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Barack Obama, President of the United States from 2009 to 2017, served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004. A member of the Democratic Party, he made his presidential run in 2008. He was elected President in 2008 and re-elected in 2012.
Sep 3, 2024 · The president is elected to a four-year term via an electoral college system. Since the Twenty-second Amendment was adopted in 1951, the American presidency has been limited to a maximum of two terms. Click on a president below to learn more about each presidency through an interactive timeline.
No.PresidentBirthplacePolitical Party46Pennsylvania45New York44Hawaii43Connecticut- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Apr 29, 2011 · President Obama, if you look closely at his positions, is a moderate Republican of the early 1990s. And the Republican Party he’s facing has abandoned many of its best ideas in its effort to...
- Overview
- Politics and ascent to the presidency of Barack Obama
- The Nobel Peace Prize and partisanship
In 1996 he was elected to the Illinois Senate, where, most notably, he helped pass legislation that tightened campaign finance regulations, expanded health care to poor families, and reformed criminal justice and welfare laws. In 2004 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, defeating Republican Alan Keyes in the first U.S. Senate race in which the two leading candidates were African Americans. While campaigning for the U.S. Senate, Obama gained national recognition by delivering the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. The speech wove a personal narrative of Obama’s biography with the theme that all Americans are connected in ways that transcend political, cultural, and geographical differences. The address lifted Obama’s once obscure memoir onto best-seller lists, and, after taking office the following year, Obama quickly became a major figure in his party. A trip to visit his father’s home in Kenya in August 2006 gained international media attention, and Obama’s star continued ascending. His second book, The Audacity of Hope (2006), a mainstream polemic on his vision for the United States, was published weeks later, instantly becoming a major best seller. In February 2007 he announced at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, where Abraham Lincoln had served as a state legislator, that he would seek the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2008. (For coverage of the 2008 election, see United States Presidential Election of 2008.)
Obama’s personal charisma, stirring oratory, and his campaign promise to bring change to the established political system resonated with many Democrats, especially young and minority voters. On January 3, 2008, Obama won a surprise victory in the first major nominating contest, the Iowa caucus, over Sen. Hillary Clinton, who was the overwhelming favourite to win the nomination. Five days later, however, Obama finished second to Clinton in the New Hampshire primary, and a bruising—and sometimes bitter—primary race ensued. Obama won more than a dozen states—including Illinois, his home state, and Missouri, a traditional political bellwether—on Super Tuesday, February 5. No clear front-runner for the nomination emerged, however, as Clinton won many states with large populations, such as California and New York. Obama produced an impressive string of victories later in the month, handily winning the 11 primaries and caucuses that immediately followed Super Tuesday, which gave him a significant lead in pledged delegates. His momentum slowed in early March when Clinton won significant victories in Ohio and Texas. Though still maintaining his edge in delegates, Obama lost the key Pennsylvania primary on April 22. Two weeks later he lost a close contest in Indiana but won the North Carolina primary by a large margin, widening his delegate lead over Clinton. She initially had a big lead in so-called superdelegates (Democratic Party officials allocated votes at the convention that were unaffiliated with state primary results), but, with Obama winning more states and actual delegates, many peeled away from her and went to Obama. On June 3, following the final primaries in Montana and South Dakota, the number of delegates pledged to Obama surpassed the total necessary to claim the Democratic nomination.
On August 27 Obama became the first African American to be nominated for the presidency by either major party and went on to challenge Republican Sen. John McCain for the country’s highest office. McCain criticized Obama, still a first-term senator, as being too inexperienced for the job. To counter, Obama selected Joe Biden, a veteran senator from Delaware who had a long resume of foreign policy expertise, to be his vice presidential running mate. Obama and McCain waged a fierce and expensive contest. Obama, still bolstered by a fever of popular support, eschewed federal financing of his campaign and raised hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it coming in small donations and over the Internet from a record number of donors. Obama’s fund-raising advantage helped him buy massive amounts of television advertising and organize deep grassroots organizations in key battleground states and in states that had voted Republican in previous presidential cycles.
The two candidates offered a stark ideological choice for voters. Obama called for a swift withdrawal of most combat forces from Iraq and a restructuring of tax policy that would bring more relief to lower- and middle-class voters, while McCain said the United States must wait for full victory in Iraq and charged that Obama’s rhetoric was long on eloquence but short on substance. Just weeks before election day, Obama’s campaign seized on the economic meltdown that had resulted from the catastrophic failure of U.S. banks and financial institutions in September, calling it a result of the Republican free-market-driven policies of the eight-year administration of George W. Bush.
In 1996 he was elected to the Illinois Senate, where, most notably, he helped pass legislation that tightened campaign finance regulations, expanded health care to poor families, and reformed criminal justice and welfare laws. In 2004 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, defeating Republican Alan Keyes in the first U.S. Senate race in which the two leading candidates were African Americans. While campaigning for the U.S. Senate, Obama gained national recognition by delivering the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. The speech wove a personal narrative of Obama’s biography with the theme that all Americans are connected in ways that transcend political, cultural, and geographical differences. The address lifted Obama’s once obscure memoir onto best-seller lists, and, after taking office the following year, Obama quickly became a major figure in his party. A trip to visit his father’s home in Kenya in August 2006 gained international media attention, and Obama’s star continued ascending. His second book, The Audacity of Hope (2006), a mainstream polemic on his vision for the United States, was published weeks later, instantly becoming a major best seller. In February 2007 he announced at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, where Abraham Lincoln had served as a state legislator, that he would seek the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2008. (For coverage of the 2008 election, see United States Presidential Election of 2008.)
Obama’s personal charisma, stirring oratory, and his campaign promise to bring change to the established political system resonated with many Democrats, especially young and minority voters. On January 3, 2008, Obama won a surprise victory in the first major nominating contest, the Iowa caucus, over Sen. Hillary Clinton, who was the overwhelming favourite to win the nomination. Five days later, however, Obama finished second to Clinton in the New Hampshire primary, and a bruising—and sometimes bitter—primary race ensued. Obama won more than a dozen states—including Illinois, his home state, and Missouri, a traditional political bellwether—on Super Tuesday, February 5. No clear front-runner for the nomination emerged, however, as Clinton won many states with large populations, such as California and New York. Obama produced an impressive string of victories later in the month, handily winning the 11 primaries and caucuses that immediately followed Super Tuesday, which gave him a significant lead in pledged delegates. His momentum slowed in early March when Clinton won significant victories in Ohio and Texas. Though still maintaining his edge in delegates, Obama lost the key Pennsylvania primary on April 22. Two weeks later he lost a close contest in Indiana but won the North Carolina primary by a large margin, widening his delegate lead over Clinton. She initially had a big lead in so-called superdelegates (Democratic Party officials allocated votes at the convention that were unaffiliated with state primary results), but, with Obama winning more states and actual delegates, many peeled away from her and went to Obama. On June 3, following the final primaries in Montana and South Dakota, the number of delegates pledged to Obama surpassed the total necessary to claim the Democratic nomination.
On August 27 Obama became the first African American to be nominated for the presidency by either major party and went on to challenge Republican Sen. John McCain for the country’s highest office. McCain criticized Obama, still a first-term senator, as being too inexperienced for the job. To counter, Obama selected Joe Biden, a veteran senator from Delaware who had a long resume of foreign policy expertise, to be his vice presidential running mate. Obama and McCain waged a fierce and expensive contest. Obama, still bolstered by a fever of popular support, eschewed federal financing of his campaign and raised hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it coming in small donations and over the Internet from a record number of donors. Obama’s fund-raising advantage helped him buy massive amounts of television advertising and organize deep grassroots organizations in key battleground states and in states that had voted Republican in previous presidential cycles.
The two candidates offered a stark ideological choice for voters. Obama called for a swift withdrawal of most combat forces from Iraq and a restructuring of tax policy that would bring more relief to lower- and middle-class voters, while McCain said the United States must wait for full victory in Iraq and charged that Obama’s rhetoric was long on eloquence but short on substance. Just weeks before election day, Obama’s campaign seized on the economic meltdown that had resulted from the catastrophic failure of U.S. banks and financial institutions in September, calling it a result of the Republican free-market-driven policies of the eight-year administration of George W. Bush.
In an effort to improve the image of the United States abroad—which many believed had been much damaged during the Bush administration—Obama took a number of steps that indicated a significant shift in tone. He signed an executive order that banned excessive interrogation techniques; ordered the closing of the controversial military detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, within a year (a deadline that was not met); proposed a “fresh start” to strained relations with Russia; and traveled to Cairo in June 2009 to deliver a historic speech in which he reached out to the Muslim world. Largely as a result of these efforts, Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. Yet some left-wing critics complained that he actually had adopted and even escalated most of the war and national security policies of his predecessor. Indeed, when Obama accepted the Nobel Prize in December, he said, “Evil does exist in the world” and “there will be times when nations—acting individually or in concert—will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.” Notwithstanding that tough talk, there were others who criticized Obama for issuing only a mild condemnation of the Iranian government’s crackdown on pro-democracy dissidents following a disputed election in June 2009. Moreover, the Obama administration’s handling of national security was questioned by some when a Nigerian terrorist trained in Yemen was thwarted in an attempt to bomb an airliner headed for Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009.
After enjoying soaring popularity early in his term, Obama became the target of increasing criticism, largely due to the slow pace of economic recovery and continued high unemployment rates but also because of widespread opposition to Democratic efforts to reform health care insurance policy, the signature issue of the Obama presidential campaign. Obama had entered office promising to bring an end to partisan squabbling and legislative gridlock, yet, in the wake of the failure to obtain any real bipartisan cooperation, congressional Democrats, according to Republicans, had settled into governing without substantive Republican involvement. Republicans, on the other hand, according to Democrats, had become the “Party of No,” seeking to obstruct Democratic legislative initiatives without offering real alternative proposals. It was in this highly polarized environment that Obama and the Democrats attempted to enact health care insurance reform.
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During Obama's presidency, four Republicans served in Obama's Cabinet: Ray LaHood as Secretary of Transportation, Robert McDonald as Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and Gates and Chuck Hagel as Secretaries of Defense.
Democratic Party, in the United States, one of the two major political parties, the other being the Republican Party. The Democratic Party has changed significantly during its more than two centuries of existence.
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He was first elected November 4, 2008, and was sworn in January of 2009. Obama successfully won election to a second term on November 6, 2012. Previously, he served as the junior United States Senator from Illinois and was the nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2008 presidential election.
