"I had all but given up on organising when I received a call from Marty Kaufman [editor’s note: Kaufman is believed to be a fictionalised composite character, an amalgam of Gerald Kellman, the man who actually hired Obama, and Michael Kruglik, one of the Chicago community organisers who worked with Obama]. He explained that he’d started an organising drive in Chicago and was looking to hire a trainee. He’d be in New York the following week and we met at a coffee shop on Lexington."