Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician, and U.S. Senator-elect from Illinois. As a Democrat and serving state senator, Obama was the third African-American to deliver a keynote address at a Democratic National Convention. A University of Chicago law professor, Obama in November 2004 won an open seat in the U.S. Senate against Republican candidate Alan Keyes, becoming the only serving black U.S. senator in 2004 and just the fifth in the country's history.
Early life
Barack Obama was born at the Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii to economist Barack Obama, Sr., a native of Kenya, and S. Ann Dunham, of Kansas. Ms. Dunham is a distant descendant of Jefferson Davis, the first (and only) president of the Confederate States of America.
At the time of Obama's birth, both his parents were students at the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His first name means "one who is blessed by God" in Swahili.
When Obama was two years old, the couple divorced. His father eventually returned to Kenya, and he saw his son only once more before his death in 1982. Ann Obama married another East-West Center student from Indonesia. The family then moved to Jakarta, where Obama's half-sister Maya was born (another half-sister, the daughter of Obama's father by a later marriage, lives in Nairobi). When Obama was ten, he returned to Hawaii under the care of his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham. He was enrolled in the fifth grade at Punahou School, a prestigious academy that once taught the Hawaiian royal family. There he graduated with honors.
Of his years in Hawaii, Obama has written, "The irony is that my decision to work in politics, and to pursue such a career in a big Mainland city, in some sense grows out of my Hawaiian upbringing, and the ideal that Hawaii still represents in my mind."
Obama is currently married to Michelle , and they have two daughters; Malia Ann, (born 1999) and Natasha, (born 2001)
College and career
Upon finishing high school, Obama went on to study at Occidental College, then later Columbia University in New York City, majoring in political science. After graduation, he moved to Chicago and took up community organizing. He left Chicago briefly to study law at Harvard University, where he became the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. While working one summer at a corporate law firm in 1989, Obama met Michelle Robinson, whom he eventually married in 1992 (they have two daughters, Malia Ann and Natasha, born in 1999 and 2001 respectively). After graduating magna cum laude, Obama returned to Chicago in 1992. Once back, he organized an aggressive election effort for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, claiming to have registered over 100,000 voters. His talents gained him a seat at a local civil rights law firm; in addition, he became a lecturer on constitutional law at the University of Chicago, where he still serves as a professor.
Politics
Illinois General Assembly
In 1996, Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate from the south side neighborhood of Hyde Park, in Chicago. He served as chairman of the Public Health and Welfare Committee. The Chicago Tribune called him "one of the General Assembly's most impressive members."
Regarded as a staunch liberal during his tenure in the legislature, he helped to author a state earned income tax credit providing benefits to the poor. He also pursued laws that extended health coverage to Illinois residents who could not afford insurance. Speaking up for leading gay and lesbian advocacy groups, he successfully helped pass bills to increase funding for AIDS prevention and care programs. In 2000, he ran in the Democratic primary for Illinois' 1st Congressional district against incumbent Representative Bobby Rush, but was badly defeated.
United States Senate campaign
In 2004, Obama decided to run for the U.S. Senate. In the Democratic primary, he trailed Blair Hull before Hull was brought down primarily by his claim of drug use the night of a debate and by stories of alleged abuse of his then-wife. Obama himself was inoculated against charges of drug use, having admitted to cocaine and marijuana use in his autobiography. As a result, Obama went on to win a decisive victory in the primary.
In the 2004 Senate race itself, he originally faced businessman and educator Jack Ryan, the winner of the Republican primary. Ryan trailed Obama in the polls (Illinois usually votes Democratic), and the race had been considered to be leaning towards Obama by professional forecasters. But during the campaign, a California court ruling opened files related to Ryan's 1999 divorce from actress Jeri Ryan, in which she alleged that he had brought her without her knowledge to sex clubs, intending for her to have sex with him in public there. Immediately before the files' release, Ryan insisted that there was nothing damaging in them, leading Republican leaders to question Ryan's integrity. Ryan was forced to leave the race, leaving Obama without a Republican rival.
Former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka had considered running as a Republican to replace Ryan, but opted not to because of family and business considerations. On August 3, Illinois Republican Chairwoman Judy Baar Topinka announced two possible replacements: Alan Keyes and former presidential advisor Andrea Barthwell. After much deliberation, Keyes, at the time living in Maryland, was nominated on August 4 and officially accepted the nomination on August 8.
Keyes, a black conservative Republican, had an uphill battle, as Obama has high popularity across the state and Keyes has no ties to Illinois politics. During the time when he had no opponent, Obama campaigned across more conservative downstate areas that ordinarily serve as the base for the Republican nominee. A Marylander, Alan Keyes, had established legal residency in Illinois with the nomination, the only requirement to run for office. The Chicago Tribune, which endorsed Obama even before Keyes' nomination, sarcastically greeted him with an editorial, saying "Mr. Keyes may have noticed a large body of water as he flew into O'Hare. That is called Lake Michigan." [1] Keyes had previously sharply criticized Hillary Clinton running for Senate in New York: "I deeply resent the destruction of federalism represented by Hillary Clinton's willingness go into a state she doesn't even live in and pretend to represent people there, so I certainly wouldn't imitate it." Keyes responded by saying that this case was different, since important principles were at stake and the Illinois GOP had asked him to run, and since neither Obama nor he were Illinois natives.
Keyes was overwhelmingly defeated in the general election, as polls had widely predicted. Obama received 70% of the popular vote.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, the results were:
| Name | Party | Votes | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barack Obama | Democratic | 3,524,702 | 70 |
| Alan Keyes | Republican | 1,371,882 | 27 |
| Albert J. Franzen | Independent | 79,481 | 2 |
| Jerry Kohn | Libertarian | 67,914 | 1 |
Keynote address
Obama was chosen to deliver a keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts, and became the third African American to do so (The first was Barbara Jordan, at the 1976 Democratic National Convention).
His speech outlined his own family's enactment of the American Dream, that he believes is possible because of what he described as a 'generous America.' His maternal grandfather, after serving in World War II, was the beneficiary of the new deal's FHA and GI Bill and had high hopes for their son, Barack, "because in a generous America you don't have to be rich to achieve your potential." But he charged that, "we have more work to do" for people who are not able to realize the American Dream, maintaining that self responsibility is an important component and people, "don't expect government to solve all their problems."
He railed against the administration for not supporting the troops in Iraq. He spoke of an enlisted Marine, asking, "Are we serving Shamus as well as he was serving us?" He then charged, "When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world." While maintaining that, "Kerry will not hesitate one moment to use our military might to keep America safe and secure."
Finally he spoke of national unity, "Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there's the United States of America." and perhaps the most often extracted sound quote, "We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. "
The address was generally heralded as a great success, thrusting him into the national spotlight and heralded by national media. After the address, the conservative Chicago Tribune endorsed him, and there was not a Republican in the state of Illinois (whom the party would endorse) who would run against him for the open U.S. Senate seat.
Other Projects
In December 2004 Obama landed a $1.9 million deal for 3 books, the first to be released in 2006 and which will discuss his political convictions, the second a children's book to be co-written with his wife Michelle and their 2 young daughters (profits for the second book will go to charity). His 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father was rereleased in 2004 with a few new features. The book spent over 14 weeks on the New York Times non-fiction best seller list.
Further reading
- Dreams from My Father : A Story of Race and Inheritance, by Barack Obama. 1995. ISBN 1400082773
External links
- Barack and Michelle Obama
- Barack Obama Campaign Website
- Barack Obama Illinois State Senate Biography
- Barack Obama Illinois State Senate Website
- In-depth look at Obama from Democracy Now!
- An article about Obama from The New Yorker
- Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote speech in RealVideo, RealAudio, or MP3 format.
- A free audio download is also available from the iTunes Music Store (in Advanced Audio Coding format with FairPlay digital rights management).
- Campaign finance report from OpenSecrets.org, a project of the Center for Public Integrity
- 2004 Illinois Senate election results from CNN