Explaining Bill Ayers

Michael Barone explains Chicago politics, where "genealogy so important," and follows the various nespotic family trees.

Which leads us back to Barack Obama, who is now a U.S. senator and will shortly become the Democratic nominee for an office that even Chicago regards as more important than mayor. And the question presents itself: How did this outsider from Hawaii and Columbia and Harvard become somebody somebody sent? His wife, Michelle Robinson Obama, had some connections: Her father was a Democratic precinct committeeman; she baby-sat for Jesse Jackson's children; and she worked as a staffer for the current Mayor Daley. Obama made connections on the all-black South Side by joining the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church. But was Obama's critical connection to le tout Chicago William Ayers?