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.



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today's papers Shake It Up By Daniel Politi Posted Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008, at 6:17 AM ET All the papers lead with the New Hampshire primaries, where voters surprised everyone by handing Sen. Hillary Clinton a victory over Sen. Barack Obama. Sen. John McCain's victory over Mitt Romney had been widely expected in the last week, but still marks an amazing turn of events for a candidate that many were ready to write off last summer. With almost all the votes counted, Clinton received 39 percent of the vote, while Obama got 36 percent, and John Edwards was a distant third with 17 percent. On the Republican side, McCain got 37 percent to Romney's 32 percent, while Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani got 11 percent and 9 percent respectively. As had been expected, it was a day of record turnout and approximately half a million voters cast a ballot. If the key word after Iowa was "change," today it's "comeback" as voters breathed new political life into two candidates that had come in third and fourth in last week's contest. Now, the only thing that's clear is that "contests in both parties are far from settled despite predictions that a compressed primary calendar would force a quick decision," notes USA Today. For Clinton, comparisons to her husband's candidacy seem almost inevitable as it was his surprise second-place finish in New Hampshire in 1992 that led to his famous "Comeback Kid" speech. Even McCain alluded to it in his victory speech. "My friends, I am past the age when I can claim the noun, 'kid,' no matter what adjective precedes it," he said. "But tonight we sure showed them what a comeback looks like." To continue reading, click here. Daniel Politi writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at todayspapers@slate.com. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE \| READ MESSAGES Also In Slate News & Politics Did Obama "Supporters" Lie to Pollsters? News & Politics The Sheer Pointlessness of Voter-ID Laws News & Politics Other Candidates Who Lost Early and Won Anyway	Advertisement
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