Washington Post: Barack Obama's rise due in part to luck

Washington Post:

As with any successful politician, luck is often evident in the Obama biography… All in keeping with a lucky streak that propelled him from obscurity into national prominence eight short years ago. That is when John Kerry, the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer, asked him to deliver the keynote address at the 2004 national convention and when his most formidable opponents for the U.S. Senate were knocked out of the race, one after another, by troublesome reports involving their treatment of former wives.

And this had something to do with his political ascent, too: