Barack Obama – Getting to Know You

On June 3^rd, 2008, Barack Obama made history by becoming the first African/American presumptive Democratic candidate for the position of president of the United States. His candidacy will become official at the Democratic National Convention to be held in Denver in August.

After 16 months of campaigning around the country, questions still remain about who Barack Obama really is. He seems to have come out of nowhere and many voters don't feel they know him beyond his own self-description as a "skinny black guy with big ears and a funny name." Wild rumors abound that are completely untrue. He is a Christian, not a Muslim, and he is not a black kid from the ghetto who had a rich benefactor. He paid for his own education at Columbia University in New York, and Harvard Law School in Cambridge, MA, by working, and with student loans. He is not without experience; in fact he has years of excellent experience in government, even though he is just 46 years old.

It is true that Obama's early life is unusual. His mother, a white woman named Ann Dunham, met his Kenyan father, Oback Obama Sr., said to have resembled Nat King Cole, when they were both attending a class in Russian language at the University of Hawaii. They fell in love and were married, producing one child, Barack Hussein Obama Jr. - the 'Hussein' was got his paternal grandfather. Because he was a very bright student, Barack's father had been awarded a scholarship to an American University with the understanding he would come back and work for his native country, Kenya. After he won a BA degree at the University of Hawaii he was awarded a further scholarship to go to Harvard University, but he could not afford to move his family. He went alone, and after graduating with a Ph.D. in something called sociometrics, he simply returned to Kenya to fulfill his obligations to his country. His son was only two years old, and never saw his father again.

After a divorce, Barack's mother married an Indonesian, Lolo Soetora, and moved to Jakarta with him where little Obama attended local schools until he was 10 years old. Seeing he needed better schooling, his mother sent him back to Hawaii to live with her parents, who were originally from Wichita Kansas.

Ann's father had been in the army during World War II, and had benefited from the GI bill that allowed him to go to college, and helped the family buy a home in Seattle where Ann graduated from high school. The family moved to Chicago at one point, and Ann won a scholarship at Chicago University, but for some reason, her father did not allow her to take advantage of it. Soon after that her father was transferred by his company to Honolulu to work in a new furniture store opening there.

The Dunhams were of no particular Christian denomination, although later in life her father favored the Unitarian Church for its tolerance of all religions. The Dunhams were singularly ahead of their time in their absolute lack of bigotry. Although they were taken aback when Ann brought her African boyfriend home for dinner, they adapted very soon and welcomed him into the family.

After Barack graduated from Punaloa High School in Honolulu, his grandparents moved to Los Angeles where Barack attended Occidental College for two years before transferring to Columbia University in New York. There he majored in political science and foreign relations. Later he attended, and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he had become the first Black American to head up the Harvard Law Review.

After graduation he moved to Chicago where he became a political activist. He was in charge of a voter registration drive, and later and worked at community organizing in South Chicago - getting people to gather together politically to work actively for various causes. He also taught constitutional law part time at Chicago University for ten years. It was during this time he married his wife, Michele, and they had two little girls.

In 1996, Obama successfully ran for the Illinois legislature and served there for seven years. He gained by-partisan support in passing laws concerning welfare reform, childcare, ethics reform, laws against payday lenders, predatory mortgage lending, and in favor of videotaping homicide interrogations.

Barack Obama made a memorable keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 that brought him to the attention of the nation for the first time. He successfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004. The first thing he did there was to recruit high level advisors who were devoted to a wide agenda and had worked for prominent legislators. He was assigned to the Foreign Relations Committee; Environment; Public Works; Veteran's Affairs; Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; Homeland Security; and became chairman of the Senate sub-committee on European Affairs.

As a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, he traveled with Senator Richard Lugar to Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukarain, and Azerbaijan, focusing on weapons control, including biological weapons and weapons of mass destruction. He made other trips to Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, Kenya, Djbouti, Ethiopia, and Chad. He gave a speech on political corruption and ethnic conflict at the University of Nairobi that raised local interest.

In his few years as a junior Senator from Illinois, Obama has worked across the aisle with such Senators as Richard Lugar, Russ Feingold and John McCain on important legislation. He introduced the Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007, sponsored legislation to protect military troops from personality disorder discharges, and worked with Senator Chuck Hagel on an amendment to a foreign operations bill.

Important to the job as president of the United States, is Barack Obama's even-tempered, calm, good judgement. He listens and learns, and is not above seeking advice from the best sources he can find regardless of party affiliations.

When adversaries accuse Obama of not having enough experience, one wonders exactly what experience would they like him to have? His education and experience is uniquely fitted for a future president, especially when compared to past presidents. If he had many years of service in Washington he would be accused of being an insider with little perspective outside the beltway, and connected to unsavory people and lobbies seeking favors. As a newcomer with an impressive education and background in the Illinois legislature, he is in a good position to bring about change from destructive way things are currently being done in Washington. For the good of the country voters must forget their old-fashioned prejudices based on ethnicity, and make a fair choice for a man who has the integrity, the leadership ability, and the charisma to get things done to bring back fairness, intelligence, honesty, integrity and efficiency to Washington D.C. His lack of military experience is not uncommon, and he has the experience and qualities closely matched to the best examples of our former presidents as outlined in the preceding article, "Experience and Ranking of Former Presidents".

And, by the way, his lovely wife is a Harvard graduate too.

The information in this article was taken from the books,:"Dreams From My Father", and "The Audacity of Hope" by Barack Obama, and from his biography as presented on Wikipedia.