4.11.08

USA gets it's First BLACK President - Barack Hussein Obama II

Barack Hussein Obama II (pronounced /bəˈrɑːk hʊˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the President-elect of the United States of America. He is expected to take office as the 44th President of the USA on January 20, 2009. In the November 4, 2008 United States Presidential election he won 53% of the popular vote, and 349 electoral votes to rival John Sidney McCain III's 173 (with 15 electoral votes belonging to North Carolina as yet unclaimed).

10 reasons why John McCain lost

My hunch is that we'll look back on this and say that John McCain could never have won. So why did he lose? Here are 10 off-the-cuf fone-word and two-word reasons, some of them inter-linked. 10 reasons for why Obama won to come next:

1. Economy

2. Wars

3. Bush

4. GOP spending

5. GOP corruption

6. Disorganised campaign

7. Mediocre debating

8. Age

9. Changing messages

10. Downbeat demeanour


A bit about him:

He also is currently the Junior United States Senator from Illinois. Obama is the first African American to be elected President of the United States, and was the first to be nominated for President by a major U.S. political party. Obama is also the first candidate born in Hawaii to have been nominated and subsequently elected president.

A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, he became the first African American to serve as president of the Harvard Law Review. Obama worked as a community organizer and practiced as a civil rights attorney before serving three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, he announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate in January 2003. After a primary victory in March 2004, Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He was elected to the Senate in November 2004 with 70 percent of the vote.


OBAMA

The President's Signature -> Barack Obama's signature

As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, he helped create legislation to control conventional weapons and to promote greater public accountability in the use of federal funds. He also made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. During the 110th Congress, he helped create legislation regarding lobbying and electoral fraud, climate change, nuclear terrorism, and care for returned U.S. military personnel. Obama announced his presidential campaign in February 2007, and was formally nominated at the 2008 Democratic National Convention with Delaware senator Joe Biden as his running mate.

Official sites:


More about the President:

From a small-time community worker to the most powerful man in the world, Barack Obama's victory in the US Presidential polls marks a huge political transformation in a country with a racist past that will have a Black occupy the top post for the first time.

A votary of strong ties with India, the 47-year-old Harvard-educated lawyer and a Democrat reached the White House exactly 45 years after the Black civil rights leader Martin Luther King challenged Americans to embrace his "dream" of equality.

Barack Hussein Obama, whose father was a Kenyan and mother a White American, himself has had no misgivings on the herculean task he faced in getting elected as President because of his race and name.

This was reflected by his recent comment that getting elected to the White House would be a "leap".

Undertaking his campaign with a catchy slogan -- 'The Change We Need' -- Obama presented himself to America as a fresh face with the knowledge and mettle needed for the White House.

He emerged victorious after a gruelling and bitter 21-month-long campaign in which he overcame the challenge from high-profile fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton and Vietnam War veteran Republican nominee John McCain.

Born on 4th August, 1961, in Hawaii, Obama will be the first Black President, a development that demonstrates a major change in America, which has witnessed bitter racism for centuries before the social evil was abolished about 200 years ago.

Obama's first tryst with power came in 1996 when the low-paid community organiser on Chicago's south side was elected to the state Senate of Illinois.

He made it to the federal Senate in 2004 after a landslide electoral victory.

While many have scoffed at Obama's experience as a community organiser saying community work experience does not count in the making of a US President, analysts feel that it has helped the black American leader to reach out to individual voters during his campaign.

Obama became a media darling and one of the most visible figures in Washington, with two best-selling books to his name - 'The Audacity of Hope' and 'Dreams From My Father'.

For the Democrats, who were out to wrest the Presidency from the Republicans after eight years, Obama's nomination was a gamble.

But Obama defeated Arizona Senator McCain handsomely in the election which was dominated by frequent controversies, mostly related to his race and religion.

Obama, whose first name Barack in Arabic means 'the blessed', was hard pressed to fend off rumours that he is a Muslim and said he is a practising Christian.

During the campaign, the advocate of strong partnership with India has made a number of comments and gestures, including lending support to the civil nuclear deal though he initially had reservations on it.

He has also made it clear that India posed no threat to Pakistan and that the latter rather faced the danger from militants within.

At the same time, he also talked about discouraging outsourcing, a move, if implemented, could have an adverse impact on India.

"....Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America," he said during campaigning.

Obama, who broke all records for fund-raising, had said that his victory would be a "defining moment" for the nation which abolished slavery 200 years ago but was still battling the scourge of racial discrimination.

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