Barack Obama’s lucky star

Last month Noam Scheiber penned a lengthy but fascinating cover story in The New Republic on the rise of Illinois State Senator Barack Obama (he’s also a senior lecturer at the U of C’s law school). Obama is currently the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in this state. Scheiber’s essay was about how Obama, an African-American, was able to surmount the tricky hurdles that a minority candidate can face in a statewide campaign. While Scheiber stressed Obama’s considerable talents as a politician, he also acknowledged that Obama had been the recipient of some good fortune as well on the way to winning the nomination: “Obama ran into a bit of luck. The media turned up evidence that [erstwhile frontrunner Blair] Hull’s ex-wife had sought a restraining order against him, and Hull’s campaign, which had built a ten-point lead, imploded after the candidate essentially admitted to having abused her.” It now appears that Obama has once again received a huge dollop of fortuna — again from the divorce courts. Obama’s Republican opponent Jack Ryan may experience some political difficulties sustaining his campaign after the unsealing and partial release of records from Ryan’s divorce from Jeri Ryan — yes, the same Jeri Ryan who’s starred in Boston Public and Star Trek: Voyager. [I’m still hazy — who is this again?–ed. Inserting shameless photo here:]

John Chase and Liam Ford report the sordid details in the Chicago Tribune:

Republican U.S. Senate nominee Jack Ryan’s ex-wife, TV actress Jeri Ryan, accused him of taking her to sex clubs in New York and Paris, where he tried to coerce her into having sex with him in front of strangers, according to records released Monday from the couple’s California divorce file. Jack Ryan denied the allegations when they were made in 2000, when the couple was engaged in a bitter child custody battle a year after their divorce…. Among the hundreds of pages of documents released was a legal filing dated June 9, 2000, in which Jeri Ryan said she knew her marriage was over by the spring of 1998. She went on to contend that her then-husband–whom she repeatedly refers to as “respondent” in the filing–surprised her with trips to the cities but didn’t tell her he planned to bring her to sex clubs while there. “They were long weekends, supposed `romantic’ getaways,” Jeri Ryan said in the filing. “The clubs in New York and Paris were explicit sex clubs. Respondent had done research. Respondent took me to two clubs in New York during the day. One club I refused to go in. It had mattresses in cubicles. The other club he insisted I go to.” In releasing the files, Schnider allowed many passages to be blacked out. In the portions that were released, Jeri Ryan gave details of the trips she says she was taken on to clubs in New York and Paris. She also alleged that Jack Ryan took her to a sex club in New Orleans, but no elaboration on that trip was included in the released portion of the file. In responding to Jeri Ryan’s charges, Jack Ryan six days later described the accusations as “ridiculous” and accused her of trying to “libel” him with what he called “smut.” He implied that his ex-wife had made them to ruin his reputation as he contemplated a political career…. In her 2000 filing, Jeri Ryan alleged that after she and Jack Ryan left the first sex club they entered in New York, he asked her to go to another. She said he told her that he had gone out to dinner with her that night even though he didn’t want to and “the least I could do in return was go to the club he wanted me to go.” She described the second place as “a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling.” “Respondent wanted me to have sex with him there with another couple watching. I refused,” Jeri Ryan continued. “Respondent asked me to perform a sexual activity upon him and he specifically asked other people to watch. I was very upset. “We left the club and respondent apologized, said that I was right and he would never insist that I go to a club again. He promised it was out of his system.” But later, Jeri Ryan said, Jack Ryan took her to Paris where he again took her to a sex club without first telling her where they were going. “I told him I thought it was out of his system. I told him he had promised me we would never go. People were having sex everywhere. I cried. I was physically ill. Respondent became very upset with me and said it was not a `turn-on’ for me to cry. I could not get over the incident and my loss of any attraction to him as a result. Respondent knew this was a serious problem. I told him I did not know if we could work it out.”

Click here to read Jeri Ryan’s statement responding to the story. Obama wisely told the Tribune that “Obviously Mr. Ryan and his supporters will be discussing this and I don’t think that’s my role.” There’s no mention of it on his campaign blog as well. Now it’s hardly Obama’s fault that he has political idiots for opponents — and it’s to his credit that he hasn’t perpetrated anything as stupid in his personal or professional career. And it’s worth pointing out that the latest poll (conducted last week) had Obama ahead of Ryan by eleven points — so it’s not like he really needed this to happen. Still, politicians of every stripe must be burning with envy, marveling at Obama’s run of good luck. Readers are invited to submit other politicians who have similarly benefited from this kind of self-destructive behavior by opponents during a campaign. UPDATE: Over at Tapped, Nick Confessore frets that this may hurt Obama:

[T]he release of these documents gives the Illinois GOP a chance to get Ryan to drop out and put somebody else on the ticket. On the other hand, the state party is bereft of real talent — that’s how retiring incumbent Peter Fitzgerald got elected — and it’s hard to imagine who they would get to replace Ryan.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mark Buehner posts a comment that reflects my thoughts on the matter:

[A]s a Chicagoan let me just mention how depressing it is to have the most clueless, lunkheaded republican party in the country. Worst of all they cant seem to find a candidate for any office not named Ryan (former Governor George Ryan was plagued with graft and corruption). Newsflash GOP, many voters dont bother to see what a guys first name is, if a Ryan keeps showing up on ballots every couple of years, a significant number of semi-apathetic voters will check the opposite column just out of habit. Idiots.

Indeed.