Barack Obama

Childhood

 Obama’s father, Barack Obama Sr., grew up in Kenya, the son of a goat herder in the Luo tribe.Alter, Jonathan, “The Audacity of Hope,” Newsweek, Dec. 27, 2004 The name Barack means “blessing from God,” and the older Barack studied in a tin-roof shack. He earned a scholarship to study in America, saying that he chose the University of Hawaii because of its racial tolerance.Maraniss, David, “Though Obama had to leave to find himself, it is Hawaii that made his rise possible,” The Washington Post, Aug. 22, 2008

After his first year of studying business administration at Hawaii, the elder Obama met a young freshman named Stanley Ann Dunham in a beginning Russian class.

Dunham was born in Kansas but moved around the country to California, Oklahoma, Texas, Washington and, eventually Hawaii. “My name is Stanley,” she said. “My father wanted a boy, and that’s that.”Maraniss, David, “Though Obama had to leave to find himself, it is Hawaii that made his rise possible,” The Washington Post, Aug. 22, 2008 She followed her parents to Hawaii and enrolled at the university. Dunham became friends with Obama, and the two flew off to Maui to be married in secret on Feb. 2, 1961, when Dunham was 19.Alter, Jonathan, “The Audacity of Hope,” Newsweek, Dec. 27, 2004 Their son, Barack Obama Jr., was born six months later on Aug. 4, 1961.

Dunham, who was now going by just Ann, dropped out of school to take care of her son. Her new husband graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Hawaii in 1962. He earned a graduate faculty fellowship to study economics at Harvard, but the scholarship did not come with money to support a family, so he went East alone. Eventually, he returned to Kenya and had very little contact with his son, visiting just once ten years later. Barack Obama Sr. died in a car crash in 1982.Alter, Jonathan, “The Audacity of Hope,” Newsweek, Dec. 27, 2004

Dunham stayed in Hawaii, divorced her husband after he went to Harvard, and returned to school, earning a degree in math.Maraniss, David, “Though Obama had to leave to find himself, it is Hawaii that made his rise possible,” The Washington Post, Aug. 22, 2008 She raised Barack Obama Jr., with the help of her parents. “I was too young to realize that I was supposed to have a live-in father, just as I was too young to know that I needed a race,” Obama wrote in his 1995 best-selling memoir, Dreams from My Father.Obama, Barack, “Dreams from My Father,” Times Books, 1995, Page 27

 Dunham eventually married Lolo Soetoro, another foreign student at the University of Hawaii. Soetoro returned to his native country of Indonesia in 1966, and Dunham, with her 6-year-old son in tow, followed him to Jakarta in 1967. She taught English to Indonesian businessmen.Graff, Garrett, “The Legend of Barack Obama,” Washingtonian Magazine, November 2006 Indonesia was an exotic place for the young Obama. He had a pet ape and what he described as a “small zoo” in his backyard with chickens, dogs, a cockatoo and crocodiles. He ate dog meat, snake meat and grasshoppers.Obama, Barack, “Dreams from My father,” Times Books, 1995, Page 37

Obama’s mother didn’t want him to fall behind in his studies, so she got up every morning at 4 a.m. to tutor him in English. At age 10, Obama was accepted to Punahou, an elite prep school in Hawaii. His mother saw this as a great opportunity, so she sent him to live with his grandparents in Honolulu. She stayed in Indonesia to live with Soetoro and continue her work with underprivileged women. Thus Obama was mainly raised by his grandparents, Madelyn and Stan Dunham. In his famous speech on race in March of the 2008 presidential election, Obama called his grandmother, who died two days before he was elected  “a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world.”“Transcript: Barack Obama’s Speech on Race,” via National Public Radio, March 18, 2008

Obama’s mother worked in Pakistan and India, as well as in Indonesia, developing micro-financing networks to provide credit for working women. In 1979, she started a dissertation about metal-workers in Indonesia. It took 13 years, but she finished her 1,000-page dissertation in 1992.Maraniss, David, “Though Obama had to leave to find himself, it is Hawaii that made his rise possible,” The Washington Post, Aug. 22, 2008 She returned home to Hawaii in 1995 after being diagnosed with cancer just months after her father died. She lived in an apartment next to her mother, underwent chemotherapy and eventually died on Nov. 7, 1995, days before Obama was set to visit her.Maraniss, David, “Though Obama had to leave to find himself, it is Hawaii that made his rise possible,” The Washington Post, Aug. 22, 2008

College Years

Obama lived with his grandparents in Hawaii from the time he was 10 through high school. At that time, Obama, who was going by the nickname Barry (or “Bar” for short), was not as interested in school as he was in recreational activities. He played a lot of basketball and used drugs — marijuana and cocaine but never heroine, according to his first memoir.Obama, Barack, “Dreams from My father,” Times Books, 1995, Page 93 In the same book, Obama tells a story of his mother coming home during his senior year to find his grades slipping and his college applications unfinished. Obama told her that he was thinking about skipping college, instead staying in Hawaii and taking a couple of classes. “Remember what that’s like? Effort?” she said. “Damn it, Bar, you can’t just sit around like some good-time Charlie waiting for luck to see you through.”Obama, Barack, “Dreams from My father,” Times Books, 1995, Page 95

 Obama ended up at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and he stayed on the partying track during his first year. He talked about social activism but rarely participated. But during his second year, he got involved with a campaign to encourage the college to divest from South African companies because of apartheid.Possley, Maurice, “Activism blossomed in college,” Chicago Tribune, March 30, 2007 He organized a rally, wrote to the faculty and asked members of the African National Congress to speak on campus. When he gave a speech at the rally, “people slowed down to listen,” said classmate Eric Moore.Wolffe, Richard, Ramirez, Jessica and Bartholet, Jeffrey, “When Barry Became Barack,” Newsweek, March 31, 2008 Obama said the experience made him “hungry for words.”Obama, Barack, “Dreams from My father,” Times Books, 1995, Page 105 Around that time, Obama began to feel that staying at Occidental was a “dead end … that somehow I needed to connect with something bigger than myself.”

He transferred to Columbia University and dove into his studies, living what he described as a hermetic existence. He read, studied, went for long walks and slept. He also changed his name, or rather how he was referred to, back to Barack.Wolffe, Richard, Ramirez, Jessica and Bartholet, Jeffrey, “When Barry Became Barack,” Newsweek, March 31, 2008 “Going to New York was really a significant break,” Obama said. “It’s when I left a lot of stuff behind.”Wolffe, Richard, Ramirez, Jessica and Bartholet, Jeffrey, “When Barry Became Barack,” Newsweek, March 31, 2008

Community Organizing

Obama graduated from Columbia in 1983, and decided he wanted to be a community organizer. When friends asked him what a community organizer did, he said he didn’t really know. But he would rattle on about the need for change.Obama, Barack, “Dreams from My father,” Times Books, 1995, Page 133

Getting a job as an organizer wasn’t easy, and Obama spent a couple years repaying loans with a corporate job. In 1985, a community organizer named Gerald Kellman approached Obama and offered him a job in Chicago, a city that had just elected its first black mayor, Harold Washington, in 1983. For three years, Obama worked on Chicago’s South Side, going to churches and tending to unemployed steel-mill workers. Kellman said he thought Obama dreamed of being Chicago mayor, but Obama was uninterested. “I was somewhat disdainful of politics,” he said. “I was much more interested in mobilizing people to hold politicians accountable.”Mundy, Liza, “A series of fortunate events,” The Washington Post Magazine, Aug. 12, 2007

In his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, Obama explained why he decided to become a community organizer. “When classmates in college asked me just what it was that a community organizer did, I couldn’t answer them directly. Instead, I’d pronounce on the need for change. … Change won’t come from the top,” Obama wrote. “Change will come from a mobilized grass roots. That’s what I’ll do, I’ll organize black folks.”Obama, Barack, “Dreams from my father,” Times Books, 1995, Page 133

Harvard Law School

After three years in Chicago, Obama applied and was accepted to Harvard Law School. It was a community filled with racial tension over affirmative action and the lack of tenured minority professors.“Interview with Cassandra Butts,” Frontline, July 10, 2008 Obama mostly stayed out of the fray, getting a job as an editor of the Law Review in his second year.

The summer after his first year at Harvard, he was hired as an associate at Sidley Austin LLP in Chicago. It was there that he met his future wife, Michelle Robinson. A Harvard Law School graduate herself, Robinson was assigned to mentor the hot-shot summer associate. At first she was skeptical that he was as talented as his reputation.Wolffe, Richard and Briscoe, Daren, “Across the divide,” Newsweek, July 16, 2007 But Obama actively courted Robinson, and an early date of theirs was at a church where he had organized. He gave an inspirational speech, saying that too often people settle for the world as it is “even when it doesn’t reflect our values and aspirations.”Mundy, Liza, “When Michelle Met Barack,” The Washington Post Magazine, Oct. 5, 2008

That date helped win over Robinson, who had toyed with the idea of entering public service before taking a job at Sidley Austin. “He had no money,” Robinson told a local newspaper, the Hyde Park Press. “He was really broke. He wasn’t ever going to try to impress me with things. His wardrobe was kind of cruddy. … His first car had so much rust that there was a rusted hole in the passenger door. You could see the ground when you were driving. He loved that car. It would shake ferociously when it would start up. I thought, ‘This brother is not interested in ever making a dime.’”“First Black President of Harvard Law Review Elected,” The Associated Press, Feb. 5, 1990

Obama and Robinson continued to date long-distance while he was at Harvard. At the end of his second year, he was elected the first black president of Harvard Law Review. Classmates say Obama was practically drafted into the prestigious post. Even the conservative students liked him because he was willing to listen to all sides of an argument.Lithwick, Dahlia, “A complicated record on race,” Newsweek, April 7, 2008

“They thought that he would be able to bring together the factions that had developed as a result of the divisions, the ideological divisions on the law review, on the left and the right,” said Cassandra Butts, a close friend of Obama’s during law school and now his White House deputy counsel.“Interview with Cassandra Butts,” Frontline, July 10, 2008 After he became president, Obama appointed several conservatives to top positions at Law Review, which angered some liberals.Wolffe, Richard and Briscoe, Daren, “Across the divide,” Newsweek, July 16, 2007

As Law Review president, Obama likely could have gotten almost any clerkship he wanted. But he never showed an interest. “Never did it cross his mind,” his future wife said.Alter, Jonathan, “The Audacity of Hope,” Newsweek, Dec. 27, 2004 Instead, he returned to the streets of Chicago. “Unbelievable talent is not cultivated; a lot of time, it’s crushed,” Obama said. “Over the long run, the way to improve the conditions in the cities and schools — to fight crime and drugs — is to work on the local level.”Ybarra, Michael J., “Activist in Chicago now heads Harvard Law Review,” Chicago Tribune, Feb. 7, 1990

Obama soon asked Robinson to marry him and began working for Project Vote, a large voter-registration drive that targeted African-Americans. Obama and Robinson were married by Rev. Jeremiah Wright at Trinity United Church of Christ in 1992. Obama also inspired his new wife to leave her corporate job and work in the mayor’s office under Valerie Jarrett. “We had many debates about how to best affect change,” Michelle Obama told the Daily Princetonian. “We both wanted to affect the community on a larger scale than either of us could individually, and we wanted to do it outside of big corporations.”Mundy, Liza, “When Michelle Met Barack,” The Washington Post Magazine, Oct. 5, 2008

Illinois State Senate

In 1993, Obama became a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago and joined the civil rights firm of Miner, Barnhill & Galland.

Obama worked there for three years until he decided to run for the Illinois state Senate in 1996. Rep. Mel Reynolds (D-Ill.) had resigned from the U.S. House after being convicted of charges related to having sex with a 16-year-old campaign worker.

State Senator Alice Palmer (D) tried to succeed Reynolds, and encouraged Obama to try and replace her in the Illinois Senate. By the time she lost the House primary to now Rep.-Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D), Obama had already launched  his campaign. Palmer wanted to rejoin the race for state Senate, but Obama refused to drop out.Hardy, Thomas, “Jackson foe now wants old job back,” Chicago Tribune, Dec. 19, 1995 Palmer hastily filed her petitions to enter the contest, but Obama’s campaign successfully challenged them. Palmer was kicked out of the race. Obama’s campaign also challenged the petitions of the other Democratic contenders and won easily.Mundy, Liza, “A series of fortunate events,” The Washington Post Magazine, Aug. 12, 2007 In a Democratic district, winning the primary was an easy ride to the general election.Frolik, Joe, “A newcomer to the business of politics has seen enough to reach some conclusions about restoring voters’ trust,” Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), Aug. 3 1996

Race for the U.S. House

But Obama was always thinking ahead and had much bigger ambitions.Lizza, Ryan, “Making it: How Chicago shaped Obama,” The New Yorker, July 21, 2008 He never wanted to be a “lifer in the state legislature.”Mundy, Liza, “A series of fortunate events,” The Washington Post Magazine, Aug. 12, 2007 In 2000, he made his first attempt at national office. He challenged Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), a former Black Panther who had been elected to the House four times. Obama struggled to raise money and failed to gain traction. The race was nasty: Obama produced negative ads attacking Rush for a lack of commitment to voters.Jackson, Brian, “Rush, opponents clash off the air,” Chicago Sun-Times, Feb. 19, 2000 Rush accused Obama of not being black enough to represent Illinois’ 1st district and criticized him for raising money from white people outside of the district.Wolffe, Richard and Briscoe, Daren, “Across the divide,” Newsweek, July 16, 2007

Obama went to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles to try to raise his profile. His credit card was rejected at the rental car agency,Victor, Kirk, “Reason to smile,” The National Journal, March 18, 2002 and he couldn’t get a week-long floor pass.Malveaux, Suzanne, “Encore: Barack Obama Revealed,” CNN, Dec. 25, 2008 “It was a race in which everything that could go wrong did go wrong,” Obama wrote in his second memoir, The Audacity of Hope. Rush’s son was murdered in October, and Obama suspended his campaign out of compassion. When he restarted it a few weeks later, he had no momentum.Mundy, Liza, “A series of fortunate events,” The Washington Post Magazine, Aug. 12, 2007 Rush was endorsed by President Bill Clinton and won the March primary, 61 to 30 percent.Almanac of American Politics, 2008 edition “That was the one time he semi-seriously thought about giving up politics,” said Abner Mikva, a former congressman who tried to convince Obama to clerk for him on the U.S. Court of Appeals D.C. Circuit. “He was frustrated.”Mundy, Liza, “A series of fortunate events,” The Washington Post Magazine, Aug. 12, 2007

U.S. Senate

Obama stayed in the state Senate, and, a couple years later, he saw another opportunity.

Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R) was up for re-election in 2004.Strausberg, Chinta, “Obama ponders run for U.S. Senate,” Chicago Defender, Oct. 10, 2002 Fitzgerald had beaten scandal-tarred Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D) in 1998, but Moseley-Braun had proven that a black politician could win an election for Illinois statewide office. Obama sat down with friends and family at a brunch and everyone told him why he shouldn’t run. When it was his turn to speak, Obama convinced everyone that running was the right thing to do.Wolffe, Richard, “Inside Obama’s Dream Machine,” Newsweek, Jan. 14, 2008 “His counterargument was similar to his counterargument always: We can change politics, we can change the agenda, we can help average people,” said longtime aide Dan Shomon. At the time, Moseley- Braun was thinking about running herself, and Obama didn’t want to challenge her. But when she decided to run for president instead of senator, Obama announced his candidacy — along with seven other candidates.Mundy, Liza, “A series of fortunate events,” The Washington Post Magazine, Aug. 12, 2007

Obama ran a strong campaign, but he also got very lucky. Two candidates were considered his biggest challengers in the Democratic Senate primary: state Comptroller Dan Hynes and millionaire businessman Blair Hull. Hull was self-financing his campaign, so Obama was allowed to raise $6,000 per donor instead of the typical $2,000 because of the “millionaire amendment” in the recently passed McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law.Whittington, Laura W., “Millionaires on notice: Ill. candidate triggers law with spending,” Roll Call, Feb. 3, 2003 But shortly before the primary, Hull’s divorce papers became public, revealing allegations of domestic abuse.Mundy, Liza, “A series of fortunate events,” The Washington Post Magazine, Aug. 12, 2007 Hull stayed in the race, but only won 10 percent of the vote. Obama captured the Democratic nod with 53 percent. He dominated in Chicago and won the surrounding suburban counties, where many thought a black man would never win. “I think it is fair to say the conventional wisdom was we could not win,” Obama said on election night. “We didn’t have enough money. We didn’t have enough organization. There was no way that a skinny guy from the South Side with a funny name like Barack Obama could ever win a statewide race. Sixteen months later, we are there.”Almanac of American Politics, 2008

The general election was a cakewalk for Obama. His opponent, Jack Ryan (R), was forced to withdraw after allegations about his sex life surfaced. The GOP was unable to find a viable candidate (it tried to draft longtime football coach Mike Ditka), and Obama beat Alan Keyes, 70 to 27 percent.Graff, Garrett, “The Legend of Barack Obama,” Washingtonian Magazine, November 2006

2004 Democratic National Convention

Obama won so easily that his general election would be just a footnote in his political career if it weren’t for the speech he gave at the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) wanted speakers who were inspirational and who would stay positive. Kerry’s campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill suggested Obama, and Obama’s campaign manager David Axelrod lobbied hard to get him the keynote slot. “I was impressed by him,” Kerry said. “[I] thought on a personal level he would be able to convey the kind of message I wanted to convey out of my convention: a message of inclusiveness and change, a new view about how we can make our politics more relevant to people and in a sense, just put a little bit of different language in front of folks.”Mundy, Liza, “A series of fortunate events,” The Washington Post Magazine, Aug. 12, 2007

Friend Martin Nesbitt tells a story about walking down the streets of Boston with Obama the night before his speech and seeing a crowd form around the senate candidate. “Man, you’re like a rock star,” Nesbitt said. As Nesbitt explains it: “He looked at me and said, ‘Marty, you think it’s bad today, wait until tomorrow.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said, ‘My speech is pretty good.’”Thomas, Evan, “How he did it,” Newsweek, Nov. 5, 2008

In front of a television audience of millions, Obama, who had written the speech himself, was electrifying, immediately thrusting himself onto the national stage. "The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats," Obama said. "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 our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."Barack Obama’s speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Transcript via PBS’s Newshour, July 27, 2004

The week after the speech, Obama campaigned in downstate Illinois, and events that were supposed to have 100 people now featured crowds of 500 to 1,000. “Everyone knew exactly what everyone else was thinking,” said Robert Gibbs, then an Obama spokesperson. “Wow.”Mundy, Liza, “A series of fortunate events,” The Washington Post Magazine, Aug. 12, 2007

2008 Presidential Campaign

Immediately, Obama was flooded with questions about whether he would run for president in 2008, despite the fact that he was only a first-term senator.

Greeted like a celebrity, he received standing ovations in movie theaters and was talked about on Sunday TV shows. He was said to be on every vice presidential short list four years before the 2008 presidential election.Alter, Jonathan, “The Audacity of Hope,” Newsweek, Dec. 27, 2004 Obama regularly said he wasn’t interested and that he would serve out his term in the Senate, but by 2006 he was no longer ruling out a promotion. Fellow Illinois Senator and mentor Dick Durbin (D) told Obama that sitting around in the Senate casting thousands of votes wasn’t going to make him any more qualified to be president.Graff, Garrett, “The Legend of Barack Obama,” Washingtonian Magazine, November 2006 “After seeing the response I was getting around the country, I had to step back and ask: Is there something about my message that is sufficiently unique and could potentially be useful enough to moving the country forward?” Obama said. “And ultimately, the answer was yes.”Mundy, Liza, “A series of fortunate events,” The Washington Post Magazine, Aug. 12, 2007

Taking on Hillary Rodham Clinton

Obama was a big underdog in the 2008 presidential race. He was running against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who had spent eight years in the White House as first lady and eight more as a senator, and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), who was the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee, along with a handful of other top candidates.Dorning, Mike and Parsons, Christi, “He sets his sights on the White House, Now the hard part,” Chicago Tribune, Jan. 17, 2007

When he officially announced his candidacy on Feb. 10, 2007, in Springfield, Ill. in front of 15,000 people, Obama admitted the “presumptuousness” of running for president after just two years in the Senate. But he also said his lack of experience was a good thing. “I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change,” he said.Parsons, Christi, “Obama: ‘Destiny calling,’” Chicago Tribune, Feb. 11, 2007 It was a message he would use throughout the two-year campaign. The change mantra resonated in Iowa, where Obama spent a significant amount of time and money leading up to the January 3, 2008 caucus, the first testing ground for his candidacy. But despite major momentum from the caucus win, and growing interest from African-Americans, Obama lost New Hampshire to Clinton, and a long primary battle ensued.

The key to Obama’s win was his preparation for a long, hard battle. Early in the contest, campaign manager David Plouffe devised a “Feb. 5 and beyond” strategy that focused not just on the big states and Super Tuesday contests, but also on small states that often voted Republican in the general election. Plouffe realized that Obama could nab the Democratic nod by collecting his share of delegates in every state. Democrats awarded delegates proportional to the percentage of the primary vote  instead of giving them all to the state’s winner. Clinton’s campaign seemed to have missed that crucial fact, which was much-criticized in the press.

Obama won a string of 11 primaries after Super Tuesday, building a lead in delegates that proved insurmountable.McCormick, John, “A wizards of odds steers Obama run,” Chicago Tribune, June 9, 2008 Four days after the last Democratic primary on June 3, 2008, Clinton conceded and pledged to campaign vigorously for Obama, which she did.

Race in the 2008 Election

In the 2008 race, Obama used his experience as a community organizer. For the most part, he avoided talking about race. The son of an African man and a white woman, he benefited greatly from the progress made during the 1960s. But Obama also missed a large part of that critical era. He lived in Indonesia from 1967 to 1971, a period that included the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., and the riots that followed, along with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. In his campaigns, he has never stressed race as much as prominent black politicians from previous generations.

“I’ve always felt a curious relationship to the sixties,” Obama writes in The Audacity of Hope. “I was too young at the time to fully grasp the nature of those changes, too removed … to see the fallout on American’s psyche. Much of what I absorbed from the sixties was filtered through my mother. … Whenever the opportunity presented itself, she would drill into me the values that she saw there: tolerance, equality, standing up for the disadvantaged.”Obama, Barack, “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on reclaiming the American dream,” Crown Publishers, New York, 2006, Page 29

Obama’s atypical campaign didn’t earn initial support from the black establishment. Rev. Al Sharpton told Obama “not to take the black vote for granted,” and Rev. Jesse Jackson criticized Obama for not taking a large enough role in the “Jena Six” case in Louisiana, where six black teenagers were charged with beating a white classmate. After Obama’s victory in Iowa, Jackson told him to bolster “hope with substance.”Cobb, William Jelani, “Civil rights leaders aloof from Obama,” The Tennessee Tribune (Nashville), Feb. 7, 2008 Obama was once again accused of not being “black enough,” in part because he tried to make race a non-factor. The only time he addressed the issue directly was after videos surfaced of his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, giving explosive sermons in which he intoned, “God Damn America!” among other controversial statements.

On March 18, 2008, Obama gave a speech about race that many compared to President John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech on religion. “He’s always believed he would have to address race in this campaign,” said longtime friend Cassandra Butts. “I believe he chose the right moment to do it. It was the kind of sweeping, historic speech that put everything on the table.”Merida, Kevin, “Obama trying to bridge America’s racial divide,” The Washington Post, March 19, 2008

2008 General Election

As it turns out, Obama’s general election campaign against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) proved less daunting than the primary against Clinton. The primary had endured for months and involved nearly 20 debates. But that grueling schedule had also allowed Obama to hone responses to attacks against his relationship with controversial figures such as Rev. Wright and Chicago real estate developer Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

Exposing himself to criticism but giving himself a major tactical advantage, Obama opted out of public financing and raised a staggering $750 million for his campaign, $300 million of which was dedicated to the general election. Meanwhile, McCain was forced to use the $84 million allotted to him by the Treasury under public financing.Luo, Michael, “Obama hauls in record $750 million for campaign,” The Caucus Blog on Nytimes.com, Dec. 4, 2008 Still, McCain was running close in the polls (though almost always slightly behind) until the financial meltdown worsened in September 2008.

McCain announced he was suspending his campaign to return to Washington and help pass the proposed $700 billion bailout. Obama called McCain’s actions erratic and voters appeared to agree, breaking heavily for Obama after that.

On Nov. 4, 2008, Obama became the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter to win more than 50 percent of the vote on Election Day, and he took 365 of the 538 Electoral College votes, including improbable wins in previous Republican strongholds such as Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina.Barnes, Rob and Shear, Michael D., “Obama makes history,” The Washington Post, Nov. 5, 2008

His international standing was solidified when in October 2009, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”Gibbs, Walter and Stolberg, Sheryl Gay, "In Surprise, Nobel Peace Prize to Obama for Diplomacy," New York Times, Oct. 9, 2009

 The Economy

When Obama first won the presidency, he touted a bipartisan approach to politics, but he struggled to get support for his flagship initiative: an $787 billion stimulus package that included large tax cuts and spending. A year afterwards, the bill was being used as proof that Obama was a profligate spender and had racked up irresponsible deficits.

The stimulus got no Republican support in the House and only three Republican votes in the Senate, which scaled back the House's version slightly to accomodate the three Republicans: Susan Collins (R-Maine), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Arlen Specter (now a Democrat-Pa.). One-third of the final $787 billion bill was devoted to tax cuts, which Obama called for on the campaign trail, and the $507 billion in spending included money for road and bridge construction, green infrastructure development and money for state governments to pay for essential programs.

According to the government web site Obama's administration created to help the public track the money, Recovery.gov, $53 billion was reserved for education, $43 will be used for energy projects and $59 billion will be used for health care. Meanwhile, $144 billion will go to state goverments to help them through the crisis. Obama admitted often that his presidency will be judged by the success of the economy and whether the stimulus package creates jobs.Harwood, John, "Plotting path in Congress for an economic plan," New York Times, Jan. 26, 2009

But the terms of the 2008 Wall Street bailout, approved under his predecessor, left many voters steaming. In March 2009, news that executives at the rescued insurance giant AIG would receive $450 million in bonuses. In a move seemingly aimed at that anger, Obama introduced a tax on big banks to help recover some of the bailout money.

"Our most urgent task upon taking office was to shore up the same banks that helped cause this crisis," Obama said in his 2010 State of the Union Speech. "It was not easy to do. And if there's one thing that has unified Democrats and Republicans, and everybody in between, it's that we all hated the bank bailout. I hated it -- (applause.) I hated it. You hated it. It was about as popular as a root canal." Text of SOTU, The New York Times, Jan. 27, 2010

Health-Care Reform

Afghanistan

In December 2009, after careful deliberation, Obama announced a 30,000-troop increase to Afghanistan in a bid to weaken the Taliban and al-Qaeda there for enough time for Afghan security forces to take over the fight. 

The troops were to begin deployment immediately and start pulling out as early as July 2011 in what was dubbed by journalist Peter Baker a "escalate-then-exit" strategy. Baker, Peter, The New York Times, "How Obama Came to Plan for Surge Afghanistan," Dec. 5, 2009

"I do not make this decision lightly," Obama said in the speech announcing the policy at West Point Military Academy. "I make this decision because I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak." CNN, Transcript of Obama Afghan speech, Dec. 2, 2009

Iraq

As Obama ramped up troops in Afghanistan, he announced that all combat brigades would return from Iraq by August 2010. All remaining troops were slated to come out by December 2011.

“Let me say this as plainly as I can,”Obama told troops in Feburary 2009 at Camp LeJeune. “By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end.” Baker, Peter, The New York Times, "With Pledges to Troops and Iraqis, Obama Details Pullout," Feb. 27, 2009

As he wasn't in the Senate at the time, Obama was not forced to vote on the 2002 resolution authorizing the Iraq war. But he had made clear his opposition to the mission.

“I don’t oppose all wars,” was Obama’s refrain. “What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war.”Bacon Jr., Perry, “War critics question Obama’s fervor,” The Washington Post, Sept. 15, 2007 While in the Senate, the future president was careful to vote for war funding bills and did not always support timelines for withdrawals of U.S. troops, angering some anti-war activists.Bacon Jr., Perry, “War critics question Obama’s fervor,” The Washington Post, Sept. 15, 2007 But his initial opposition to the war made him a hero with liberals, who constantly criticized Clinton, Obama’s 2008 rival, for voting for the 2002 resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq and then refusing to apologize for it.

National Security

Obama speaks often about repairing America’s tattered global reputation. In his inaugural address, he spoke directly to the Muslim world, and in June 2009 made a landmark speech to Muslims in Cairo.

"I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition.  Instead, they overlap, and share common principles -- principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings," Obama said.Text of speech, White House.gov

But he still faces significant intelligence problems, highlighted by the failed Christmas Day 2009 bombing of a Detroit-bound airplane by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdumutallab. Despite information from the would-be terrorist's father that his son was becoming radicalized, and increased threat reports from Yemen, Abdumutallab wasn't prevented from boarding the airplane. White House blog, President's Security Review and Directive, Jan. 7, 2010

Despite criticism, the Justice Department announced plans to try Abdumutallab in civilian court, along with similar plans to try alleged 9/11 mastermind Khaleid Sheikh Mohammed. CNN, "Holder: Handling of would-be bomber consistent with past policy," Feb. 3, 2010

Meanwhile, plans to close by January 2010 Guantanamo Bay prison camp for suspected terrorists held in Cuba faltered over political blowback and the complexities over where to release the inmates. Obama's 2011 budget includes $237 million for renovating an Illinois prison (Obama's home state) to house some Guantanamo transfers. Sweet, Lynn, Chicago Sun-Times, "Obama budget includes $237 million to buy Illinois prison for Guantanamo detainees," Feb. 1, 2010

Ethics Reform

Obama hoped to usher in a new era of clean government by barring lobbyists from playing key roles in his administration. He did not accept donations from registered lobbyists during the 2008 campaign, and he said they “are not going to dominate my White House.”

One of his first acts as president-elect was to issue guidelines from his transition office about who could serve in his administration. Obama’s transition team prohibited lobbyists from working for the administration in a subject area in which they had lobbied over the past 12 months. But that language was considerably weaker than the pledge Obama often offered on the campaign trail, saying “they [lobbyists] won’t work in my White House.”Matthew Mosk, “Ex-Lobbyists have key Obama Roles; Some members of team shaping new administration had recent K Street ties,” The Washington Post, Nov. 15, 2008

In the Senate, then-Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) made Obama the party’s point man on ethics reform because of the young senator’s track record on the issue in the Illinois state Senate. Obama worked with Sen. McCain on ethics issues, but the two clashed over the mutual perception that the other cared more about political posturing than getting something done.Victor, Kirk, “Reason to smile,” The National Journal, March 18, 2002

Obama eventually voted against the Senate’s 2006 ethics reform bill because it did not create an independent agency to enforce congressional ethics rules. One year later, Obama helped pass a tougher version of the 2006 bill , which included a total ban on gifts and meals from lobbyists to lawmakers and required more lobbyist disclosure.Kane, Paul, “Obama, McCain forged fleeting alliance,” The Washington Post, March 31, 2008 He also developed bipartisan legislation with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) that created a searchable database of all federal contracts.CQ’s Politics in America 2008