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.

Clinton's Game of Dodgeball

HANOVER, N.H. -- On the flight from Washington to New Hampshire to cover Wednesday night's Democratic presidential debate, I was joined by a Hillary Clinton staffer who was headed to Hanover to prep her for the encounter with her seven rivals. "I expect fireworks," he said, anticipating that the challengers would try to shake up the race at one of the last confrontations before the January voting.

David S. Broder Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092801341.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns
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Obama was sworn in as a Senator on January 4, 2005. In it he recalls his childhood in Honolulu and Jakarta, college years in Los Angeles and New York City, and his employment as a community organizer in Chicago in the 1980s. Born to a Kenyan father and an American mother, Obama grew up in culturally diverse surroundings. In a June 2006 podcast, Obama expressed support for telecommunications legislation to protect network neutrality on the Internet, saying: "It is because the Internet is a neutral platform that I can put out this podcast and transmit it over the Internet without having to go through any corporate media middleman. " At the Save Darfur rally in April 2006, he called for more assertive action to oppose genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. In 2000, he made an unsuccessful Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives seat held by four-term incumbent candidate Bobby Rush. In July 2005, Samantha Power, Pulitzer-winning author on human rights and genocide, joined Obama's team. Beginning in 2005, he co-sponsored the "Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act" introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). "Obama has authored two bestselling books. Obama began podcasting from his U.S. Senate web site in late 2005. "Obama's rapid rise from Illinois state legislator to U.S. Obama's parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

Obama's own self-narrative reinforces what a May 2004 New Yorker magazine article described as his "everyman" image. " Expressing a similar view, New York Daily News columnist Stanley Crouch wrote: "When black Americans refer to Obama as 'one of us,' I do not know what they are talking about. " He describes his Kenyan father as "raised a Muslim," but a "confirmed atheist" by the time his parents met, and his Indonesian step-father as "a man who saw religion as not particularly useful. He received his B.A. degree in 1983, then worked for one year at Business International Corporation.