But many of them didn’t think it would happen so soon.

Political analysts believed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) would cruise to the nomination, saying an Obama run in 2008 would give him experience on the presidential campaign trail and set up another White House bid down the road for the young senator.

Still, there were others, such as Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), who believed Obama could win it all this year.

Several years ago, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said the buzz about Obama spiked after he clinched the Democratic nomination for retiring Sen. Peter Fitzgerald’s (R-Ill.) seat.

“[He] delivered this visionary speech about what our country can be, the problems that we’re, as Americans, facing right now,” Schakowsky said then. “It was about a 20-minute speech, without a single note. On the lips of many people in the audience were the words, ‘This man could be president.’”

When The Hill published that comment, in a 2004 convention preview, the headline read: “Keynoter Obama seen as ‘one of the best candidates ever.’”

His 2004 speech helped elevate him to where he is today. But in 2000, he barely could get into the Democratic convention in Los Angeles.

In his bestseller, The Audacity of Hope, Obama noted that he had recently lost his primary challenge against Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) and wanted to spend some time with his family. But Obama relented, persuaded to go by several friends and supporters.

It wasn’t a fun trip. His credit card was rejected at the airport and he couldn’t secure a floor pass.

“By Tuesday night,” Obama wrote, “I realized that my presence was serving neither me nor the Democratic Party any apparent purpose, and by Wednesday morning I was on the first flight back to Chicago.”

Eight years later, Obama is poised to accept his party’s nomination at his own convention. He is sure to make his imprint after complaining to a Cleveland newspaper a dozen years ago that conventions are for sale. At the time, Obama said, “ … when the average voter looks at [$10,000 a-plate dinners], they rightly feel they’ve been locked out of the process.”

Republicans are trying to turn his compelling biography and rapid rise against him, noting he was a state senator just four years ago. Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) presidential campaign has pejoratively called Obama “The One,” suggesting that although he can draw a crowd of 200,000 in Berlin, he doesn’t have the experience to be the leader of the free world.

Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and a Kansas mother, has not gotten where he is by making the safe moves.
He admits the decision to run against Rush was foolish because he first announced his bid, then commissioned a poll and found Rush’s approval rating was 70 percent and his stood at 8. President Clinton endorsed Rush, who beat Obama by 31 percentage points. Obama did not enjoy that loss — he called it a “drubbing” and added in his 2006 book, “I still burn … with the thought of my one loss in politics. …”

Presumably he did some polling before telling Tim Russert on “Meet the Press” that he was thinking about the “possibility” of running for the presidency after having indicated months earlier that he planned to serve out his full Senate term.

Obama also ran into some good political fortune to get to the U.S. Senate.  After getting in the race and besting a competent Democratic field, which included millionaire Blair Hull and a nasty scandal involving his first wife, Obama’s star was allowed to rise relatively unscathed as his first and second Republican rivals imploded.

Jack Ryan, Obama’s first opponent, and Alan Keyes, the man who took the field after Ryan withdrew amid scandal over his divorce from actress Jeri Ryan, did more damage to themselves than to Obama, which gave the state senator time to solidify his presence on the national stage.

He did that spectacularly with his much-heralded speech at the Boston convention.

Overnight, the senator, who had opposed the Iraq war in 2002 and delivered his convention speech when fewer than 1,000 American troops had died, was the talk of Beantown. That man, the pundits said, is the future of the Democratic Party, and he could one day be president.

Before the 2006 midterm elections, Sen. Clinton established herself as the front-runner for her party’s nomination. It was her time, and while names like John Edwards, Evan Bayh and Mark Warner represented threats, Clinton held her lead well after Bayh and Warner opted out.

But Obama shocked the political world after he raised $25 million in the first quarter of 2007. After he reported raising $32.5 million in the second quarter of 2007 to Clinton’s $27 million, CNN ran the headline: “Obama’s money puts Clinton’s ‘inevitable’ nomination in doubt.”

Obama bided his time, but when he started to hit Clinton, he hit hard and repeatedly, and won the Iowa caucuses by an eye-opening nine percentage points over Edwards and third-place Clinton.

There were many highs and lows in the months to come. Yet, Obama showed he had the endurance to stay with and eventually surpass Clinton.

He was the man to beat as the race turned to New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, Super Tuesday and what would eventually become a historic, 54-contest battle against Clinton that continues to have lasting effects on a party fearful that disunity could cost it the White House for a third time in a row.

The turning point in the campaign came when Obama strung together 10 wins in a row, outmaneuvering the veteran Clinton operation that had counted on a Super Tuesday knockout punch. While the Clintons looked at states, the Obama campaign steadfastly kept its focus on the delegate count.

In the end, despite a furious and nearly successful Clinton comeback, Obama had punctured the former first lady’s inevitability. Big endorsements, such as Sen. Edward Kennedy’s (D-Mass.), helped Obama immensely.

With Clinton for the most part behind him, though her supporters could still give the Illinois senator some headaches this week, Obama now faces a Republican operation that has defeated lifelong statesman Al Gore and war veteran Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). McCain, meanwhile, has an equally compelling biography and a much longer resume.

Obama has come far, but there is no middle ground this November. Either he wins and makes history as the first African American president, or loses and crushes the Democratic Party’s hopes again.