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]Economy Sees Brisk Growth

Economy grows at a 3.9% pace, even as credit crunch plunged the housing market into turmoil.

link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/31/AR2007103100661.html?nav=rss_email/components

[1] <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/31/AR2007103100661.html?nav=rss_email/components>

Through the first two quarters of fundraising, Obama's campaign has received donations from a grand total of about 258,000 contributors, the most of any 2008 candidate. 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. He spent most of his childhood in the majority-minority U.S. state of Hawaii and lived for four years in Indonesia. His first bill was the "Higher Education Opportunity through Pell Grant Expansion Act. In a nationally televised speech at the University of Nairobi, he spoke forcefully on the influence of ethnic rivalries and corruption in Kenya. 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. In Dreams from My Father, he ties his maternal family history to possible Native American ancestors and distant relatives of Jefferson Davis, president of the southern Confederacy during the American Civil War. " He completed his J.D. degree magna cum laude in 1991. The protection was not in response to any specific threat, but the campaign had received "hate mail, calls and other 'threatening materials'" in the past, and officials felt that the large crowds and increased campaign activity warranted the order. "I've quit periodically over the last several years. Obama's own self-narrative reinforces what a May 2004 New Yorker magazine article described as his "everyman" image. He used alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years, Obama writes, to "push questions of who I was out of my mind. 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. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported the war in Iraq.