Barack Hussein Obama II (pronounced /brɑk hsen obɑm/; born August 4, 1961) is the President-elect of the United States of America, and the first African American to be elected President of the United States. Obama was the junior United States Senator from Illinois from January 3, 2005 until his resignation on November 16, 2008, following his election to the Presidency. His term of office as the forty-fourth U.S. president will begin on January 20, 2009.
Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. He worked as a community organizer and, practiced as a civil rights attorney in Chicago before serving three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. He also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, Obama was elected to the Senate in November 2004. Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004.
As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, Obama helped create legislation to control conventional weapons and to promote greater public accountability in the use of federal funds. He also made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. During the 110th Congress, he helped create legislation regarding lobbying and electoral fraud, climate change, nuclear terrorism, and care for U.S. military personnel returning from combat assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Early life and career
Main article: Early life and career of Barack Obama
Barack Obama was born at the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children in Honolulu, Hawaii,[2][3] to Ann Dunham, a White American from Wichita, Kansas[4] of English and Irish descent.[5][6] Obama's father was Barack Obama, Sr., a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya. His parents met in 1960 while attending the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, where his father was a foreign student.[7][8] The couple married on February 2, 1961;[9] they separated when Obama was two years old and divorced in 1964.[8] Obama's father returned to Kenya and saw his son only once more before dying in an automobile accident in 1982.[10]
After her divorce, Dunham married Indonesian student Lolo Soetoro, who was attending college in Hawaii. When Soeharto, a military leader in Soetoro's home country, came to power in 1967, all students studying abroad were recalled and the family moved to Indonesia.[11] There Obama attended local schools in Jakarta, such as Besuki Public School and St. Francis of Assisi School, until he was ten years old.
He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, while attending Punahou School from the fifth grade in 1971 until his graduation from high school in 1979.[12] Obama's mother returned to Hawaii in 1972 for five years, and then in 1977 went back to Indonesia, where she worked as an anthropological field worker. She stayed there most of the rest of her life, returning to Hawaii in 1994. She died of ovarian cancer in 1995.[13]
Right-to-left: Barack Obama and half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng, with their mother Ann Dunham and grandfather Stanley Dunham, in Hawaii (early 1970s)
Of his early childhood, Obama has recalled, "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."[14] In his 1995 memoir, he described his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage.[15] He wrote that he used alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my mind".[16] At the 2008 Civil Forum on the Presidency, Obama identified his high-school drug use as his "greatest moral failure."[17]
Some of his fellow students at Punahou School later told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that Obama was mature for his age, and that he sometimes attended college parties and other events in order to associate with African American students and military service people. Reflecting later on his formative years in Honolulu, Obama wrote: "The opportunity that Hawaii offered — to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect — became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear."[18]
Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years.[19] He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations.[20] Obama graduated with a B.A. from Columbia in 1983. He worked for a year at the Business International Corporation[21][22] and then at the New York Public Interest Research Group.[23][24]
After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago, where he was hired as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale) on Chicago's far South Side. He worked there for three years from June 1985 to May 1988.[23][25] During his three years as the DCP's director, its staff grew from one to thirteen and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000. His achievements included helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.[26] Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.[27] In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time to Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of his paternal relatives for the first time.[28]
Obama entered Harvard Law School in late 1988. He was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review at the end of his first year,[29] and elected president of the journal in his second year.[30] During his summers, he returned to Chicago where he worked as a summer associate at the law firms of Sidley & Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990.[31] After graduating with a Juris Doctor (J.D.) magna cum laude[32][33] from Harvard in 1991, he returned to Chicago.[29]
Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review gained national media attention[30] and led to a publishing contract and advance for a book about race relations.[34] In an effort to recruit him to their faculty, the University of Chicago Law School provided Obama with a fellowship and an office to work on his book.[34] He originally planned to finish the book in one year, but it took much longer as the book evolved into a personal memoir. In order to work without interruptions, Obama and his wife, Michelle, traveled to Bali where he wrote for several months. The manuscript was finally published in mid-1995 as Dreams from My Father.[34]
Obama directed Illinois's Project Vote from April to October 1992, a voter registration drive with a staff of ten and seven hundred volunteers; it achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans in the state, and led to Crain's Chicago Business naming Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers to be.[35][36]
Obama served for twelve years as a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, teaching constitutional law. He was first classified as a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and then as a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004.[37] He also joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a twelve-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004, with his law license becoming inactive in 2002.[23][38][39]
Obama was a founding member of the board of directors of Public Allies in 1992, resigning before his wife, Michelle, became the founding executive director of Public Allies Chicago in early 1993.[23][40] He served from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund the Developing Communities Project, and also from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of The Joyce Foundation.[23] Obama served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995 to 1999.[23] He also served on the board of directors of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and the Lugenia Burns Hope Center.[23]
Political career
State legislator: 1997–2004
Main article: Illinois Senate career of Barack Obama
Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, succeeding State Senator Alice Palmer as Senator from Illinois's 13th District, which then spanned Chicago South Side neighborhoods from Hyde Park-Kenwood south to South Shore and west to Chicago Lawn.[41] Once elected, Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation reforming ethics and health care laws.[42] He sponsored a law increasing tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased subsidies for childcare.[43] In 2001, as co-chairman of the bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, Obama supported Republican Governor Ryan's payday loan regulations and predatory mortgage lending regulations aimed at averting home foreclosures.[44]
Obama was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, defeating Republican Yesse Yehudah in the General Election, and reelected again in 2002.[45] In 2000, he lost a Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of two to one.[46][47]
In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee when Democrats, after a decade in the minority, regained a majority.[48] He sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of legislation to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained and legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations.[43][49] During his 2004 general election campaign for U.S. Senate, police representatives credited Obama for his active engagement with police organizations in enacting death penalty reforms.[50] Obama resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the US Senate.[51]
2004 U.S. Senate campaign
See also: United States Senate election in Illinois, 2004
In mid-2002, Obama began considering a run for the U.S. Senate; he enlisted political strategist David Axelrod that fall and formally announced his candidacy in January 2003.[52] Decisions by Republican incumbent Peter Fitzgerald and his Democratic predecessor Carol Moseley Braun not to contest the race launched wide-open Democratic and Republican primary contests involving fifteen candidates.[53] Obama's candidacy was boosted by Axelrod's advertising campaign featuring images of the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington and an endorsement by the daughter of the late Paul Simon, former U.S. Senator for Illinois.[54] He received over 52% of the vote in the March 2004 primary, emerging 29% ahead of his nearest Democratic rival.[55]
In July 2004, Obama wrote and delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts.[56] After describing his maternal grandfather's experiences as a World War II veteran and a beneficiary of the New Deal's FHA and G.I. Bill programs, Obama spoke about changing the U.S. government's economic and social priorities. He questioned the Bush administration's management of the Iraq War and highlighted America's obligations to its soldiers. Drawing examples from U.S. history, he criticized heavily partisan views of the electorate and asked Americans to find unity in diversity, saying, "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America."[57] Though it was not televised by the three major broadcast news networks, a combined 9.1 million viewers watching on PBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and C-SPAN saw Obama's speech, which was a highlight of the convention and confirmed his status as the Democratic Party's brightest new star.[58]
Obama's expected opponent in the general election, Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, withdrew from the race in June 2004.[59] Two months later and less than three months before Election Day, Alan Keyes accepted the Illinois Republican Party's nomination to replace Ryan.[60] A long-time resident of Maryland, Keyes established legal residency in Illinois with the nomination.[61] In the November 2004 general election, Obama received 70% of the vote to Keyes's 27%, the largest victory margin for a statewide race in Illinois history.[62]
U.S. Senator: 2005–2008
Main article: United States Senate career of Barack Obama
Obama was sworn in as a senator on January 4, 2005.[63] Obama was the fifth African-American Senator in U.S. history, and the third to have been popularly elected.[64] He was the only Senate member of the Congressional Black Caucus.[65] CQ Weekly, a nonpartisan publication, characterized him as a "loyal Democrat" based on analysis of all Senate votes in 2005–2007, and the National Journal ranked him as the "most liberal" senator based on an assessment of selected votes during 2007. In 2005 he was ranked sixteenth, and in 2006 he was ranked tenth.[66][67] In 2008, Congress.org ranked him as the eleventh most powerful Senator.[68] Obama announced on November 13, 2008 that he would resign his senate seat on November 16, 2008, before the start of the lame-duck session[clarification needed], to focus on his transition period for the presidency.[69][70] This enabled him to avoid the conflict of dual roles as President-elect and Senator in the lame duck session of Congress, which no sitting member of Congress had faced since Warren Harding.[71]
Legislation
See also: List of bills sponsored by Barack Obama in the United States Senate
Senate bill sponsors Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Obama discussing the Coburn–Obama Transparency Act.[72]
Obama voted in favor of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and cosponsored the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act.[73] In September 2006, Obama supported a related bill, the Secure Fence Act.[74] Obama introduced two initiatives bearing his name: Lugar–Obama, which expanded the Nunn–Lugar cooperative threat reduction concept to conventional weapons,[75] and the Coburn–Obama Transparency Act, which authorized the establishment of USAspending.gov, a web search engine on federal spending.[76] On June 3, 2008, Senator Obama, along with Senators Thomas R. Carper, Tom Coburn, and John McCain, introduced follow-up legislation: Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008.[77]
Obama sponsored legislation that would have required nuclear plant owners to notify state and local authorities of radioactive leaks, but the bill failed to pass in the full Senate after being heavily modified in committee.[78] Obama is not hostile to Tort reform and voted for the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 and the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 which grants immunity from civil liability to telecommunications companies complicit with NSA warrantless wiretapping operations.[79]
In December 2006, President Bush signed into law the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act, marking the first federal legislation to be enacted with Obama as its primary sponsor.[80] In January 2007, Obama and Senator Feingold introduced a corporate jet provision to the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, which was signed into law in September 2007.[81] Obama also introduced Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act, a bill to criminalize deceptive practices in federal elections[82] and the Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007,[83] neither of which have been signed into law.
Obama and U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) visit a Russian mobile launch missile dismantling facility in August 2005.[84]
Later in 2007, Obama sponsored an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act adding safeguards for personality disorder military discharges.[85] This amendment passed the full Senate in the spring of 2008.[86] He sponsored the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act supporting divestment of state pension funds from Iran's oil and gas industry, which has not passed committee, and co-sponsored legislation to reduce risks of nuclear terrorism.[87][88] Obama also sponsored a Senate amendment to the State Children's Health Insurance Program providing one year of job protection for family members caring for soldiers with combat-related injuries.[89]
Committees
Obama held assignments on the Senate Committees for Foreign Relations, Environment and Public Works and Veterans' Affairs through December 2006.[90] In January 2007, he left the Environment and Public Works committee and took additional assignments with Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.[91] He also became Chairman of the Senate's subcommittee on European Affairs.[92] As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. He met with Mahmoud Abbas before he became President of Palestine, and gave a speech at the University of Nairobi condemning corruption in the Kenyan government.[93][94][95][96]
2008 Presidential campaign
Main articles: Barack Obama presidential primary campaign, 2008 and Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008
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Obama on stage with his wife and two daughters just before announcing his presidential candidacy in Springfield, Illinois, Feb. 10, 2007.
On February 10, 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States in front of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois.[97][98] The choice of the announcement site was symbolic because it was also where Abraham Lincoln delivered his historic "House Divided" speech in 1858.[99] Throughout the campaign, Obama emphasized the issues of rapidly ending the Iraq War, increasing energy independence, and providing universal health care.[100]
Obama delivering his presidential acceptance speech.
During both the primary process and the general election, Obama's campaign set numerous fundraising records, particularly in the quantity of small donations.[101][102][103] On June 19, Obama became the first major-party presidential candidate to turn down public financing in the general election since the system was created in 1976.[104]
A large number of candidates initially entered the Democratic Party presidential primaries. After a few initial contests, the field narrowed to a contest between Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton, with each winning some states and the race remaining close throughout the primary process.[105][106][107][108] On May 31, the Democratic National Committee agreed to seat all of the disputed Michigan and Florida delegates at the national convention, each with a half-vote, narrowing Obama's delegate lead.[109] On June 3, with all states counted, Obama passed the threshold to become the presumptive nominee.[110][111] On that day, he gave a victory speech in St. Paul, Minnesota. Clinton suspended her campaign and endorsed him on June 7.[112] From that point on, he campaigned for the general election race against Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee.
On August 23, 2008, Obama selected Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate.[113] At the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, Obama's former rival Hillary Clinton gave a speech in support of Obama's candidacy and later called for Obama to be nominated by acclamation as the Democratic presidential candidate.[114][115] On August 28, Obama delivered a speech to the 84,000 supporters in Denver. During the speech, which was viewed by over 38 million people worldwide, he accepted his party's nomination and presented his policy goals.[116][117]
After McCain was nominated as the Republican presidential candidate, there were three presidential debates between Obama and McCain in September and October 2008.[118][119] In November, Obama won the presidency with 53% of the popular vote and a wide electoral college margin. His election sparked street celebrations in numerous cities in the United States[120] and abroad.
President-elect of the United States
Main article: Presidential transition of Barack Obama
President-elect Obama meets with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office, November 10, 2008.
On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama defeated John McCain in the general election with 365 electoral votes to McCain's 173 [121] and became the first African American to be elected President of the United States.[122][123][124][125] In his victory speech, delivered before a crowd of hundreds of thousands of his supporters in Chicago's Grant Park, Obama proclaimed that "change has come to America".[126]
Inauguration
Main article: Barack Obama 2009 presidential inauguration
On January 8, 2009, the joint session of the U.S. Congress met to certify the votes of the Electoral College for the 2008 presidential election. Based on the results of the electoral vote count, Barack Obama was declared the elected President of the United States and Joseph Biden was declared the elected Vice President of the United States.[127] Obama is scheduled to be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States at noon EST (17:00 UTC) on January 20, 2009 in an inaugural ceremony at the U.S. Capitol.[128]
Political positions
Main article: Political positions of Barack Obama
Obama campaigning in Abington, Pennsylvania, October 2008
A method that some political scientists use for gauging ideology is to compare the annual ratings by the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) with the ratings by the American Conservative Union (ACU).[129] Based on his years in Congress, Obama has a lifetime average conservative rating of 7.67% from the ACU,[130] and a lifetime average liberal rating of 90% from the ADA.[131]
Obama was an early opponent of the Bush administration's policies on Iraq.[132] On October 2, 2002, the day President George W. Bush and Congress agreed on the joint resolution authorizing the Iraq War,[133] Obama addressed the first high-profile Chicago anti-Iraq War rally in Federal Plaza,[134] speaking out against the war.[135][136] On March 16, 2003, the day Bush issued his 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq before the U.S. invasion of Iraq,[137] Obama addressed the largest Chicago anti-Iraq War rally to date in Daley Plaza and told the crowd that "it's not too late" to stop the war.[138] Although Obama had previously said he wanted all the U.S. troops out of Iraq within 16 months of becoming President, after he won the primary, he said he might "refine" that promise. [139]
Obama stated that if elected he would enact budget cuts in the range of tens of billions of dollars, stop investing in "unproven" missile defense systems, not "weaponize" space, "slow development of Future Combat Systems," and work towards eliminating all nuclear weapons. Obama favors ending development of new nuclear weapons, reducing the current U.S. nuclear stockpile, enacting a global ban on production of fissile material, and seeking negotiations with Russia in order to take ICBMs off high alert status.[140]
In November 2006, Obama called for a "phased redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq" and an opening of diplomatic dialogue with Syria and Iran.[141] In a March 2007 speech to AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobby, he said that the primary way to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons is through talks and diplomacy, although he did not rule out military action.[142] Obama has indicated that he would engage in "direct presidential diplomacy" with Iran without preconditions.[143][144][145] Detailing his strategy for fighting global terrorism in August 2007, Obama said "it was a terrible mistake to fail to act" against a 2005 meeting of al-Qaeda leaders that U.S. intelligence had confirmed to be taking place in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas. He said that as president he would not miss a similar opportunity, even without the support of the Pakistani government.[146]
In a December 2005, Washington Post opinion column, and at the Save Darfur rally in April 2006, Obama called for more assertive action to oppose genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.[147] He has divested $180,000 in personal holdings of Sudan-related stock, and has urged divestment from companies doing business in Iran.[148] In the July–August 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs, Obama called for an outward looking post-Iraq War foreign policy and the renewal of American military, diplomatic, and moral leadership in the world. Saying that "we can neither retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission," he called on Americans to "lead the world, by deed and by example."[149]
Obama speaking at a rally at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri
In economic affairs, in April 2005, he defended the New Deal social welfare policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and opposed Republican proposals to establish private accounts for Social Security.[150] In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Obama spoke out against government indifference to growing economic class divisions, calling on both political parties to take action to restore the social safety net for the poor.[151] Shortly before announcing his presidential campaign, Obama said he supports universal health care in the United States.[152] Obama proposes to reward teachers for performance from traditional merit pay systems, assuring unions that changes would be pursued through the collective bargaining process.[153]
In September 2007, he blamed special interests for distorting the U.S. tax code.[154] His plan would eliminate taxes for senior citizens with incomes of less than $50,000 a year, repeal income tax cuts for those making over $250,000 as well as the capital gains and dividends tax cut,[155] close corporate tax loopholes, lift the income cap on Social Security taxes, restrict offshore tax havens, and simplify filing of income tax returns by pre-filling wage and bank information already collected by the IRS.[156] Announcing his presidential campaign's energy plan in October 2007, Obama proposed a cap and trade auction system to restrict carbon emissions and a ten year program of investments in new energy sources to reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil.[157] Obama proposed that all pollution credits must be auctioned, with no grandfathering of credits for oil and gas companies, and the spending of the revenue obtained on energy development and economic transition costs.[158]
Obama has encouraged Democrats to reach out to evangelicals and other religious groups.[159] In December 2006, he joined Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) at the "Global Summit on AIDS and the Church" organized by church leaders Kay and Rick Warren.[160] Together with Warren and Brownback, Obama took an HIV test, as he had done in Kenya less than four months earlier.[161] He encouraged "others in public life to do the same" and not be ashamed of it.[162] Addressing over 8,000 United Church of Christ members in June 2007, Obama challenged "so-called leaders of the Christian Right" for being "all too eager to exploit what divides us."[163]
Family and personal life
Main articles: Early life and career of Barack Obama and Family of Barack Obama
Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama
Obama met his wife, Michelle Robinson, in June 1989, when he was employed as a summer associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin.[164] Assigned for three months as Obama's adviser at the firm, Robinson joined him at group social functions, but declined his initial requests to date.[165] They began dating later that summer, became engaged in 1991, and were married on October 3, 1992.[166] The couple's first daughter, Malia Ann, was born in 1998,[167] followed by a second daughter, Natasha ("Sasha"), in 2001.[168] In Chicago, the Obamas sent their daughters to the private University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. When they moved to Washington, D.C., in January 2009, the girls started at the private Sidwell Friends School. [169]
Obama was known as "Barry" in his youth, but asked to be addressed with his given name during his college years.[170]
Applying the proceeds of a book deal, in 2005 the family moved from a Hyde Park, Chicago condominium to their current $1.6 million house in neighboring Kenwood.[171] The purchase of an adjacent lot and sale of part of it to Obama by the wife of developer and friend Tony Rezko attracted media attention because of Rezko's indictment and subsequent conviction on political corruption charges that were unrelated to Obama.[172][173]
In December 2007, Money magazine estimated the Obama family's net worth at $1.3 million.[174] Their 2007 tax return showed a household income of $4.2 million—up from about $1 million in 2006 and $1.6 million in 2005—mostly from sales of his books.[175]
Obama playing basketball with U.S. military in Djibouti in 2006.[176]
In a 2006 interview, Obama highlighted the diversity of his extended family. "Michelle will tell you that when we get together for Christmas or Thanksgiving, it's like a little mini-United Nations," he said. "I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher."[177] Obama has seven half-siblings from his Kenyan father's family, six of them living, and a half-sister with whom he was raised, Maya Soetoro-Ng, the daughter of his mother and her Indonesian second husband.[178] Obama's mother was survived by her Kansas-born mother, Madelyn Dunham[179] until her death on November 2, 2008, just before the presidential election.[180] In Dreams from My Father, Obama ties his mother's family history to possible Native American ancestors and distant relatives of Jefferson Davis, president of the southern Confederacy during the American Civil War.[181]
Obama plays basketball, a sport he participated in as a member of his high school's varsity team.[182] While he has never been a heavy smoker, Obama has tried to quit smoking several times, including a well-publicized and ongoing effort which he began before launching his presidential campaign.[183] Obama has said he will not smoke in the White House.[184]
Obama is a Protestant Christian whose religious views have evolved in his adult life. In The Audacity of Hope, Obama writes that he "was not raised in a religious household." He describes his mother, raised by non-religious parents (whom Obama has specified elsewhere as "non-practicing Methodists and Baptists") to be detached from religion, yet "in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I have ever known." He describes his father as "raised a Muslim," but a "confirmed atheist" by the time his parents met, and his stepfather as "a man who saw religion as not particularly useful." In the book, Obama explains how, through working with black churches as a community organizer while in his twenties, he came to understand "the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change."[185][186] He was baptized at the Trinity United Church of Christ in 1988 and was an active member there for two decades.[187][188]
Cultural and political image
Main article: Public image of Barack Obama
With his black Kenyan father and white American mother, his upbringing in Honolulu and Jakarta, and his Ivy League education, Obama's early life experiences differ markedly from those of African-American politicians who launched their careers in the 1960s through participation in the civil rights movement.[189] Expressing puzzlement over questions about whether he is "black enough", Obama told an August 2007 meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists that the debate is not about his physical appearance or his record on issues of concern to black voters. Obama said that "we're still locked in this notion that if you appeal to white folks then there must be something wrong."[190]
Echoing the inaugural address of John F. Kennedy, Obama acknowledged his youthful image in an October 2007 campaign speech, saying: "I wouldn't be here if, time and again, the torch had not been passed to a new generation."[191] A popular catch phrase distilled the concept: "Rosa sat so Martin could walk; Martin walked so Obama could run; Obama is running so our children can fly."[192]
From left: Former President George H. W. Bush, President-elect Obama, President George W. Bush, former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter in the Oval Office on January 7, 2009.
Obama has been praised as a master of oratory on par with other renowned speakers in the past such as Martin Luther King, Jr.[193][194] His "Yes We Can" speech, which artists independently set to music in a popular video produced by Will.i.am, was viewed by 10 million people on Youtube in the first month,[195] and received an Emmy Award.[196] University of Virginia professor Jonathan Haidt researched the effectiveness of Obama's public speaking and concluded that part of his excellence is because the politician is adept at inspiring the emotion of elevation, the desire to act morally and do good for others.[197]
Many commentators mentioned Obama's international appeal as a defining factor for his public image.[198] Not only did several polls show strong support for him in other countries,[199] but Obama also established close relationships with prominent foreign politicians and elected officials even before his presidential candidacy, notably with then incumbent British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whom he met in London in 2005,[200] with Italy's Democratic Party leader and then Mayor of Rome Walter Veltroni, who visited Obama's Senate office in 2005,[201] and with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who also visited him in Washington in 2006.[202]
Obama won Best Spoken Word Album Grammy Awards for abridged audiobook versions of both of his books; for Dreams from My Father in February 2006 and for The Audacity of Hope in February 2008.[203]
In December 2008, Time magazine named Barack Obama as its Person of the Year for his historic candidacy and election, which it described as "the steady march of seemingly impossible accomplishments."[204]
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