User talk:Gzkn/Sandbox/Barack Obama

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Barack Hussein Obama (born August 4, 1961) is the junior U.S. Senator from Illinois. According to the U.S. Senate Historical Office, he is the fifth African American Senator in U.S. history and the only African American currently serving in the U.S. Senate.

After graduating from law school, Obama moved to Illinois, where he was elected to the state senate in 1996 as a Democrat. Four years later, he made an unsuccessful run for the U.S. House of Representatives. After rededicating his efforts to the state senate and winning reelection in 2002, Obama ran for an open seat in the U.S. Senate two years later. Midway through the campaign, Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, raising his national stature.

A sex scandal engulfed his original Republican opponent, and in November 2004, Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate. Recent opinion polls identify Obama as the second most popular choice among Democratic voters for their party's nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election behind New York's Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

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Barack Hussein Obama (born August 4, 1961) is the junior U.S. Senator from Illinois.

Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention while serving as an Illinois state legislator. In November 2004, he was elected to the United States Senate as a Democrat. Recent opinion polls identify Obama as the second most popular choice among Democratic voters for their party's nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election behind New York's Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Early life and career
Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. of Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya and Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas. His parents met while both were attending the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was enrolled as a foreign student. In his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, Obama describes a nearly race-blind early childhood. He 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."

When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced and his father returned to Kenya. His mother married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian foreign student, moving to Jakarta with Obama when he was six years old. Four years later, Obama returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents. He was enrolled in the fifth grade at Punahou School, where he graduated from high school in 1979.

In Dreams from My Father, Obama writes about smoking marijuana and trying cocaine during his teenage years. Inviting journalists to contrast his earlier admission with Bill Clinton's "didn't inhale" remarks made during the 1992 presidential campaign, Obama recently stated: "I inhaled—that was the point." Obama added: "It was reflective of the struggles and confusion of a teenage boy; teenage boys are frequently confused."

After high school, Obama studied for two years at Occidental College in California before transferring to Columbia College, the undergraduate division of Columbia University, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations and graduated in 1983. Obama worked at Business International Corporation from January 1984 to January 1985, then moved to Chicago to take a job with the non-profit organization Developing Communities Project, helping local churches organize job training programs for residents of poor neighborhoods.

Obama then left Chicago for three years to study at Harvard Law School. He was elected the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review, obtaining his Juris Doctor degree magna cum laude in 1991. On returning to Chicago, Obama organized and directed a voter registration drive, which resulted in approximately 150,000 newly registered Cook County voters in the 1992 Presidential election, then worked for the civil rights law firm Miner, Barnhill & Galland and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1993 until his federal election.

State legislature
In 1996, Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate from Chicago's 13th District in the south-side neighborhood of Hyde Park. In January 2003, when Democrats regained control of the chamber, Obama was named chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.

Obama helped to author an Illinois Earned Income Tax Credit that provided benefits to the working poor. He also worked for legislation that would support residents who could not afford health insurance, and helped pass bills to increase funding for AIDS prevention and care programs.

In 2000, Obama made an unsuccessful Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives seat held by four-term incumbent candidate Bobby Rush. Rush, a former Black Panther and community activist, charged that Obama had not "been around the first congressional district long enough to really see what's going on". Rush received 61% of the vote, while Obama received 30%.

After the loss, Obama rededicated his efforts to the state Senate. In his 2002 campaign, he ran unopposed. Obama authored a law requiring police to videotape interrogations for crimes punishable by the death penalty. He also pushed through legislation that would force insurance companies to cover routine mammograms.

Reviewing Obama's career in the Illinois Senate, commentators noted his ability to work effectively with both Democrats and Republicans, and to build coalitions. In his subsequent campaign for the U.S. Senate, Obama won the endorsement of the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police, whose officials cited his "longtime support of gun control measures and his willingness to negotiate compromises", despite his support for some bills that the police union had opposed.

Keynote address
Midway through his campaign for U.S. Senator, Obama wrote and delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts.

After describing his maternal grandfather's experiences as a World War II veteran and a beneficiary of the New Deal's FHA and GI Bill programs, Obama said:

No, people don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice.

Questioning the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War, Obama spoke of an enlisted Marine, Corporal Seamus Ahern from East Moline, Illinois, asking, "Are we serving Seamus as well as he is serving us?" He continued:

When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.

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. But I've got news for them too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes we got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

Senate campaign


In 2004, Obama ran for the U.S. Senate open seat vacated by Peter Fitzgerald. In early opinion polls leading up to the Democratic primary, Obama trailed multimillionaire businessman Blair Hull and Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes. However, Hull's popularity declined following allegations of domestic abuse.

Obama's candidacy was boosted by an advertising campaign featuring images of the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington and the late U.S. Senator Paul Simon; the support of Simon's daughter; and political endorsements by the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times. From a crowded field of seven candidates, Obama received over 52% of the vote in the March 16, 2004 primary, emerging well ahead of his Democratic rivals.

Obama was then matched in the general election against Republican primary winner Jack Ryan. However, Ryan withdrew from the race on June 25, 2004 following public disclosure of child custody divorce records containing embarrassing sexual allegations by Ryan's ex-wife. On August 8, 2004, with less than three months to go before election day, Alan Keyes accepted the Illinois Republican Party's nomination to replace Ryan. A long-time resident of Maryland, Keyes established legal residency in Illinois with the nomination. Through three televised debates, Obama and Keyes expressed opposing views on stem cell research, abortion, gun control, school vouchers, and tax cuts. In the general election held November 2, 2004, Obama received 70% of the popular vote to Keyes' 27%.

Senate career
Obama was sworn in as a Senator on January 4, 2005. During his first year in office Obama drew praise for his perceived attempts to avoid the limelight. Nonetheless, Obama's public profile continued to climb through 2005 and 2006. TIME magazine named him one of "the world's most influential people," listing him among twenty "Leaders and Revolutionaries" for his high-profile entrance to federal politics and his popularity within the Democratic Party. An October 2005 article in the British journal New Statesman listed Obama as one of "10 people who could change the world." During his first two years in the Senate, Obama received Honorary Doctorates of Law from Knox College, University of Massachusetts Boston, Northwestern University, and Xavier University of Louisiana.

Obama is a member of the following Senate committees: Foreign Relations; Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; and Veterans' Affairs.

Energy
In January 2007, Obama joined Senators Richard Lugar and Tom Harkin to introduce comprehensive legislation to both increase the production of renewable fuels like ethanol, and make the expanded volume of fuel more widely available to motorists nationwide. The bill, called the "American Fuels Act," would increase the production, distribution and consumption of renewable fuels. Among its provisions are tax credits to spur new investment in cellulosic biomass fuels, encourage more ethanol producers to blend and sell their fuels on-site without the added cost of shipping the ethanol to oil refineries, and increase production of ethanol-capable vehicles. In addition, the bill requires the entire federal vehicle fleet to be fuel-efficient by 2014.

In July 2006, Obama assembled a bipartisan coalition of senators to introduce a bill that would increase Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. The bill requires the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to create regular annual increases in fuel economy with a target of 1 mile per gallon each year. In order to enable domestic manufacturers to develop more fuel-efficient vehicles, the legislation also provides tax incentives for companies to retool parts and assembly plants.

Education
In April 2005, Obama sponsored his first Senate bill, the "Higher Education Opportunity through Pell Grant Expansion Act", S. 697. Entered in fulfillment of a campaign promise to help needy students pay their college tuitions, the bill proposed increasing the maximum amount of Pell Grant awards to $5,100. Provision for Pell Grant awards was later incorporated into the "Deficit Reduction Act", S. 1932, signed by President George W. Bush on February 8, 2006.

Immigration
Obama co-sponsored the "Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act", S. 1033, introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on May 12, 2005. Obama also supported a later revision, the "Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act", S. 2611, passed by the Senate on May 25, 2006. He offered three amendments that were included in the bill passed by the Senate: (1) to protect American workers against unfair job competition from guest workers; (2) require employer verification of their employees' legal immigration status through improved verification systems; and (3) fund improvements in FBI background checks of immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship. Obama also voted for a related bill, the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which authorizes construction of fencing and other security improvements along the United States–Mexico border. President Bush signed the bill into law in October 2006, calling it "an important step toward immigration reform."

Nonproliferation
In November 2005, Obama and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced the "Cooperative Proliferation Detection, Interdiction Assistance, and Conventional Threat Reduction Act" to expand the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction concept to conventional weapons, including shoulder-fired missiles and anti-personnel mines. Provisions of the bill, also known as "Lugar-Obama", were included in H.R. 6060 and passed by Congress in December 2006. The legislation requires signature by President Bush to become law.

Transparency
Obama joined with Senators Coburn (R-OK), Carper (D-DE), and McCain (R-AZ) in sponsoring the "Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act", S. 2590, to provide citizens with a website, managed by the Office of Management and Budget, listing all organizations receiving Federal funds from 2007 onward, and providing breakdowns by the agency allocating the funds, the dollar amount given, and the purpose of the grant or contract. President Bush signed the bill, also referred to as the "Coburn-Obama Transparency Act", into law in September 2006.

Congo
In 2006, Obama introduced the "Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act," which was signed into law by President Bush on December 22, 2006. The bill sets forth U.S. policy regarding the Democratic Republic of the Congo, directing the President to use U.S. influence to strengthen the United Nations peacekeeping mission in that country and to support increased international humanitarian and development assistance.

Russia and Eastern Europe


During the August recess of 2005, Obama traveled with Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. The latest in Lugar's series of Nunn-Lugar visits to the region, the trip focused on strategies to control the world's supply of conventional weapons, biological weapons, and weapons of mass destruction as a strategic first defense against the threat of future terrorist attacks.

Lugar and Obama inspected a Nunn-Lugar-program-supported nuclear warhead destruction facility at Saratov, in southern European Russia. In a diplomatic incident the Moscow Times reported as reminiscent of the Cold War, the delegation's departure from an airport in the city of Perm, at the foot of the Ural Mountains, was delayed for three hours when Russian guards sought unsuccessfully to search their plane. In Ukraine, Lugar and Obama toured a disease control and prevention facility and witnessed the signing of a bilateral pact to secure biological pathogens and combat risks of infectious disease outbreaks from natural causes or bioterrorism.

Middle East
In January 2006 Obama joined Senators Bayh (D-IN), Bond (R-MO), and Representative Ford (D-TN) for meetings with U.S. military in Kuwait and Iraq. After the visits, Obama split off from the others for more meetings in Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. While in Israel, Obama met with Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. A planned meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had been cancelled due to his recent stroke.

Obama also met with a group of Palestinian students two weeks before Hamas won the January 2006 Palestinian legislative election. ABC News 7 (Chicago) reported Obama telling the students that "the US will never recognize winning Hamas candidates unless the group renounces its fundamental mission to eliminate Israel", and that he had conveyed the same message in his meeting with Palestinian authority President Mahmoud Abbas. After the election, Obama said: "My hope is that as a consequence of now being responsible for electricity and picking up garbage and basic services to the Palestinian people, that they recognize it's time to moderate their stance."

Africa
In August 2006, Obama left for his third official trip, traveling as a Congressional delegation of one to South Africa and Kenya, and making stops in Djibouti, Ethiopia and Chad. From South Africa, the Chicago Tribune quoted Obama saying:

"Unfortunately, our foreign policy seems to be focused on yesterday's crises rather than anticipating the crises of the future. Africa is not perceived as a direct threat to U.S. security at the moment, so the foreign policy apparatus tends to believe that it can be safely neglected. I think that's a mistake. It's critically important to capture a sense of hopefulness, to give people in Africa and people outside Africa a sense that for all the strife and hardship that the continent has been through, the spirit of the people remains resilient."

The trip's Kenya segment merged policy and personal elements. Obama flew his wife and two daughters from Chicago to join him in a visit to his father's birthplace, the village of Kogelo, Siaya District, located near Kisumu in Kenya's rural west. Newspapers reported enthusiastic crowds at Obama's public appearances. In a public gesture aimed to capitalize on his celebrity and encourage more Kenyans to undergo voluntary HIV testing, Obama and his wife took HIV tests at a Kenyan clinic.

In a nationally televised speech to students and faculty at the University of Nairobi, Obama spoke forcefully on the influence of ethnic rivalries in Kenyan politics: "Ethnic-based politics has to stop. It is rooted in the bankrupt ideology that the goal of politics is to pile as much as possible to one's family, tribe or friends. It fractures the fabric of society", Obama stated. The speech touched off a public debate among rival leaders, some formally challenging Obama's remarks as unfair and improper, others defending his positions.

Economy
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.

In a May 2006 letter to President Bush, Obama joined fellow midwest farming state Senators Harkin (D-IA), Dorgan (D-ND), Durbin (D-IL), and Johnson (D-SD) in calling for the preservation of a $0.54 per gallon tariff on imported ethanol, saying: "ethanol imports are neither necessary nor a practical response to current gasoline prices. We have sufficient ethanol production here at home, and it is expanding every day." In an article published in the November 2006 issue of Harper's Magazine, journalist Ken Silverstein argued that Obama's support for the tariff "indicates he is at least as interested in protecting domestic producers of ethanol as he is in weaning America from imported petroleum."

In June 2006, Obama spoke out against making recent, temporary estate tax cuts permanent, calling the cuts a "Paris Hilton" tax break for "billionaire heirs and heiresses".

In November 2006, Obama participated in a conference call organized by Wake Up Wal-Mart, a union-backed campaign group affiliated with the UFCW. 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."

Internet
Obama is among the first national politicians to actively engage the public through new Internet communication tools. In late 2005, he began podcasting from his U.S. Senate official web site. It has been reported that Obama responds to and has personally participated in online discussions hosted on politically-oriented blogosphere sites. When Ohio bloggers were refused free passes to a May 2006 Democratic Party event where Obama was the featured speaker, Obama bought seats for them at a specially designated blogger's table.

Obama supports telecommunications legislation to protect network neutrality on the internet: "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. I can say what I want without censorship or without having to pay a special charge. But the big telephone and cable companies want to change the Internet as we know it."

Iraq War
Obama was an early opponent of Bush administration policies on Iraq. In the fall of 2002, Obama stated: "I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars...You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings." Speaking before the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in November 2006, he said: "The days of using the war on terror as a political football are over. [...] It is time to give Iraqis their country back, and it is time to refocus America's efforts on the wider struggle yet to be won." He is calling for a phased withdrawal of American troops to begin in 2007.

Elections
During his first year as a U.S. senator, in a move more typically taken after several years of holding high political office, Obama established a leadership political action committee for channeling financial support to Democratic candidates. According to an article in the Chicago Sun-Times, Obama participated in 38 fundraising events in 2005, helping to pull in $6.55 million for political issues and candidates he supports.

In September 2005, Obama introduced concurrent resolution 53 in the Senate, expressing disapproval of mandatory picture identification requirements for voters.

In June 2006, Obama encouraged Democrats to reach out to evangelicals and other church-going 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."

The New York Times described Obama as "the prize catch of the midterm campaign" because of his campaigning for fellow Democratic Party members running for election in the 2006 midterm elections. Obama's political action committee gave $374,000 to federal candidates in the 2006 election cycle, making it one of the top donors to federal candidates for the year.

AIDS
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. Together with Warren and Brownback, Obama took an HIV test, as he had done in Kenya less than four months earlier. Obama encouraged "others in public life to do the same" to show "there is no shame in going for an HIV test". Before the conference, pro-life groups called on Warren to rescind the invitation, saying: "If Senator Obama cannot defend the most helpless citizens in our country, he has nothing to say to the AIDS crisis." Warren responded to his critics, saying: "I've got two friends here, a Republican and a Democrat, why? Because you've got to have two wings to fly."

Presidential ambitions
Obama's keynote speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention sparked expectations that he would eventually run for U.S. President. Speculation on a 2008 presidential run intensified after Obama's decisive U.S. Senate election win in November 2004, prompting him to tell reporters: "I can unequivocally say I will not be running for national office in four years". Asked again in a January 2006 television appearance on Meet the Press, Obama repeated his intention to finish his Senate term. But in an October 2006 interview on the same television program, Obama appeared to open the possibility of a 2008 presidential bid:

I don’t want to be coy about this, given the responses that I’ve been getting over the last several months, I have thought about the possibility. But I have not thought [...] about it with the seriousness and depth that I think is required. My main focus right now is in the '06 and making sure that we retake the Congress. [...] after November 7, I’ll sit down [...] and consider, and if at some point, I change my mind, I will make a public announcement and everybody will be able to go at me.

In September 2006, Obama was the featured speaker at Iowa Senator Tom Harkin's annual steak fry, a political event traditionally attended by presidential hopefuls in the lead-up to the Iowa caucus. In December 2006, Obama spoke at a New Hampshire event celebrating Democratic Party midterm election victories in the first-in-the-nation U.S. presidential primary state.

Following Obama's October 2006 statement that he is considering a run for president, opinion polling organizations added his name to surveyed lists of Democratic candidates. The first such poll ranked Obama in second place with 17% support among Democrats after Hillary Clinton who placed first with 28% of the responses. In a December 2006 cover story headlined "The Race is On", and featuring photos of Obama and Hillary Clinton, Newsweek magazine columnist Jonathan Alter asked: "Is America Ready for Hillary or Obama?"

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Illinois State Comptroller Daniel Hynes were early advocates for a 2008 Obama presidential run. Celebrity television show host Oprah Winfrey and actors George Clooney, Kristin Chenoweth, and Matt Damon have also expressed support for Obama entering the 2008 presidential race.

Commentators have suggested that Obama's chances to be elected president would be better in 2008 than in 2012 or later. A December 2005 article published in The New Republic reasoned that, with no incumbent president or vice president in the race, 2008 offers Obama his best chance at winning the presidency. In an October 2006 editorial published in the Chicago Tribune, Newton Minow compared prospects for a 2008 Obama presidential bid to John F. Kennedy's successful 1960 presidential campaign. An editorial published that same month in The Economist presented a similar opinion. In a December 2006 op-ed published in the Washington Post, conservative columnist George Will detailed four reasons why he thinks now is a good time for Obama to run for president.

Referring to Obama's end-2006 visit with friends and family in Hawaii, Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro, stated: "He's going to make his decision here and announce it to us. Then he's probably going to officially announce his decision once he returns."

Controversy
On November 1, 2006 the Chicago Tribune reported that on the same day that Obama's home in a South Side neighborhood of Chicago was purchased an adjoining vacant lot was bought by the wife of Antoin Rezko, an Illinois businessman charged with political influence peddling. Obama later bought a ten-foot-wide strip of lawn from Rezko. Two days after the report, the same newspaper ran an editorial calling on Obama to explain why he would "allow himself any connection" to a developer who "notoriously attaches himself to political figures, often parlaying friendships into business dealings that have attracted official suspicions for several years." The following day the Chicago Tribune reported Obama's statement that it was a mistake to have engaged "in this or any other personal business dealing that would allow [Rezko], or anyone else, to believe that he had done me a favor. For that reason, I consider this a mistake on my part and I regret it." On December 24, Obama's spokesman confirmed that one of Obama's 2005 summer interns also had ties to Rezko, although he denied any favoritism. The Obama office had nearly 100 interns that summer.

The Tribune's report does not accuse the Senator of any wrongdoing or unethical conduct and no evidence to the contrary has been uncovered. A December 2006 article posted to The New Republic online site criticized follow-up reporting in the Chicago Tribune, Slate, and Washington Post for failing to add value to the story: "The role of the press in all this should be to put perceptions in line with the facts as they stand, not inflate the perceptions and raise the distant possibility that the facts might line up behind them."

Personal life
While working at the corporate law firm Sidley Austin LLP in the summer of 1989, Obama met Michelle Robinson, then an associate attorney at the firm. They married in 1992, and have two daughters, Malia (born 1999) and Sasha (born 2001). The Obamas are members of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. Of his religious affiliation, Obama has written:

I was drawn to the power of the African American religious tradition to spur social change. [...] In the history of these struggles, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death; rather, it was an active, palpable agent in the world. [...] 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. It came about as a choice and not an epiphany; the questions I had did not magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.

Works
Obama's autobiography Dreams from My Father was published in 1995 and re-released in 2004 with a few new features. The audio book edition earned Obama a 2006 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.

In December 2004, Obama made a $1.9 million deal for three books. The first, The Audacity of Hope (summary), was published in October 2006, and discusses Obama's political convictions. The book has remained at or near the top of The New York Times Best Seller List since its publication. The second book covered under the publishing contract is a children's book to be co-written with his wife Michelle and their two young daughters, with profits going to charity. The content of the third book has yet to be announced.

Popular culture
Supporters describe Obama's broad appeal as a cultural rorschach test, an ink spot on which his fans can project their own personal histories and aspirations. Obama's self-narrative helps encourage diverse multiethnic affinities. In Dreams from My Father, he links 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. Speaking before an elderly Jewish audience during his 2004 campaign for U.S. Senate, Obama likened the linguistic roots of his East African first name Barack to the Hebrew word baruch, meaning blessed.

Media sources have mirrored and amplified his everyman image. An October 2006 interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show highlighted the ethnic diversity of Obama's extended family. Noting that his half-Indonesian half-sister is married to a Chinese-Canadian, the program cited descriptions by Obama's African American wife of family holiday gatherings as a "mini-United Nations." A headline in The Nation magazine invited comparisons between Obama's first year as U.S. Senator and the popular 1939 movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, where actor James Stewart stars as an underdog small-town hero standing up to political corruption in the U.S. Congress. Another article in The Nation analyzed Obama's ability to "transcend race" with predominantly white audiences.

A New York Times op-ed by David Brooks, published during Obama's promotion of his bestselling book The Audacity of Hope and campaigns for Democratic candidates before the 2006 midterm election, was noted by an article in the online magazine Slate as evidence of Obama's potential popularity among moderate Republicans and independents. Both folk rock musician Neil Young and urban hip hop artist Common have referenced Obama's presidential prospects in popular song lyrics.

In his October 2006 Time magazine cover story, Primary Colors author Joe Klein compared the cultural sources of Obama's rapid rise and crossover appeal to those of U.S. celebrity icons Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan. Asked to comment, Obama said: "Figures like Oprah, Tiger, Michael Jordan give people a shortcut to express their better instincts [...] I think it's healthy, a good instinct. I just don't want it to stop with Oprah. I'd rather say, If you feel good about me, there's a whole lot of young men out there who could be me if given the chance."

Electoral history

 * 2004 general election for U.S. Senate
 * Barack Obama (D), 70%
 * Alan Keyes (R), 27%
 * Albert J. Franzen (I), 2%
 * Jerry Kohn (L), 1%


 * 2004 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.
 * Barack Obama, 52.7%
 * Dan Hynes, 23.7%
 * Blair Hull, 10.8%
 * Maria Pappas, 6.0%
 * Gery Chico, 4.3%
 * Nancy Skinner, 1.3%
 * Joyce Washington, 1.1%


 * 2000 Democratic primary for U.S. House of Representatives—Illinois 1st District
 * Bobby Rush, 61%
 * Barack Obama, 30%
 * Donne Trotter, 7%

Official sites

 * Barack Obama U.S. Senate Office
 * Podcasts
 * Speeches
 * Barack Obama campaign website
 * Video
 * Hopefund&mdash;Senator Barack Obama, Chair; PAC
 * Library of Congress, Thomas
 * Senate bills sponsored by Barack Obama
 * Senate bills co-sponsored by Barack Obama
 * Senate bills co-sponsored by Barack Obama

Unofficial sites
Interviews and speeches
 * A Way Forward in Iraq, Chicago Council on Global Affairs, November 20, 2006
 * Obama Comments on Testing the Waters for a White House Run and Discusses his New Book, Tavis Smiley Show, October 23, 2006
 * Obama Talks with Bob Herbert About His Book, The Audacity of Hope, ForaTV, October 20, 2006
 * Senator Barack Obama: Illinois, Active Living Network
 * First Year Academic Convocation, Front Row: Boston College Magazine, September 16, 2005
 * Oprah's Cut with Barack Obama, The Oprah Winfrey Show, November 2004

Topic pages and databases
 * Times Topics: Obama, Barack, New York Times
 * Obama Watch, Chicago Tribune
 * Senator Barack H. Obama (D-IL), KnowMore.org
 * Barack Obama, Congresspedia
 * Barack Obama on the Issues, OnTheIssues.org
 * Senator Barack H. Obama (IL), Project Vote Smart
 * U.S. Congress Votes Database: Members of Congress / Barack Obama, Washington Post
 * Barack Obama: Campaign Finance/Money - Contributions - 1989-2006, Center for Public Integrity