Brad,

This sentence may not represent Obama's finest piece of literary crafting, but you are assuming that the after-clause can do (mean) only one thing, and that is to indicate a time after which certain things were completed (his laboring in the minority) and after which other things happened (Democrats gained control).  However, Obama does a subtle thing here:  he establishes his two terms in the minority as a period during which some things happened, so that the main clause is what grammars refer to as a resultative perfect.  As a result of efforts during those to terms, the following state of affairs now held:  Democrats had gained control and he got a slew of bills passed.  "After" clauses aren't semantically as straightforward as you suggest.  He also didn't say the change control occurred after his first two terms; he's saying that state of affairs held, again, the resultative perfect.

As to the "preserved" example, I think you are demanding that the grammatical trigger for a past perfect, that is, for sequence of tenses or backshifting to apply, must be overt in the immediate context.  That, however, is not necessary.  Once the writer has established a time frame in the discourse, he can then use that as a reference point without mentioning it all over again.  It is possible, even, for such a time frame to be implicit in the discourse context.  That's what Obama is doing in this sentence.

More on this later.  I have to head out to a meeting.

Herb




-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Brad Johnston
Sent: Tue 2/19/2008 3:51 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Herb & some examples of The Audacity of Barack Obama
 
Re message from Herbert Stahlke.   
  Herb:  "had gained" and "gained" give the sentence two quite different meanings.
   
  Brad:  I agree.^
   

  Obama:  "After two terms during which I labored in the minority, Democrats had gained control of the state senate and I (had) subsequently passed a slew of bills."
   
  Herb:  With "had gained" Obama is saying that that gaining of control occurred before the end of the two terms he spent in the minority.
   
  Brad:  Even though he clearly stated "After two terms"?
   
  Obama:  "After two terms during which I labored in the minority, Democrats gained control of the state senate and I (had) subsequently passed a slew of bills."
   
  Herb:  If he had written just "gained," the change of control of the Illinois senate would have taken place after those two terms were completed.
   
  Brad:  I agree. That's when he said it happened.
  
Herb: In the other examples the meaning differences are not as easy to explicate, but he had a choice between simple past  and past perfect, and he legitimately chose past perfect.
   
    Obama:  I (had) preserved my independence, my good name, and my marriage, all of which (had been) were placed at risk the moment I set foot in the state capitol.
   
  Brad:  Is not "preserved" a past tense verb in front of which the author has inserted the word 'had"?
   
  Brad:  His independence, name, and marriage were placed at risk. Why would we want him to say that they "had been" placed at risk? Relative to what?
   

  ^ In the third line above, where it says, "I agree" that the past perfect makes a difference, I am reminded of a professor at a British university who wrote to me saying:
   
  "When the Queen arrived, they dined." (They dined after she arrived.)
   
  "When the Queen arrived, they had dined." (They dined before she arrived.)
   
  "Without the past perfect", he said, "such distinctions are not possible".
   
  Brad: We can use more words to describe exactly what happened but if limited to so few words, he's right, such distinctions are not possible.
   
  .brad.19feb08.

       
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