I found a fascinating insight into the early friendship between the now historic Obama and Hillary Clinton tangle.

''In February 2005, Clinton was the most powerful woman in the Senate and the most prominent Democrat in the country. America was waiting for her to claim the White House. She wanted to do everything the right way, and she took the time to learn what she needed to learn. She was intent on moving into the White House on her own terms, not on her husband's coattails. As far back as February 2005, when Obama had his secretary set up an appointment with Clinton, there was no doubt that her time would come.

She met with him in her large, impressive, canary-yellow office on the fourth floor of the Russell Office Building. Clinton spent an entire hour telling Obama about her humble beginnings in the Senate, when she took a back seat to more senior senators, brought her male counterparts coffee and asked to be admitted to the Senate prayer group. A remarkably humble start for the former First Lady (sometimes referred to as Bill Clinton's "co-president"), a woman who knew many heads of state and prime ministers around the world.

It must have been an amicable conversation. The two senators discovered that they had a lot in common, and they both thought it was amusing that while she was already well-known when she joined the Senate, Obama, as he readily admitted, had merely given a speech -- something that couldn't hold a candle to her fame. Hillary's advice to Obama was to follow her example: be quiet, learn as much as possible, avoid grandstanding and be a workhorse. Obama nodded.

Obama, for his part, said he was troubled by the "maneuvers, chicanery and small-mindedness of politics." During the first meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he wrote the following note to one of his staffers: "Shoot. Me. Now." But should he have contradicted Hillary Clinton back then? She wouldn't have taken him seriously anyway''.

No one would have taken him seriously........

Obama it would seem was a very quick learner. Read rest of the story here.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/us-e lections/0,1518,552948,00.html