Barack Obama

Barack Obama
44th President of the United States
Incumbent
Assumed office January 20, 2009 (2009-01-20)
Vice President	Joe Biden
Preceded by	George W. Bush
United States Senator from Illinois
In office January 3, 2005 (2005-01-03) – November 16, 2008 (2008-11-16)
Preceded by	Peter Fitzgerald
Succeeded by	Roland Burris
Member of the Illinois Senate from the 13th District
In office January 8, 1997 – November 4, 2004
Preceded by	Alice Palmer
Succeeded by	Kwame Raoul
Personal details
Born	Barack Hussein Obama II August 4, 1961 (1961-08-04) Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Michelle Robinson (October 3, 1992–present)
Children	Malia (born 1998) Sasha (born 2001)
Residence	White House (Official) Chicago, Illinois (Private)
Alma mater	Occidental College Columbia University (B.A.) Harvard Law School (J.D.)
Profession	Community organizer Lawyer Constitutional law professor Author
Religion	Christianity
Awards	Nobel Peace Prize
Signature
Website	barackobama.com

Barack Hussein Obama II (ⁱ/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is a Democrat. Obama won the 2008 United States presidential election, on November 4. He became the first African-American president when he was inaugurated on January 20, 2009.

Before becoming president

His father was a black foreign student from Kenya named Barack Obama Sr. He died in a motorcycle accident in Kenya. His mother was a white woman from Kansas named Ann Dunham, who died from cancer. He spent most of his childhood there, although he lived in Indonesia with his mother and stepfather from age 6 to age 10. He moved back to Hawaii after that to live with his grandparents. He started college at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and graduated from Columbia University in New York City. After taking time off to community organize, Obama went to law school at Harvard University. After law school, Obama worked for a law firm. The law firm sued companies who fired people, and sued the government claiming that some black people were prevented from voting.

Later, Obama worked for Alice Palmer, an Illinois state senator. She ran for U.S. Congress. While doing so, Obama became interested in her Illinois state senate seat. Later, Alice Palmer tried to run for that state senate seat, but Obama got her name taken off the ballot because she had not met the rules for the election. Due to this, he ran unopposed (without anybody else running against him) in the election. He ran for election and became an Illinois state senator. He was state senator from 1997 to 2004.

While he was Illinois state senator, he was known for writing a law that required police to keep records on the race of people they stopped. The law that he wrote also forced police to videotape when they talked to people they suspect of murder. He also taught law part time at the University of Chicago Law School.

Obama later ran for the U.S. Senate. While running for Senate, John Kerry asked him to speak at the Democratic National Convention. Most people had never heard of Obama, but many people saw him speak on television and he became well known after that. He was a U.S. Senator from 2005 to 2008.

Obama won the presidential election of 2008.

Presidential campaigns

2008 presidential campaign

Inaugural address by Barack Obama

Barack Obama's presidential campaign for the White House started in early June 2008 when he defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries. Hillary Clinton was favored to win but Obama won many smaller state caucuses (local party elections) by having a lot of volunteers. He decided not to accept government money for his campaign so that he could accept more money from people. He raised the most amount of money ever for a presidential campaign.

Obama's campaign theme was that he was a man of hope and change. He was also against the war in Iraq. He was in favor of giving money to American car companies. He was in favor of sending more troops to Afghanistan.

During the campaign, some people said that Obama's friends included Tony Rezko, a landlord, and former member of the Weather Underground Bill Ayers; Obama said that they were not his friends. Obama also had trouble when his minister at church, Jeremiah Wright, was videotaped criticizing America. During the campaign, Obama said that his opponent, Republican candidate John McCain, was just like George W. Bush, something that John McCain said was not true.

He defeated McCain in the election on November 4 by a wide electoral majority of 365 to 173, meaning that he won the most votes in enough states to send 365 people to officially elect him. The popular vote (based on the total number of votes across the country) was closer, with Obama winning 53%, McCain 46%.

Family

Obama and the family presidential dog, Bo, running on the White House grounds.

Obama has been married to Michelle Obama since 1992. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University, and also a law degree from Harvard Law School. She worked as a lawyer. They have two daughters, Malia Ann, who was born in 1998 and Natasha ("Sasha"), born in 2001. They lived in Chicago, but moved into the White House on January 20, 2009.

Obama promised his daughters that the family would get a dog if he was elected President. In April 2009, Senator Ted Kennedy, who once tried to run for President, gave Obama one of his dogs, a Portuguese water dog named Bo.

Obama has a half sister who is a teacher in Hawaii. His father died from a car accident in Africa. His mother died of cancer. His maternal grandmother died just before Obama won the election to become President.

Presidency

Obama talking in 2010 at the University of Minnesota

Obama became President of the United States on January 20, 2009. The United States was battling a tough recession. He asked Congress to spend an extra $787 billion ($787,000,000,000) to try to end the recession. He called the plan the stimulus bill. The stimulus bill funded many road projects, gave money to schools, gave tax credits to many Americans, and funded many science and research projects.

Obama continued the financial bailout that George W. Bush started, giving billions of dollars to car companies and banks so that they would not go bankrupt. He signed an act written by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd which would regulate Wall Street (the financial industry) to try to prevent another recession like this from happening again. Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which would bring health care reform to the United States, which he said would change the system so that more people can afford health care.

In foreign policy, Obama made a plan to slowly withdraw troops from Iraq, ending the War in Iraq by the end of 2011, while adding more troops to Afghanistan to help the United States win the War in Afghanistan. He also decided that the USA should help in the war against Libya. He has said several times that he wants to improve U.S. relations with the Muslim world.

Obama received the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on October 9, 2009. He noted that his efforts were humble, but he donated the prize money to several charities.

Although his popularity was very high (around 70% approval) when he entered office, his approval ratings fell to 45% percent during the year of 2010. He has received a lot of criticism from Republicans, conservatives, libertarians, and members of the Tea Party because they believe that the federal government is becoming too big and spending too much money and that his programs are not the best for the country.

With rising deficits (the amount of money the government borrows each month) under his administration, he has called for taxes to be increased on the rich and wealthy Americans, who can afford to pay them. He has criticized his Republican opponents for wanting to cut welfare benefits for the poor and needy rather than raising taxes to help pay down the debt. He also signed the Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 in 2010 which since 1993 had prevented openly gay men and openly lesbian women from serving in the army.

Obama has also initiated the ending of the Iraq War and continued the war on terror which resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden on 2 May 2011. Obama has also initiated a no-fly-zone policy on Libya which ended the civil war in Octber 2011 with the killing of Muammar al-Gaddafi. On 9 May 2012, he became the first sitting US President to openly support legalizing same-sex marriage.

On December 14, 2012, the day that happened to be the second worst school shooting in United States history in Newtown, Connecticut, Obama had said, "We've gone here too many times. We had enough of it.". On December 21, 2012, Obama and his White House staff observed a moment of silence due to the school shooting in Connecticut.

On December 21, 2012, Obama nominated John Kerry for United States Secretary of State during his second term. Kerry was sworn in on February 1, 2013.

Before his second term began and continues as of 2013, there has been debating of guns because of the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut that happened on December 2012, as well as shootings that have happened before Newtown.

He took his second term inauguration oath in the White House, privately (no one could see, just his family) on January 20, 2013. Obama was inaugurated for a second term on January 21, 2013 (January 20, 2013 was Sunday) in the United States Capitol, that inauguration was viewed to the public.

2012 Election

On April 4, 2011 Obama declared that he would stand for re-election for a second term in 2012 in a video titled "It Begins with Us" that he posted on his website and filed election papers with the Federal Election Commission. He was officially nominated for his party's Presidential choice on September 6, 2012. Mitt Romney was officially nominated as his opponent by the Republican party on August 30, 2012. While the election results were very close, Obama easily won the electoral college votes he needed to win a second term. Obama and Romney spent more than $2 billion on advertising during the election campaign.

Other websites

• Official campaign website