Why Obama

Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii. His parents Ann Dunham, from Wichita, Kansas, and Barack Obama Sr., from Kenya, met at the University of Hawaii at Manoa where his father was a foreign student.

When he was 2 years old, his parent's separated. They later divorced and his father returned to Kenya. Barack would see his father only one more time before he was killed in a car accident in Kenya in 1982.

His mother married Lolo Soetoro in 1967, and the family moved to Indonesia, his home country. Barack stayed in Indonesia with his mother and stepfather until 1971, when he returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents.

Barack attended Punahou School, a private college preparatory school there until graduation from high school in 1979.

After graduating from high school, Barack moved to Los Angeles and attended Occidental College for two years. He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations. He recieved his Bachelor's degree from Columbia in 1983.

While in New York City, Barack worked for the Business International Corporation, a publishing and advisory firm working with American companies operating abroad, for one year, and then with the New York Public Interest Research Group, a non-profit, non-partisan political organization until 1985.

In June of 1985, he moved to Chicago and became the Director of the Developing Communities Project, a church based community organization working on Chicago's South Side. During his time as Director, the organization's staff grew from one to 13 and their annual funding grew from $70,000 to over $400,000. Under his leadership, they set up job training programs, college preparatory tutoring programs, and tenant's rights organizations on the South Side. During this time, he also worked as a consultant and trainer for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute, and in mid-1998 left his position with the Developing Communities Project to travel to Europe and Kenya before attending Harvard Law School.

Barack began Harvard Law School in the fall of 1988. At the end of his first year, he was selected, by virtue of his grades and an essay he submitted, to be an editor of the Harvard Law Review. In his second year of law school, he was selected to be the President of the Harvard Law Review. He was the first African American ever to hold the position.

While attending Harvard, he worked as a summer associate for the Sidley & Austin Law Firm, where he met his wife Michelle. Barack Obama graduated from Harvard Magna Cum Laude in 1991. That same year, he and Michelle became engaged.

In 1992, Barack began teaching Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School. He would continue to teach there until 2004. That same year, on October 3, he and Michelle were married.

In addition to being a lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, in 1993 Barack began working at Davis, Miner, Barnhill, & Galland, a small 12 attorney firm. There he was an Associate civil rights attorney until 1996, when he was promoted to Counsel civil rights attorney, a position he held until 2004.

It was during these years, that he wrote "Dreams of My Father", which was published in 1995. In 1996, Barack decided to run for the Illinois State Senate.

Barack was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996. While there, he got bipartisan support for both ethics and health care reform. He sponsored legislation for increasing tax credits to low income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased childcare subsidies.

In 2001, Barack supported then Republican Governor Ryan's regulations on payday loan lending and predatory mortgage lending which were designed to decrease the rate of foreclosures.

In 2003, he led a bipartisan coalition to the unanimous passage of legislation to monitor racial profiling and made Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homocide interrogations. He also enacted death penalty reforms.

It was during this time that both of his daughters were born. Malia was born in 1998, and Natasha, or "Sasha", was born in 2001.

Throughout his career, following his work as a community organizer prior to law school, Barack has been involved with several non-profit organizations.

He was on the Board of Directors of the following organizations:

• 1992 - Public Allies - a non-profit organization which works to promote youth leadership


• 1992 - 2002 - Woods Fund of Chicago - a non-profit organization concerned with poverty relief and the encouragement of social mobility


• 1994 - 2002 - Joyce Foundation - a non-profit organization which funds policy research in the areas of education, employment, environment, gun violence, campaign finance reform, and ethics reform


• Chicago Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law


• Center for Neighborhood Technology - a non-profit organization which promotes the development of livable and sustainable communities


• Lugenia Burns Hope Center - a small non-profit concerned with leadership training within the African American community

In 2004, Barack Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate with the largest margin of victory in history for a statewide race in Illinois, winning his seat by 70% to Republican Alan Keyes' 27%.

Since taking the oath of office in January 2005, Barack has introduced 131 pieces of legislation that he was the primary sponsor of. This does not include those bills where he was a co-sponsor of the legislation. Some of the more notable pieces of legislation he co-sponsored include:

• Secure American & Orderly Immigration Act


• "Lugar-Obama" act which was co-sponsored with Republican Chuck Lugar to expand the cooperative threat reduction concept to include non-nuclear conventional weapons


• "Coburn-Obama Transparency Act" on which he worked with Republican Tom Coburn to establish www.USAspending.gov to enable citizens to track government spending


• On June 3, 2008, Senator Obama worked with Senators Carper, Coburn, and McCain to introduce follow up legislation to strengthen the Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008




While in the Senate, Barack Obama has served on the following committees:



• Foreign Relations 2005-present


• Environment and Public Works 2005-2006


• Veteran's Affairs 2005 - present


• Health, Education, Labor & Pensions 2007-present


• Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 2007-present


• Subcommittee on European Affairs - Chairman 2007-present

"It was leadership here at home that gave us strong American influence aborad, and the collapse of imperial communism. Great nations have responsibilities to lead, and we should always be cautious of those who would lower our profile, because they might just wind up lowering our flag." - Ronald Reagan

"The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government." - Thomas Jefferson

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." - Albert Einstein

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficult, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew." - Abraham Lincoln

"We need men who can dream of things that never were." - John F. Kennedy

"The art of governing consists simply of being honest, exercising common sense, following principle, and doing what is right and just." - Thomas Jefferson

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." - Edward Abbey

"There are no necessary evils in government." - Andrew Jackson

"If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." - John F. Kennedy

"The hopes of the republic cannot forever tolerate either underserved poverty or self-serving wealth." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country...Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated ina few hands and the republic is destroyed." - Abraham Lincoln

"The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend." - Benjamin Disraeli

"The benefit of one is the benefit of all, and the neglect of one is the neglect of all." - Calvin Coolidge

"This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in, until we make it a good place for all of us to live in." - Theodore Roosevelt

"There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight, there is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right." - Woodrow Wilson

I support Barack Obama for president because he is the first politician I have seen in my lifetime that I believe actually cares about the American people. His decision not to accept public funding, or funding from special interest groups or political action committees, was refreshing because now we know who is paying for his endeavour to win the election - the people.

I also support his ideas for changing this country, such as creating a true energy policy that does not favor the oil companies, but actually implements changes that are desperately needed. Also, implementing a health care policy that will cover everyone, because you should not have to have money to deserve to live. I also support his proposal to implement a program to help all kids pay for college. During my college career, I did a good amount of volunteer work, while also working a full time job and going to school full time. I had the grades to go to the ivy league schools, but not the money. Even the scholarships that I did recieve, only paid enough for state schools.

Additionally, as a wife and mother of four boys, I support his views on foreign policy, which are much more in line with the leaders of our country historically than are those of John McCain. As my boys approach the age at which they could be drafted to fight a war, I want someone in the White House whom I can be sure will exhaust every other option before sending our sons and daughters to fight on foreign soil.

The 2008 election is a turning point in our history. We can either start moving backwards if we elect John McCain, and make the lives of many American's worse while making the rich richer, or, we can elect Barack Obama and give our children a chance at a better future.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942 in Scranton, Pennsylvania to Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. (1915 - 2002) and Catherine Eugenia(Jean) Finnegan (born 1918). He is the oldest of four children, having two younger brothers and one sister.

His family lived in Scranton during the economic downturn of the 1950's. After his father lost his job there, the family moved to Claymont, Delaware when Joe was 10 years old. His father took a job there as a car salesman, and his mother was a homemaker. Joe struggled up to his twenties with a stutter, which he corrected by reciting poetry into a mirror.

Joe attended Archmere Academy, a Catholic school, in Claymont, Delaware, graduating in 1961. He then went on to the University of Delaware at Newark. There he took on a double major in history and political science, graduating in 1965.

After college, he attended Syracuse University's College of Law. During this time, he met his first wife Neilia Hunter while on spring break. The two were married on August 27, 1966.

Joe graduated from law school in 1968, and was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1969. That year, he began practicing law in Wilmington, Delaware, and his oldest son Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III was born. He also decided that year to run for a position on the New Castle County Council.

Joe was elected to the New Castle County Council, where he served from 1970 to 1972. During this time, he and his wife Neilia welcomed their son Robert Hunter Biden, born 1970, and a daughter Naomi Christine Biden, born 1971.

In 1972, he decided to run for the U.S. Senate. His sister Valerie managed his campaign, and it was staffed by family and friends. He did not have much campaign funding, so most campaigning was conducted by handing out newsprint position papers. He won the election, ousting longtime Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs on November 7, 1972.

Just over one month later, on December 18, 1972, his family was out Christmas shopping when tragedy struck. Their car was hit by a tractor trailer in an intersection, killing his wife and daughter, and critically injuring both of his sons. As he watched over his sons while they recovered in the hospital, he considered resigning his position in the senate. As he said then, "Delaware can get another senator, my boys can't get another father." He was convinced by leaders in the Senate not to resign, and was sworn in to the position at his boys' bedside.

From that day on, he began commuting an hour and a half via train every day to Washington D.C. and then home again to Delaware, so he could be there to tuck in his boys at night. He gave standing orders to his staff to interrupt him, whatever he was doing, should his sons ever call. He was a single father for 5 years. To this day, he does not work on December 18 in remembrance of his wife and daughter.

In 1975, Joe's brother set him up on a blind date with Jill Tracy Jacobs. The two hit it off, and were married two years later on June 17, 1977. In 1981, they welcomed a daughter Ashley Blazer Biden. That same year, Joe received an honorary degree from Saint Joseph's University.

He ran for president in 1988. In February of that year, he was hospitalized after complaining of neck pains. Doctors performed surgery for an aneurysm that month and again on a separate aneurysm in May of 1988.

His oldest son Beau, a lawyer in Wilmington, Delaware, was elected Delaware's Attorney General in 2006. His other son Hunter is a lawyer working in Washington D.C. He had worked for a lobbying firm, but resigned his post after his father was named as Barack Obama's running mate.

Joe Biden was the fifth youngest Senator in history when he was elected. He is the longest serving Senator in the history of Delaware, and the second "poorest" Senator according to tax records released recently by him and his wife Jill, a Delaware teacher.

In the Senate, Joe has served on the Foreign Relations Committee for many years. He is currently the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs, and Co Chair of the Caucus on International Narcotics Control. He is also a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, the Subcommittee on Antitrust Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, the Subcommittee on Human Rights and The Law, the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Refugees, and the Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.