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Through Project Vote , a voter registration drive that Barack Obama worked on in , he met two key future supporters, both Jewish. Daley who has been Obama's chief strategist since The other is a largely behind-the-scenes champion who has been there since the beginning of Obama's political career - Bettylu Saltzman, a longtime liberal activist whose father, Philip Klutznick , was a legendary Chicago developer, Jewish leader and statesman who served as secretary of commerce in the Carter administration and played a leading role in the development of the State of Israel.

Saltzman recalled that when she first met the year-old Obama, "I don't know what I saw, but others saw it too. I'm impressed by the numbers of people who said the same thing. He was clearly brilliant and articulate.

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I don't know what it was, but there was something about him that was clearly destined to be something very special. She was working in Bill Clinton 's presidential campaign at the time and, perhaps because she was thinking in presidential mode, "I immediately thought, he's going to be president some day. I said to my husband and to a lot of other people, he is going to be our first black president.

Why I don't know, but I will never ever forget it.

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Later, she said, as she got to know Obama, "I would sort of tease him about it. I always said to him, this is what I think is going to happen, and I think in his own mind he always thought that was what he was going to be, too. She was also impressed with Michelle Obama and says that "we could have two great people in the White House.

Saltzman supported Obama during his campaign for the state Senate, which he won in , and in his failed bid for Congress against Bobby Rush in And when Obama was contemplating a U. Senate run in , she introduced him to a group of powerful Chicago women who call themselves the Ladies Who Lunch. Many became his supporters.