For those of you who don't know, in his autobiography Dreams From My Father, Obama wrote about his teenage years growing up in Hawaii and how he experimented with drugs. He wrote the book in 1995, before he ever had any thought of running for national office. The book went out of print for some years, only to be reissued once Obama burst upon the national scene.

Obama himself has said that perhaps many of the things he talked about openly in the book might not have politically expedient, but he wasn't writing it with an eye towards politics at that time.

He was a young biracial man growing up without a father in the 1970s. The book is all about his struggling to find his self-identity, struggling with race, and trying to define what his values were. A journey many of us have to take. This is what he wrote:

Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man...The highs hadn't been about that, me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then, anyway. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory."

Evidently, the Clinton New Hampshire chair has stated that Obama's past drug usage could be a problem. He says he's "concerned" about how this could be used against Obama in the general (yeah, real concerned). And of course by talking of his "concern" he's raising the issue. From the Washington Post:

Among his concerns about Obama as the nominee, he said in an interview here today, is that his background is so relatively unknown and that the Republicans would do their best to unearth negative aspects of it, or concoct mistruths about it. Shaheen, a lawyer and influential state power broker, mentioned as an example Obama's use of cocaine and marijuana as a young man, which Obama has been open about in his memoir and on the trail.

"The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight ... and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use," said Shaheen, the husband of former N.H. governor Jeanne Shaheen, who is planning to run for the Senate next year. Billy Shaheen contrasted Obama's openness about his past drug use -- which Obama mentioned again at a recent campaign appearance in New Hampshire -- with the approach taken by George W. Bush in 1999 and 2000, when he ruled out questions about his behavior when he was "young and irresponsible."

Shaheen said Obama's candor on the subject would "open the door" to further questions. "It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?'" Shaheen said. "There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."

For the record, I know a friend who's a white conservative Republican who is thinking of supporting Obama precisely BECAUSE he's come clean about his drug usage. He sees Obama as an honest man. And honesty is an important quality for this voter. (This same conservative Republican, by the way, was back in the day a hard-partying coke dealer, who since has found God, become a parent and is an evangelical Christian.)

I was fortunate enough to have been able to attend an elite, predominately white, private school. And let me tell you, the kids who have the most money were able to buy the most drugs. This has nothing to do with race or class.

Let's get real.

I think this country needs to have a real dialogue about what was really happening in high schools and in the larger culture in the 1970s and 1980s.

The schools were FULL drugs, and most people in their 40s either tried them or had friends who did them.

By the 1970s, even people who were too conservative in the 1960s to try drugs were doing them. I grew up in the 1970s and people's parents were experimenting with drugs.

It's time for America to get off its high horse over this issue.

If we've had the last two (and with Obama as three) presidents who've admitted to experimenting with drugs, whether they inhaled or not, then we've obviously got a larger issue here than one of just character. It was part of the cultural moment of those times.

Obama has stated that he made a mistake and that he decided to stop the behavior. Enough said.

The campaign is fighting back, though. I just received this email this morning from David Plouffe, the campaign manager. The campaign is asking for $100, but I would urge you to donate any amount, even $5, to show your disgust with the kind of negative campaign that Hillary Clinton (muslim email smears, kindergate, and now high-schoo!) is running. Let's have 10,000 people donate today!:

This race took a sharply negative turn yesterday.

With recent polls giving Barack the lead in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, and just three weeks left before the Iowa caucuses, the attacks on Barack's character that Hillary Clinton has called "the fun part" of this campaign have reached a new low.

In an increasingly desperate effort to slow Senator Clinton's slide, the focus of the Clinton campaign has moved from Barack Obama's kindergarten years to his teenage years.

On Wednesday, their top advisor in New Hampshire tried to recycle old news by smearing Barack for experimenting with drugs as a young man -- something Barack candidly wrote about years ago in his memoir and has since talked about with young people in an effort to teach them the lessons he learned from his mistakes.

The only way to stop these kinds of tired, desperate attacks is to demonstrate very clearly that they have a real cost to Senator Clinton's campaign.

If 5,000 people donate in the next 24 hours, we can show their campaign that we reject this kind of divisive politics. Make your donation of $100 now:

https://donate.barackobama.com/thecostofnegativity

These remarks crossed a line that should never be crossed in a Democratic primary. In fact, even Republicans think it's beyond the pale. When asked about this very topic recently, one of the GOP presidential frontrunners actually commended Barack's candor and honesty.

It's a sad day when a Democrat running for president takes up a line of attack that even a potential Republican opponent refuses to dignify.

Raise the cost of this kind of negativity for the Clinton campaign by making a donation of $100 now:

Make no mistake -- this kind of attack is becoming a pattern as Clinton's support declines.

Since the last time I wrote to you about their attacks, the Clinton campaign has mailed brochures in Iowa that distort Barack's health care plan, produced negative television ads for New Hampshire, and actually sent emails asking for information that could help them smear Barack's efforts to fight poverty and joblessness as a community organizer in Chicago.

It's up to you to demonstrate to the Clinton campaign that these kinds of attacks will backfire and make us stronger.

Reject this negativity now:

https://donate.barackobama.com/thecostofnegativity

Growing outrage at this line of attack already has the Clinton campaign backtracking in the media, but it's up to us to stop these tired, petty tactics once and for all.

Please respond and make your voice heard for a new kind of politics. Let's bring real change to America.

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America