The day after the 2006 midterm elections, a small group of advisers gathered on the north side of Chicago to plan a potential presidential run by a young U.S. senator named Barack Obama. During the meeting, the senator’s wife, Michelle, expressed concern about how grueling the race promised to be, at one point asking if Barack could have Sundays off.
Obama’s nonplussed future campaign manager, David Plouffe, quickly disabused the future first couple of that notion. “You have two choices,” Plouffe said. “You can stay in the Senate, enjoy your weekends at home, take regular vacations, and have a lovely time with your family. Or you can run for president, have your whole life poked at and pried into, almost never see your family, travel incessantly, bang your tin cup for donations like some street-corner beggar, lead a lonely, miserable life.”
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