Barack Hussein Obama was born August 4, 1961 and is the junior United States Senator from Illinois. He is the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2008 presidential election. He is the first African American to be a major party's presumptive nominee for President of the United States.
A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama worked as a community organizer and practiced as a civil rights attorney before serving in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. From 1992 to 2004, he also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, he announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate in January 2003. After winning a landslide primary victory in March 2004, Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He was elected to the Senate in November 2004 with 70% of the vote.
As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, he cosponsored legislation to control conventional weapons and to promote greater public accountability in the use of federal funds. He also made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In the current 110th Congress, he has sponsored legislation regarding lobbying and electoral fraud, climate change, nuclear terrorism, and care for returned U.S. military personnel. Since announcing his presidential campaign in February 2007, Obama has emphasized ending the war in Iraq, increasing energy independence, decreasing the influence of lobbyists, and promoting universal health care as top national priorities.
Obama was born on August 4, 1961, at the Kapiolani Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Obama, Sr., of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya, and Ann Dunham, a White American from Wichita, Kansas. His parents met while both were attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was enrolled as a foreign student.[3] They separated when he was two years old and later divorced.[4] Obama's father returned to Kenya and saw his American-born son only once more before dying in an automobile accident in 1982.[5] After her divorce, Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, and the family moved to Soetoro's home country of Indonesia in 1967, where Obama attended local schools in Jakarta until he was ten years old. He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents while attending Punahou School from the fifth grade in 1971 until his graduation from high school in 1979.[6] Obama's mother died of ovarian cancer in 1995.[7]
Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years.[8] He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations.[9] Obama graduated with a B.A. from Columbia in 1983, then worked at Business International Corporation and New York Public Interest Research Group.[10][11]
After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago to work as a community organizer for three years from June 1985 to May 1988 as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale) on Chicago's far South Side.[10][12] During his three years as the DCP's director, its staff grew from 1 to 13 and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000, with accomplishments including helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.[13] Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.[14] In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time to Europe for three weeks then Kenya for five weeks where he met many of his Kenyan relatives for the first time.[15]
Obama entered Harvard Law School in late 1988 and at the end of his first year was selected as an editor of the law review based on his grades and a writing competition.[16] In his second year he was elected president of the law review, a full-time volunteer position functioning as editor-in-chief and supervising the law review's staff of 80 editors.[17] Obama's election in February 1990 as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review was widely reported and followed by several long, detailed profiles.[17] He graduated with a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991 and returned to Chicago where he had worked as a summer associate at the law firms of Sidley & Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990.[16][18]
The publicity from his election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review led to a contract and advance to write a book about race relations.[19] In an effort to recruit him to their faculty, the University of Chicago Law School provided Obama with a fellowship and an office to work on his book.[19] He originally planned to finish the book in one year, but it took much longer as the book evolved into a personal memoir. In order to work without interruptions, Obama and his wife, Michelle, traveled to Bali where he wrote for several months. The manuscript was finally published as Dreams from My Father in mid-1995.[19]
Obama directed Illinois Project Vote! from April to October 1992, a voter registration drive with a staff of 10 and 700 volunteers that achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans in the state, leading Crain's Chicago Business to name Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers to be.[20][21]
Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years, as a Lecturer for four years (1992–1996), and as a Senior Lecturer for eight years (1996–2004).[22]
In 1993 Obama joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a 12-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004, with his law license becoming inactive in 2002.[10][23]
Obama was a founding member of the board of directors of Public Allies in 1992, resigning before his wife, Michelle, became the founding executive director of Public Allies Chicago in early 1993.[10][24] He served on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund Obama's DCP, from 1993–2002, and served on the board of directors of The Joyce Foundation from 1994–2002.[10] Obama served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995–2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995–1999.[10] He also served on the board of directors of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and the Lugenia Burns Hope Center.
thics reform and transparency:
Barack Obama has been very active on ethics reform since he joined Congress. In 2008 he pushed for lawmakers to have to disclose all communications with lobbyists. In 2007 he publicly disclosed all the earmarks he had requested that year. In 2006, as the Democrats' "point man" on ethics, he proposed several reforms that were voted down or dropped by the Senate, including an independent commission to oversee Senate ethics rules (a committee of senators currently does), a ban on lawmakers negotiating future employment as lobbyists, and several earmarks reforms, including a ban on trading votes for earmarks, a ban on lawmakers advocating for earmarks they have a financial interest in, and a requirement that earmarks be available for scrutiny before votes. He also proposed a failed bill requiring all committee meetings be televised, all bills be posted on the internet 3 days before votes and all earmarks be posted 3 days before approval.
In 2006 Obama, along with Sen. John McCain, sponsored a bill passed by Congress that created a searchable, online database of all government contracts. A few months earlier, Obama and McCain had engaged in a public spat over how to proceed with ethics reform, but later publicly made up.
Election reform:
Obama sponsored a bill in 2007 that would establish criminal penalties for engaging in voter deception. The bill was passed by the House but has not been by the Senate.
Campaign finance:
In 2007, Obama sponsored a bill to expand the public financing of presidential elections and bar soft money from being used in the funding of presidential conventions.
Iraq
Barack Obama opposed the Iraq War even before it began in 2002, though he hedged that opposition during the 2004 election, when the Democratic ticket had voted for the war. In 2007, Obama introduced a bill to remove most troops from Iraq within 16 months, a position he continues to hold, though an advisor has referred to this as a "best case scenario." Obama has a mixed record on Democratic attempts to end the war by defunding it - he has spoken against the tactic but also voted at least once against a bill containing further funding.
Veterans and soldiers conditions
In the wake of the Walter Reed scandal, Obama introduced legislation increasing standards of care and oversight of VA programs.
Darfur
Obama has called on the Bush administration to support a UN or NATO force in Darfur, increase pressure on Sudan to share power in Darfur, put pressure on nations supporting Sudan, and impose sanctions on Sudan.
Energy issues
In 2006 Obama called for a deal with U.S. auto makers to pick up 10% of their $6.7 billion in retiree health costs in exchange for bringing more fuel-efficient vehicles to market. He also criticized the Bush administration for what he called a failure to back up with policies its call for "energy independence."
In 2007, activists protesting what they called Obama's lack of a clear position on nuclear waste disposal say they were forced to leave one of his presidential rallies.
In February 2007, standing before the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois, Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.[82] Describing his working life in Illinois, and symbolically linking his presidential campaign to Abraham Lincoln's 1858 House Divided speech, Obama said: "That is why, in the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a house divided to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still live, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for President of the United States of America."[83] Speaking at a Democratic National Committee (DNC) meeting one week before the February announcement, Obama called for putting an end to negative campaigning.[84] Since announcing his presidential campaign Obama has emphasized ending the war in Iraq, increasing energy independence, and providing universal health care as his top three priorities.[85]
Obama's campaign raised $58 million during the first half of 2007, topping all other candidates and exceeding previous records for the first six months of any year before an election year.[86] Small donors, those contributing in increments of less than $200, accounted for $16.4 million of Obama's record-breaking total, more than any other Democratic candidate.[87] In the first month of 2008, his campaign brought in $36.8 million, the most ever raised in one month by a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries.[88]
With two months remaining before the first electoral contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, and national opinion polls showing him trailing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama began directly charging his top rival with failing to clearly state her political positions.[89] Campaigning in Iowa, he told The Washington Post that as the Democratic nominee he would draw more support than Clinton from independent and Republican voters in the general election.[90]
Among the first four DNC-sanctioned state contests, Obama won more delegates than Clinton in Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina while winning an equal number in New Hampshire. On Super Tuesday, he emerged with 20 more delegates than Clinton.[91] He broke fundraising records in the first two months of 2008, raising over $90 million for his primary campaign while Clinton raised $45 million in the same period.[92] After Super Tuesday, Obama won the eleven remaining February primaries and caucuses.[93] Obama and Clinton split delegates and states nearly equally in the March 4th contests of Vermont, Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island; Obama closed the month with victories in Wyoming and Mississippi.[94]
In March 2008, a controversy broke out concerning Obama's former pastor of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright.[95] After ABC News broadcast clips of his racially and politically charged sermons,[95][96] Obama responded by condemning Wright's remarks and ending Wright's relationship with the campaign.[97] Obama delivered a speech, during the controversy, entitled "A More Perfect Union"[98] that addressed issues of race. After Wright reiterated some of his remarks in a speech at the National Press Club,[99] Obama strongly denounced Wright, who he said "[presented] a world view that contradicts who I am and what I stand for."[100] Obama resigned from Trinity on May 31, 2008, after Catholic priest Michael Pfleger gave a guest oratory that disparaged Hillary Clinton. Obama stated his resignation was to avoid an impression that he endorsed the entire range of opinions expressed at that church.[101][102]
During April, May, and June, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana, and South Dakota held primaries; Obama won North Carolina, Oregon, and Montana, and Clinton won the rest, with an aggregate result of Obama remaining ahead in pledged delegates after these contests. During the same period, Obama received endorsements from more superdelegates than did Clinton.[103] On May 31, the Democratic National Committee agreed to seat all of the Michigan and Florida delegates at the national convention, each with a half-vote, narrowing the delegate gap between the two Democrats and increasing the number of delegates needed to win the nomination.[104] On June 3, with all states counted, Obama passed the 2118 delegate mark and became the Democratic presumptive nominee.[105] On that day, he gave a victory speech in St. Paul, Minnesota, paying tribute to his rival Clinton, who suspended her campaign and endorsed him on June 7.[106] Obama is the first African American to be the presumptive nominee of a major political party.[107]
On June 19, Obama became the first major-party presidential candidate to turn down public financing since the system was created after the Watergate scandal.[108]
