So Cummings took a chance, however risky it may have been, and now it's paying off.
He's happy to drop references to conversations with "Barack," but he doesn't pretend to be a member of the inner circle. He has never socialized with Obama, but then again, few others in Washington have, either.
He's never seen Obama at the House gym, where Cummings rides the stationary bike and lifts weights.
"It's just toning, Jack, I'm not going in there to kill myself. I'm 57, man, I'm not trying to prove anything. The younger guys, they challenge me, but I tell them, 'It's all right,' " he says, laughing.
Another workout regular, Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, is there in the morning, riding the bike and reading the paper.
"You get to know people in the gym," said Cummings, who has gotten to know Emanuel, soon to be White House chief of staff. He calls Obama's top aide a "perfect" choice for the job, because of his close attention to detail and close ties to House Democrats.
Cummings said he and Obama had met casually at a conference for state legislators, but their first one-on-one meeting was during the 2004 campaign. In late September of that year, Cummings played host at a Baltimore fundraising breakfast for Obama, who was facing token opposition from Alan L. Keyes, a perennial candidate imported from Maryland at the last minute by desperate Illinois Republicans.
At the event, Cummings, then chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said he wanted Obama to be more than the third African-American elected to the Senate since Reconstruction. He wanted him to be a "player" - in the party and around the country. O'Malley, still mayor but then praised as a rising national star, strolled into the room as Obama was conducting TV interviews and met the future president for the first time.
Less than four months later, Cummings said Obama phoned, on his way back from a Chicago Bears playoff game, and asked him to chair his campaign in the state.
"I said, 'Can you win?' " Cummings recalled. "He said, 'I will win.' "
Cummings said he accepted on the spot.
His decision to join Obama early was "a bold move, and it plays well for him," said Joe Trippi, a Democratic consultant who lives on the Eastern Shore.
Obama's victory has enhanced Cummings' status among Maryland officeholders, but if the congressman wants to use his new leverage to take his career to a higher level, he'd have to act "sooner rather than later," Trippi said.
