLE: I don’t see how he could have expected the support of either the mayor or the Governor if he had decided he was going to make public corruption one of the issues on which he stood. | 05:38 |
| Obama meet and greet | I want the Democratic Party to win – so whatever concerns I have about my party, | 05:55 |
| Preckwinkle | they pale in comparison to my concerns about the Republicans. | 06:00 |
| Hyde Park | Music | 06:04 |
| Rose with Corcoran outside Obama’s house | CORCORAN: In the 1960’s Don Rose was Martin Luther King’s press secretary. His old neighbourhood of Hyde Park, sits incongruously in the middle of the South Side. | 06:18 |
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| Barack Obama moved in two years ago. ROSE: This is the house that will soon be the | 06:32 |
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| Hyde Park White House –some people think – should all things work out well for Mr. Obama. | 06:40 |
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| CORCORAN: But moving on up proved to be an embarrassment for Obama when it was revealed that a notorious political fundraiser and property investor Tony Rezko was involved in the deal. Rezko was later convicted on a separate corruption charge. | 06:49 |
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| ROSE: Tony Resko is an operator – Tony Resko – for those of us who’ve known about him for many, many years he’s been a slimy kind of character – we didn’t know at what point he actually became a criminal. | 07:06 |
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| KASS: Barack Obama didn’t have the money to buy the whole parcel. The people who were selling it, wanted to sell it as, you know, the whole thing. | 07:23 |
| Kass. SUPER: JOHN KASS | Tony Rezko comes forward and buys the yard, the lot, you know, the empty yard - Barack buys the house on the same day. Rezko pays full price for the grass and shrubbery, and Barack gets a discount because he’s such a good negotiator. CORCORAN: How much did he pay? KASS: 1.65 million dollars. | 07:32 |
| Outside Obama’s house | CORCORAN: Obama was not accused of any wrong doing and the $150,000 in campaign he received from Rezko was swiftly donated to charity. ROSE : As it turned out | 08:01 |
| SUPER: DON ROSE | it was just an unwise thing – Obama himself says it was boneheaded – that was his exact quote – a boneheaded deal to make – because here he is associating with a guy who is under indictment and subsequently convicted of many counts of corruption. | 08:13 |
| White Sox game | Music STAR SPANGLED BANNER | 08:36 |
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| CORCORAN: The South side’s baseball team – the White Sox -- are playing a home game in front of 35,000 fans. | 08:53 |
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| Outside the gates-lies the African American heartland. But there are few blacks in the crowd. It appears Chicago’s segregation isn’t only limited to where you live. Some black South-siders say they can’t afford the tickets – others simply see this as a white man’s sport. For Barack Obama to reach the White House – he must win over this crowd. | 09:07 |
| Car park outside game | And the consensus among the fans BBQ’ing in the car park is that race no longer matters. | 09:38 |
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| MAN IN CAR PARK: I think he’s a young guy – and I think his experience level could bite him in the next few months – but he’s definitely intelligent, articulate – I say we’ve got a real horse race on our hands here. | 09:45 |
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| MAN 2: Very bright, very articulate, young, inexperienced a lot of charisma. it’ll be interesting to see who becomes our next president. MAN o/s: Regan had a lot of charisma too. MAN 2: He did. | 09:57 |
| File footage. Wright sermon | Wright: Fighting for peace is like raping for virginity. | 10:10 |
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| CORCORAN: Obama’s bid to move beyond race politics nearly derailed this year when the media latched onto the high octane sermons of his pastor – the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. | 10:14 |
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| Wright: Barack Obama knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled and owned by rich white people… CORCORAN: At first Obama remained loyal to his spiritual mentor. OBAMA: As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. | 10:25 |
| File footage. Obama | He contains within him the contradictions, the good and the bad of the community that he has served diligently for so many years. I can no more disown him, than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can disown | 10:52 |
| Photo. Obama with grandmother | my white grandmother, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. These people are part of me. | 11:10 |
| File footage. Wright sermon | CORCORAN: But the provocative performances continued and Obama quit the Congregation -- his membership sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. | 11:31 |
| Trinity church | Things are quieter around Trinity church these days – and are likely to stay that way until after the election. Reverend Wright has retired and is now on a mission in Africa. Linda Thomas is a congregation member and friend of the Obama family. | 11:43 |
| Thomas. SUPER: | CORCORAN: But on the personal level, it’s very much a compromise isn’t it? I mean Jeremiah Wright is the man who married him, who baptised his children, who mentored him – yet Barack Obama has to publicly cast him adrift? THOMAS: As you say that to me, my heart just got so full – because it’s exactly what – what you’re saying is right. It’s a compromise. It is something unreasonable that he had to do. But again, if his goal is to be the President of the United States of America, these are the kinds of sacrifices that have to be made. These are the kind of compromises that have to be made, | 12:00 |
| Obama supporters | because the United States of America is still largely a white culture that does not want to face the ongoing racism that exists, and Barack Obama can not talk about that. | 12:45 |
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| ROSE: Obama is a very smart politician. | 13:03 |
| Rose. SUPER: DON ROSE | He is a politician who made one or two mistakes, but will never make those mistakes again. He is a tough-minded guy and a very tough guy. To consider him a babe in the woods because he speaks celestially, I think is the greatest mistake any opponent can make. And that may be one of the great mistakes that Hillary Clinton made. This guy knows how to play the game and he knows how to employ people who play the game. | 13:08 |
| Montage south side mean streets | Music | 13:43 |
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| CORCORAN: Down on the South Side the parade is over – and life resumes the predictable routine of violence, unemployment and despair. | 13:57 |
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| Many still can’t quite believe that a community worker – once familiar to so many on these streets -- is taking a shot at the White House. Some worry that it may all be to good to be true. | 14:07 |
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| CORCORAN: Is there a sense among some people here that he’s –a fear that he may sell out once he’s in the job? | 14:24 |
| Thomas. SUPER: | THOMAS: Again, you are asking that question that is so right on – because I am very worried about that. He has had to compromise, I think in so many ways, | 14:30 |
| File footage. Obama at support rally | and so, even I ask – where do you stop? Where do you dig in your heels and say, I am not going to deny that I am African-American – that I care about African-Americans in this country. | 14:46 |
| Skyscrapers | CORCORAN: Others believe that he’s now firmly in the embrace of the Chicago way. KASS: Now is he a bad guy? | 15:10 |
| Kass. SUPER: JOHN KASS | No. Is he a corrupt guy? I can’t say. Does he walk up to the edge of things, like with Rezko and some other dealings? Yeah. | 15:19 |
| L Train | That’s the Chicago way, you know. That’s how it works. | 15:30 |
| Preckwinkle. SUPER: | PRECKWINKLE: He’s the nominee of my party and I’m going to support him. CORCORAN: Is he a personal friend? PRECKWINKLE: No. CORCORAN: Why not? You spent a lot of time together over the years – shared common goals and ideals in terms of serving the community? PRECKWINKLE: We’re not personal friends. | 15:38 |
| Bud Billiken Parade. Obama cheer squad at parade | Chanting: Obama 08! | 16:05 |
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| CORCORAN: Obama’s supporters have no such reservations – they see an agent of change heralding a new era in American politics. And for one old civil rights campaigner – there remains the audacity of hope. | 16:09 |
| Martin Luther King archival | ROSE: I think Martin Luther King would be exuberant about Barack Obama. | 16:26 |
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| CORCORAN: And if he were sitting here looking down at all this today, what do you think he’d be saying? ROSE: I think he’d be chortling to himself. I think he’d be sitting back and | 16:42 |
| Rose | having a small glass of wine, as he would occasionally, and say, my work is finally done. | 16:52 |
| Boy at parade | Music | 17:00 |
| Credits: | Reporter: Mark Corcoran Camera: David Martin Editor: Bryan Milliss Producer: Michael Maher Production: ABC Australia | 17:10 |