Barack Obama is the junior Senator of Illinois and a potential Democratic candidate for the 2008 Presidency. He was born in Honolulu Hawaii on August 4th, 1961 to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. and Ann Dunham. His parents divorced when he was two, his father leaving to pursue a Ph.D. from Harvard. His mother remarried an Indonesian, and they moved to Jakarta where Obama attended elementary school. He eventually returned to Hawaii where he lived with his maternal grandparents and attended the college preparatory Punahou School, graduating in 1979.
Obama moved to California to attend Occidental College, which he attended for two years before transferring to Columbia University. He majored in political science with a specialization in international relations. He earned his B.A. in 1983, and took a job at Business International Corporation. He left the company after a year, and moved to Chicago to manage a non-profit program that provided job training for residents of poor neighborhoods. In 1988, he attended Harvard Law School, earning his J.D. and graduating magna cum laude in 1991. He returned to Chicago and directed a voter registration drive, before beginning work at Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a civil rights law firm. He also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago's School of Law starting in 1993, a position he held until elected as Senator of Illinois in 2004.
Political Career
Obama was first elected to political office in 1996 as an Illinois State Senator representing Chicago's 13th district in the south-side neighborhood of Hyde Park. Upon the Democrat's regaining control of the Senate in 2003, he became chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. As a state Senator, Obama supported health care reform for low-income residents, supported legislation to increase funding to fight AIDS, and co-authored an Illinois Earned Income Tax Credit that provided benefits to low-income families. He also authored legislation that required police to videotape interrogations of suspects accused of capital crimes.
In 2000, Obama made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. House of Representatives, defeated in the Democratic primary race by long-term incumbent and former Black Panther Bobby Rush. He ran again for State Senate in 2002 unopposed.
2004 U.S. Senate Race
Obama ran for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Illinois GOP Senator Peter Fitzgerald. He was challenged by Blair Hull and Dan Hynes, as well as 5 other candidates. He initially trailed in the polls leading up to the primary, but with the endorsement of the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, coupled with effective advertising campaigns, he emerged from the Democratic primaries as winner with 52% of the vote.
Obama's Republican challenger in the general election was Jack Ryan, a wealthy former investment banker. However, in June 2004, Ryan abruptly withdrew his nomination from the race amid allegations that he had visited sex clubs with his then-wife, actress Jeri Ryan. The allegations about Ryan were contained in court papers which the Chicago media outlets had sued for the release. In the court documents, Jeri Ryan stated her ex-husband took her to sex clubs and asked her to engage in sexual activity in front of other patrons. Three months before the general election, Republican Alan Keyes through his hat in the race, but was decidedly defeated by Obama in the election: Obama received 70% of the vote; Keyes received 27% of the vote.
Obama's 2004 Democratic Convention Speech
Obama first major national exposure came during the 2004 Democratic Convention where he gave the keynote speech that was well received by the audience and the Democratic party in general. You can read a transcript of the speech here.
U.S. Senate
Senator Obama was active in the 109th Congress, co-sponsoriing hundreds of bills, but with Republicans controlling the Congress, very few made it out of committee. He found most success when partnering with fellow Republicans on legislation. He co-sponosed "Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act" with Senator John McCain. He also successfully added three amendments to Senate bill 2611. The bill dealt with immigration reform, proposing increased security along the border with Mexico, provided a path for long-time illegal immigrants to gain citizenship, and increased the number of guest workers over and above those already present in the U.S. through a new "blue card" visa program. The bill was passed on May 25, 2006 by a vote of 62-36.
Obama introduced two initiative bearing his name: the "Lugar–Obama" and the "Coburn-Obama Transparency Act." The former is a nonproliferation initiative to secure conventional weapons, particularly shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles that can hit civilian airliners that are sold on the black market. The latter provides for a website by the Office of Management and Budget that lists all organizations receiving Federal funds from 2007 onward, and provides breakdowns by the agency allocating the funds, the dollar amount given, and the purpose of the grant or contract.
2008 Presidential Candidacy
On January 17, 2007 Obama announced that he had formed a presidential exploratory committee. He announced his official candidacy on February 10, 2007 in a streaming web cast. Obama has formed a seasoned team to manage his presidential bid, including the following members:
David Axelrod: Axelrod is a partner of the prominent political consulting firm AKP Message & Media. Axelrod assisted Obama in his successful bid for the Democratic nominee in the 2004 Illinois Senate race. Axelrod specialty is urban politics, and will be key in developing Obama's media strategy.
David Plouffe: Plouffe is also a partner of AKP Media, and will serve as Obama's national campaign manager. Plouffe's experience includes serving as Executive Director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 1999-2000 and Richard Gephardt's Deputy Chief of Staff in 1997-1998.
Paul Harstad: Harstad will serve as Obama's pollster as he did in the 2004 Senate race. He helped Senator Claire McCaskill to victory in a very close and challenging 2006 Senate campaign.
Robert Gibbs: Gibbs will serve as Obama's Communication Director. Gibbs served as a spokesman for Senator John Kerry's presidential bid.
Julianna Smoot: Smoot will serve as Obama's Finance Director, a role she held for former Senator Tom Daschle, and is currently a top aide for Obama in the Senate.
Cornell Belcher: Belcher is a top Democratic pollster, and will share research and polling duties with Harstad. Belcher is the founder and President of Brilliant Corners Research and Strategies and functions as the principal strategist on all of the firm’s projects.
Steve Hildebrand Hildebrand is co-founder along with Paul Tewes to form Hildebrand Tewes Consulting firm. Hildebrand successfully managed Senator Tim Johnson's 2002 reelection race and later led Daschle's unsuccessful bid for a fourth term. He also ran Al Gore's 2000 Iowa caucus campaign. He also served as Midwest Political Director for the DNC during the Clinton re-elect in 1996 and as Political Director at the DSCC in 1997-1998. He will be an early state adviser to Obama.
Julianna Smoot: Smoot will be tasked with generating and managing the financing of the campaign, serving as Finance Director. She was Financial Director of John Edward's 1998 Senate Campaign, and was Finance Director for former Senator Tom Daschle during his time in the Senate.
Cassandra Butts: Butts is Senior Vice President for Domestic Policy at the Center of American Policy, a liberal think tank. She she was a senior advisor to Representative Richard Gephardt and policy director on his 2004 presidential campaign. Butts will oversee policy development for Obama.
Bill Burton: Burton will serve as the National Press Secretary, a role he held for Senator John Kerry in 2004. In 2006, he served as Communications Director at the DCCC.
I like Obama: intelligent, charismatic, and has great ideas on how to address some of the most important issues facing the nation. He will have his work cut out for him running against Hillary Clinton, but has a good shot as the Democratic Nominee in 2008.
Barack Obama is the junior Senator of Illinois and a potential Democratic candidate for the 2008 Presidency. He was born in Honolulu Hawaii on August 4th, 1961 to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. and Ann Dunham. His parents divorced when he was two, his father leaving to pursue a Ph.D. from Harvard. His mother remarried an Indonesian, and they moved to Jakarta where Obama attended elementary school. He eventually returned to Hawaii where he lived with his maternal grandparents and attended the college preparatory Punahou School, graduating in 1979.
