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.

[1]Official Apologizes for Comments

Head of Justice Dept.'s voting section says remarks about minorities don't reflect "career of devotion."

link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/30/AR2007103000653.html?nav=rss_email/components

[1] <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/30/AR2007103000653.html?nav=rss_email/components>

" Replying to an Associated Press survey of 2008 presidential candidates' personal tastes, he specified "architect" as his alternate career choice and "chili" as his favorite meal to cook. " Speaking before the National Press Club in April 2005, Obama defended the New Deal social welfare policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt, associating Republican proposals to establish private accounts for Social Security with Social Darwinism. " Speaking in November 2006 to members of Wake Up Wal-Mart, a union-backed campaign group, Obama said: "You gotta pay your workers enough that they can actually not only shop at Wal-Mart, but ultimately send their kids to college and save for retirement. " Three months into his Senate career, and again in 2007, Time magazine named Obama one of "the world's most influential people. " He describes his mother, raised by non-religious parents, as detached from religion, yet "in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I have ever known. Speaking to an elderly Jewish audience during his 2004 campaign for U.S. Senate, Obama linked the linguistic roots of his East African first name Barack to the Hebrew word baruch, meaning "blessed. Obama's energy initiatives scored pluses and minuses with environmentalists, who welcomed his sponsorship with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) of a climate change bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by two-thirds by 2050, but were skeptical of Obama's support for a bill promoting liquefied coal production. " Obama writes: "It was because of these newfound understandings—that religious commitment did not require me to suspend critical thinking, disengage from the battle for economic and social justice, or otherwise retreat from the world that I knew and loved—that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and be baptized. He was a lecturer of constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1993 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004.

President Bush signs the "Coburn-Obama" Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. In February 2007, standing before the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois, Obama announced his candidacy for the 2008 U.S. presidential election. A long-time resident of Maryland, Keyes established legal residency in Illinois with the nomination. In July 2005, Samantha Power, Pulitzer-winning author on human rights and genocide, joined Obama's team. The book's last chapters describe his first visit to Kenya, a journey to connect with his Luo family and heritage. In the November 2004 general election, Obama received 70% of the vote to Keyes's 27%. 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. He flew his wife and two daughters from Chicago to join him in a visit to his father's birthplace, a village near Kisumu in rural western Kenya. 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. Finally, he spoke for national unity: The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. "I've quit periodically over the last several years.