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Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. (* August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii) is an American senator (Democratic Party), a lawyer and presidential candidate.
In 2004, for Obama in the Illinois Senate and is elected to the fifth African-American senator in US history, and as the only currently in office.
On 10 In February 2007, he gave in Springfield (Illinois) his candidacy for the presidential election in 2008. Obama is one of the leading candidates in the Democratic race. As part of the first primaries in Iowa could he scored a clear victory , in New Hampshire could rival Hillary Clinton a narrow victory einfahren.
Childhood and Adolescence
Barack Obama was in Honolulu as a child by Stanley Ann Dunham (1942-1995), and Barack Obama Senior († 1982). The father, a member of the Luo-people, came from Alego, Kenya, the mother, a white American woman from Wichita, Kansas. The parents met as students at the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. They married in Hawaii at a time, as in parts of the USA marriages between blacks and whites were still banned.
1963 could be the parents divorced. The father continued his studies at Harvard University. The mother married a student from Indonesia and moved with her son to Jakarta in the home of her new husband. Obama visited there four years local schools, a Catholic first, and then a government. Here was his half-sister, Maya was born. Another half-sister, a daughter from a later marriage to the father, lives in Nairobi (Kenya).
In American media has been reported that Obamas strict Muslim father raised him and he in Indonesia radikalislamische a school. Obamas father was not a practicing Muslim, but atheist. The supposedly radikalislamische school is demonstrably an Indonesian government school where children of different religions and beliefs together to learn. Barack Obama last saw his father in 1971, when he was ten years old.
Studying and occupation
Barack Obama studied two years at Occidental College in Los Angeles and moved to the 1981 Columbia University in New York City. After his BA degree in 1983 in political science (international relations emphasis), he worked for a year for the economic consulting firm Business International Corporation in New York.
1985 he moved to Chicago, where he worked for a nonprofit organization, the church communities at the employment training for residents of poor neighbourhoods half.
Then he studied three more years law at the Harvard Law School and was there as the first African-American president of the trade journal Harvard Law Review. 1991 Obama made his JD degree with the overall assessment magna cum laude.
Obama returned to Chicago 1992, and from 1993 worked in the civil rights specialist at law firm Miner, Barnhill and Galland. In addition, he taught until his election to the US Senate 2004 Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law at the University of Chicago.
1971 Obama returned to Hawaii, where his grandmother him Madelyn Dunham aufzog. They trained him in the fifth class of the prestigious private school Punahou School. He appealed to a 1979 high school graduation with honors.
Country's politicians
In the country's policy of the State of Illinois Obama was the first time 1992 active. In Chicago he organized a political campaign for voter registration in the Afro-American community, which mobilized 150,000 people.
1996 chose it to the southern constituency of Chicago in the Senate of the State of Illinois. He assumed the chairmanship of the Committee on Public Health and Welfare.
During his MPs activity as he was convinced Linksliberaler as social and politicians. He was co-author of a legislative initiative that helps workers for poor families and worked at providing a template to help people without health insurance. He helped organizations advocating for gays and lesbians, and a continued increase in funding for AIDS prevention and treatment.
2000 he underwent against competitors and mandate holder Bobby Rush in the primaries for the US House of Representatives in a constituency in Illinois. Rush scored with a reference to Obamas inexperience and received 61% of votes, Obama 30%.
In 2002, Obama without a counter-candidate to the Senate from Illinois reelected. He initiated a law, the police committed interrogations be recorded on video, with indictments on the death penalty should be used. In addition, he applied successfully to force health insurance, costs for regular preventive Mammografien it.
Looking back on his career in the Senate from Illinois reported an article in the Washington Post in February 2007, that it was Obama, for his project coalitions with political opponents. [11] Although he has been in police work of the Fraternal Order of Police over many domestic legislative initiatives disagree had praised him for his "long-time support of arms control laws and the willingness to negotiate compromises."
At the same time, Obama met for less popular beliefs. So he has criticized in the autumn of 2002 - among other things in common with Jesse Jackson - as a speaker at anti-war rallies in the preparation of a "stupid war" against Iraq. At that time endorsed both the majority and the majority of party colleagues Obamas the Bush administration in this aspect of their policy. Obama was an advocate of the Iraq resolution of the Congress, the war and its preparation sanctioned.
US Senate
Primaries
Obama entered 2004 to the Democratic Party for a seat in the US Senate to obtain. The incumbent Senator Peter Fitzgerald waived re-election and four congressmen from Illinois supported the election Obamas public, as well as liberal Democrats, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, David Wilhelm.
Obama held a convincing the electorate ad campaign and won in the primaries in March 2004 52% versus 48% for other candidates. In David Axelrod campaign he designed a line of continuity between legendary Democrat from Illinois, as the first afroamerikanischem Chicago Mayor Harold Washington or US Senator Paul M. Simon, and himself. Simon took shortly before his death, nor a choice spot for Obama. In the election campaign itself could Obamas team this as a last legacy of the deceased. Obama helped to support Simon's daughter and the support of the major dailies in the country, such as the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times.
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