Barack Obama

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Obama, Sr. (born in Nyanza Province, Kenya) and Ann Dunham (born in Wichita, Kansas). Barack Hussein Obama (born August 4, 1961) is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and a member of the Democratic Party.

Obama grew up in culturally diverse surroundings. He spent most of his childhood in the majority-minority U.S. state of Hawaii and lived for four years in Indonesia. Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention while still an Illinois state legislator. Since announcing his candidacy in February 2007, Obama has emphasized ending the Iraq War and implementing universal health care as campaign themes.

As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, Obama co-sponsored the enactment of conventional weapons control and transparency legislation, and made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Obama's parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. His father went to Harvard University to pursue Ph.D. studies, then returned to Kenya, where he died in an auto accident when the younger Obama was twenty-one years old.

Google News Alert for: barack obama

Obama Swipes at Clinton's Experience
FOX News - USA
By NEDRA PICKLER, AP Writer WASHINGTON -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama contends that former President Clinton can lead the nation on the ...
See all stories on this topic

Barack Obama's wife says she doesn't want daughters to be partiers
WAND - Decatur,IL,USA
AP - June 28, 2007 6:54 PM ET WASHINGTON (AP) - The wife of Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama (ber-AHK' oh-BAH'-muh) says she's scaled back her ...
See all stories on this topic

Nearly 250000 Open Wallets for Obama
Forbes - NY,USA
By NEDRA PICKLER 06.28.07, 7:29 PM ET Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has improved on his stunning support in the race for campaign cash, ...
See all stories on this topic

Obama says despite shortcomings of Bush administration ...
International Herald Tribune - France
AP WASHINGTON: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama laid out list of political shortcomings he sees in the Bush administration but said he opposes ...
See all stories on this topic

Clinton and Obama Expect Near Record Fund-Raising
New York Times - United States
... which ends Saturday night, and also warned supporters to prepare for a similarly dazzling result by a leading Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama. ...
See all stories on this topic

This as-it-happens Google Alert is brought to you by Google.

Remove this alert.
Create another alert.
Manage your alerts.

The donations came from 104,000 individual donors, with US$6.9 million raised through the Internet from 50,000 of the donors.

It was an immediate bestseller and remains on the New York Times Best Seller List. In her January 2007 Salon article asserting that Obama "isn't black," columnist Debra Dickerson writes: "lumping us all together Zwith ObamaZ erases the significance of slavery and continuing racism while giving the appearance of progress.

He has authored two bestselling books: a memoir of his youth entitled Dreams from My Father, and The Audacity of Hope, a personal commentary on U.S. politics.

Of his early childhood, Obama writes: "That my father looked nothing like the people around me—that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk—barely registered in my mind. He spent most of his childhood in the majority-minority U.S. state of Hawaii and lived for four years in Indonesia. He entered Harvard Law School in 1988. But in a December 2006 Wall Street Journal editorial headlined "The Man from Nowhere," former Ronald Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan advised Will and other "establishment" commentators to get "down from your tippy toes" and avoid becoming too quickly excited about Obama's still early political career. " In December 2006, Obama joined Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) at the "Global Summit on AIDS and the Church" organized by church leaders Kay and Rick Warren. Boosted by increased national standing, he went on to win election to the U.S. Senate in November 2004 with a landslide 70% of the vote in an election year marked by Republican gains. Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention while still an Illinois state legislator. In 1990, The New York Times reported his election as the Harvard Law Review's "first black president in its 104-year history. US$24.8 million of Obama's first quarter funds can be used in the primaries, the highest of any 2008 presidential candidate. Obama has encouraged Democrats to reach out to evangelicals and other religious people, saying, "if we truly hope to speak to people where they’re at—to communicate our hopes and values in a way that’s relevant to their own—we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse.

They know we can do better. In the fall of 2002, during an anti-war rally at Chicago's Federal Plaza, Obama said: I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.