You have two choices, [Plouffe] told Obama. 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. John Heilemann
About This Quote

On May 18, 2008, Barack Obama's chief of staff, David Plouffe, gave Obama a stark choice in his final days in the Senate. Obama could stay in the Senate and enjoy his weekends at home, take regular vacations, and have a lovely time with his family. Or he could run for president, have his whole life poked at and pried into, almost never see his family. He would travel incessantly, bang his tin cup for donations like some street-corner beggar.

He would lead a lonely, miserable life. And so after Obama had made up his mind to run for president he did so.

Source: Mark Halperin, Game Change: Obama And The Clintons, Mccain And Palin, And The Race Of A Lifetime

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