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Although young and unknown, Obama impressed with his now familiar political skills, including his ability to synthesize disparate points of view and rally opponents around a common cause, according to several seminar participants. "When he talked, people listened," said seminar co-chair Lewis Feldstein, "which was all the remarkable because he had no creds." Endearingly ambitious about his political aspirations, Obama was dubbed "the governor."

Reed, who said that it was clear that Obama was "going places," was nonetheless a little less dazzled.

"He wanted to be able to turn to the conservative and say, 'I want to talk to you, and turn to the liberal and say, 'I want to talk to you,' and he would wind up pleasing nobody," Reed recalled. "He's always trying to split the baby."

During the wide-ranging seminar, the group talked about whether houses of worship spark neighborhood renewal; how political campaigns had morphed from door-to-door canvassing to advertising "air wars"; and how to harness technology for grass-roots organizing. Sessions explored what the government can do to encourage public service and how to build paths over racial, ethnic, religious and class boundaries.

 "Today, when Barack Obama speaks about how citizens can transcend their political divisions to participate in projects of common purpose, he is drawing on the arguments and ideas from those intellectual debates of a decade ago," Henry J. Farrell, a political scientist at George Washington University wrote last year in The American Prospect.

Both Stephen Goldsmith and John DiIulio, the men who essentially wrote the blueprints for the White House faith-based office under George W. Bush, attended the seminar. Obama, though, skipped the session on "religion and social capital," according to Saguaro records. His conciliatory skills were missed, according to Putnam. The session was a "fiasco," he recalls, with secularists and believers arguing across the table. "There was such alienation in the group, we thought the (seminar) might end at that point," Putnam said.

 Obama attended most of the sessions, however, and it seems he was taking mental notes. As president, he has relentlessly used the bully pulpit to call for a "new era of public service." He's painted schools on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, created a Web portal to connect people with volunteer opportunities in their neighborhoods, and successfully pushed for a huge expansion for AmeriCorps. His 2010 budget includes a 25 percent increase to create more public service jobs.

At the same time, Obama has pledged to restore trust in government by making public spending more open and accountable, pushed for early education programs, and touted a "social innovation" fund to bring private dollars to worthy public causes. Meanwhile, he has frequently convened town hall meetings outside Washington, connected with supporters through e-mails and Internet applications, and chastised corporate executives and divisive religious leaders—all ideas with roots in Saguaro discussions.

Obama's Saguaro ties were most visible, perhaps, last April, when he signed the Serve America Act, which includes a measure to study the "civic health of communities." With five Saguaro alums in the room, the signing ceremony became a sort of class reunion. Putnam was invited but could not attend because of family illness. Asked his feelings about the ceremony, he seemed a mix of proud parent and careful academic.

"There's a lot of rhyming between what he's been saying and what we've been saying," Putnam said, "but I really want to emphasize, I don't think he needed me to tell him that."

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Christianity Today has a special section on Barack Obama and follows political developments on the politics blog.

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June (Web-only) 2009, Vol. 53