How many U.S. senators drop their own kids off at nursery school?

The answer is at least one.

This morning I saw Barack Obama dropping off his child at nursery school. Obama is the junior senator from Illinois who exploded onto the national political scene with a fantastic speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention.

Long before that, he wrote a really outstanding memoir about growing up as a mixed-race child, his struggle to find his identity, and the circuitous path that led him to editing the Harvard Law Review. I read Obama’s memoir on the plane from Chicago to Hong Kong as I traveled to adopt a daughter from China — a time when issues of race and identity were foremost in my own mind. He writes as beautifully as he speaks, which is high praise. I highly recommend this book.

I’ve never had the chance to speak to Obama, although I would really like to. As part of the annual fundraising auction at our school, Obama donated the chance for someone to have lunch with him. I will certainly be bidding, but was told the price tag will likely be $20,000.

(Also donated was the chance to have lunch with one of the authors of Freakonomics, with an expected winning bid of $20.)