Obamas: How they paid for their Ivy League educations and the jobs they held while in school.

[Pirate Smile]

The Obama we don't know: deli man
SUN-TIMES EXCLUSIVE | Behind the stump speech: summer jobs, college debt

July 20, 2008Recommend (15)

BY LYNN SWEET Sun-Times Columnist

As part of their stump speeches, Sen. Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, rely often on their life stories, how they came from modest means, rarely adding new details about their early years even after months of campaigning. Read on, because for the first time, the Obamas have decided to share how they paid for their Ivy League educations and the jobs they held while in school.

-snip-
So what's the record? As a high school student, Obama's first job was at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store. He also has mentioned he worked construction. And we know about the famous summer job between his second and third years of law school at Sidley Austin in Chicago, where he met Michelle, who was already at the firm. The summer before, Obama worked at Hopkins & Sutter, a law firm in Chicago.

Here's what we know for the first time, with information passed on from the Obama campaign in response to my inquiries: As a college student at Occidental in Southern California, Obama returned home to Hawaii the summer after freshman year to sell island trinkets in a gift shop. Obama also had a summertime job at a deli counter in Hawaii -- making sandwiches.

Once in New York to attend Columbia, one summer Obama worked for a private company holding a contract to process health records of either police or firefighters; I'm not sure exactly what he did.
During one school year at Columbia, Obama was a telemarketer in midtown Manhattan selling New York Times subscriptions over the phone, wearing a headset. He did not like the job because "he worried that some of the people he called couldn't really afford the subscription."

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1064437,CST-NWS-sweet20.article

[skooooo]

1. Working at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store....

...how elitist!!!

:sarcasm:

[gblady]

2. I know....

definite sign of an elitist...
imagine working for a company that had 31 flavors...
any common, ordinary person knows that there needs to be only one flavor of ice cream...

chocolate....

...any more is just elitist extravagance.

[TheFarseer]

4. 31 flavors is too many

real hard-working Americans only need Vanilla and Chocolate.

[Pirate Smile]

7. I remember during the Potomac Primaries when he joked about how hard it was trying to impress girls

wearing a Baskin-Robbins hat and an apron. :D

[skooooo]

10. LOL....

That's funny.

[CreekDog]

14. they sell frappachinos there you know

:eyes:

[Kali]

3. It may just be campaign hyperbole but

"He did not like the job because "he worried that some of the people he called couldn't really afford the subscription." "

Speaks to me. It says a lot about the difference between liberals and repukes.

[givemebackmycountry]

5. And how did the Monkey pay for his "higher" education?

Oh, that's right.
He didn't.
No backbreaking student loans for the kid.
He was a "legacy".

In more ways than one.

[Mz Pip]

8. Or McCain

What summer jobs did McCain ever have?

[Hippo_Tron]

9. Ask him that and he'll go ballistic and make remarks about the Hanoi Hilton

That's how McCain dodges pretty much every question.

[JaneQPublic]

21. Has McCain had ANY jobs besides the Navy and the Senate? (nt)

[tblue37]

25. Right after marrying Cindy, he worked very briefly in PR for her

daddy's beer distributorship.

[hedgehog]

6. Ironically, most white American would assume that bright black kids like Michelle and Obama would

get a free ride! So much for Affirmative Action!

[ecstatic]

11. A telemarketer? I bet he was really successful at that nt

[FloridaJudy]

24. Been there, done that

I was actually pretty good at it, though I hated every minute. Fortunately, I was trying to sell professional magazines to doctors and the like, and there aren't too many of them on food stamps and section eight housing. It made me grateful I'd always been courteous to sales calls, even if I was firm about not buying.

This makes me like Obama even more - he knows what having to do a really crummy job for miserable wages feels like.

[AnnieBW]

12. How Elitist!

I'll bet his favorite flavor was chocolate-vanilla swirl!

[senseandsensibility]

13. tweetster was going into spasms about this a few weeks ago

He kept questioning his guest about whether Obama had worked his way through school with jobs, what kind, etc. You know how he is when he gets ahold of something. He wanted specifics, so there you go, tweety. I hope he reads DU. Personally, I think he wanted to be assured that Obama was not getting some kind of hand out. That seemed to be his implication.

[otohara]

15. But, But .... He Lived in Hawaii

That's what I heard from a Republican guy when I was phone-banking the other night. After I rebuked all the wingnut talking points about Obama being an "elitist" - that's what he came up with. The man grew up in Hawaii and as everyone knows, there are no poor people in Hawaii.

[ellisonz]

23. lol

He's obviously never been to Hawaii.

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

16. Boy, that sure sounds elitist to me.

:sarcasm:

McCrazy was only the son and grandson of admirals and finished in the bottom 0.1% of his class at the Academy. Obviously much more a man of the people.

Mull that over for a while. IIRC, he was 894th in a class of 899. Rock fucking bottom of his class. Could it be that he's even dumber than His Chimperial Majesty? Shit, Smirky at least managed Cs before he baked himself in the 1970s, not that he had many brain cells to kill in the first place. So just how dumb do these stats make McCrazy?

OTOH, Barack managed to excel sufficiently at Occidental College that he was able to transfer to Columbia. Any idea just how hard that is? Not to mention Harvard Law, where our paths did not cross, though Michelle O and I were classmates, and make it to magna honors and be elected the first African-American Editor in Chief of the Harvard Law Review. Just who earned what here, folks?

[Pirate Smile]

17. kick

[LWolf]

18. Am I supposed to be somehow awed or impressed

because he had to work as a high school and college student?

I don't remember anyone overawed when I did the same. Except that, working and raising my sons, it took me 12 years to get through community college, and another 4 to get the B.A. + 30 that led to "professional" employment.

16 years of full time work and single parenthood, while putting myself through school.

I'm not a saint because of it, and I'm not impressed because someone else had to do some work while attending college.

Oh. You are wanting me to compare him with the more privileged class that makes up the average national politician. Not with the rest of us.

[gateley]

20. You're not accused of being 'elitist'.

This is in response to an unfair characterization of him, that's all.

[LWolf]

22. I can understand that.

I really wonder, though, if any "side" ever characterizes any politician accurately. It's all a stage game. :shrug:

[The Doctor.]

19. Man, being born into such privilege!

:silly: