WI: No Jack Ryan scandal

Jack Ryan wasn't the POD here, it was Blair Hull in the democratic primary. All the polls gave him a substantial lead until 'someone' leaked the scandalous info about his estranged wife. Hull tanked and Barrack Hussein is there to reap the whirlwind. Yeah the Chicago Way greased the skids to put Barry into the Senate but that was done in the Primary, not the General.
 
The way I've thought of this, as mentioned above Obama was leading Ryan prior to the scandal breaking. However, there's a difference between an Obama-Ryan campaign where Obama is winning with ~50% and the Obama-Keyes campaign where Obama was winning with ~70%. In the prior, even if you're going to win, do you really spend time out of state campaigning for other candidates? Or send donations out of state? Or send staffers to help other campaigns? In an Obama-Ryan race, yeah barring unforeseen circumstances Obama probably wins, but it's a more normal victory than what he got OTL, which means that he comes in as a more normal junior Senator from a solidly Democratic state without having built up the good will within the Democratic party that he did at an institutional level and not having won an utter blowout. Given all of that, ignoring the effects on the actual primary in 2008, does Obama figure that he'll run for President after less than one term without that much distinguishing him from any other newly elected Democratic Senator other than a well recieved speech at the DNC? Or does he and his team (especially Michelle Obama, who apparently was very skeptical about the 2008 Presidential campaign) decide that he's young enough that he can wait a decade or two before striking out for the Presidency?
 
Obama got almost as many votes in the Democratic primary as the entire field in the Republican primary did.
Obama even won in Downstate Illinois and what really propelled him into "Political Superstardom" was his Keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
After that Ryan would not had any chance to catch Obama in the polls and probably Obama would have gotten at least 55% without breaking a sweat.
 
Maybe if Obama didn't campaign as much for other candidates he would never be given the keynote speech?
The Illinois primary was in March and the Keynote speech was in July, he was chosen about three weeks before that when he was just another Senatorial candidate and not that well known, it was the speech that gave him national prominence that allowed for huge donations to be made to his campaign that he later spread to other Senatorial candidates.
Jack Ryan was rich, but it was "Win the Primary" rich not "Win the General Election " rich, Ryan would have been swamped by all the money Obama got in August alone, forget about what Obama collected after August.
 
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