Samantha Power: An Unlikely Education
by Nik Steinberg on February 12, 2008 in Features
When Prof. Samantha Power stumps for Barack Obama, as she has done to rapt audiences in college auditoriums, town halls and public parks across the country, she often tells the story about how she first met the senator.
It was 2005, shortly after Obama had been elected, when he invited the Kennedy School professor to sit and talk policy with him.
Despite having seen Obama’s stirring speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Power’s expectations were not too high. After all, her Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Problem from Hell” meticulously documented how even the best-intentioned American politicians had consistently failed to stop genocide.
“I was supposed to meet with him for an hour,” Power tells it, “and it ended up being four hours. I don’t think, in my life, I’ve ever been subjected to as intense of a policy discussion. I was literally bled dry.”
So impressed was Power that, when the meeting was over, she found herself doing the unthinkable: she asked Obama for an internship.
The senator had loftier ideas for Power, who spent the following year helping him shape his foreign policy platform on everything from formulating an exit plan for Iraq to stopping the genocide in Darfur.
In recent months, Power has taken an increasingly public role in Obama’s run, speaking as his senior foreign policy advisor on MSNBC and telling audiences nationwide why he should be the next president.
But it is not only in her words that Power’s presence on the Obama campaign can be felt; it is also in the foreign policy principles of Obama himself. To listen to Obama speak about themes such as rebuilding multilateralism, restoring the U.S. role in the world and closing Guantanamo to hear the fundamental ideas of Power’s Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy (ISP-221).
The Obama-Power connection is often likened to another relationship between a presidential hopeful and an academic: that of George W. Bush and Condoleeza Rice. Though Power would certainly resist any comparison with the current administration, when asked if she would ever accept a working role in an Obama presidency, she says, “If Obama thought I could be useful, I think I’d have a very hard time saying no.”
“First, because he’s so persuasive,” Power says. “And second, because so much of this campaign is about shared sacrifice and bringing a new approach to Washington. After all this talk of changing the way politics is done, I couldn’t just sit on the sidelines because I don’t want to leave the Red Sox.”
Written by Nik Steinberg · Filed Under Features
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