Barack Obama

Columbia University, Harvard Law School, University of Chicago Law School

United States Senator

Endorsed By: Citizen Action, IL. Federation of Teachers, Planned Parenthood, SEIU, Sierra Club, Michael Jordan, Ramsey Lewis, Harold Ramis, Scott Turow, Rep. Danny Davis, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Sen. Miguel del Valle, Sen. and Rev. James T. Meeks

Rural development, civil rights, jobs and the economy, education, the environment, equity and choice, foreign policy, health care, security, seniors

Leo

Barack Obama has dedicated his life to public service as a community organizer, civil rights attorney, and leader in the Illinois state Senate. Obama now continues his fight for working families following his recent election to the United States Senate. Sworn into office January 4, 2005, Senator Obama is focused on promoting economic growth and bringing good paying jobs to Illinois. Obama serves on the important Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees legislation and funding for the environment and public works projects throughout the country, including the national transportation bill. He also serves on the Veterans Affairs Committee where he is focused on investigating the disability pay discrepancies that have left thousands of Illinois veterans without the benefits they earned. Senator Obama will also serve on the Foreign Relations Committee.

During his seven years in the Illinois state Senate, Obama worked with both Democrats and Republicans to help working families get ahead by creating programs like the state Earned Income Tax Credit, which in three years provided over $100 million in tax cuts to families across the state. Obama also pushed through an expansion of early childhood education, and after a number of inmates on death row were found innocent, Senator Obama enlisted the support of law enforcement officials to draft legislation requiring the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.

Obama is especially proud of being a husband and father of two daughters, Malia, 6 and Sasha, 3. Obama and his wife, Michelle, married in 1992 and live on Chicago s South Side where they attend Trinity United Church of Christ.

Barack Obama was born on August 4th, 1961, in Hawaii to Barack Obama, Sr. and Ann Dunham. Obama graduated from Columbia University in 1983, and moved to Chicago in 1985 to work for a church-based group seeking to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued with crime and high unemploym

...alongside our famous individualism, theres another ingredient in the American saga. A belief that we are connected as one people. If theres a child on the south side of Chicago who cant read, that matters to me, even if its not my child. Its that fundamental beliefI am my brothers keeper, I am my sisters keeperthat makes this country work... theres not a liberal America and a conservative Americatheres the United States of America. Theres not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; theres the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States But Ive got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we dont like federal agents poking around our libraries 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 U.S.A."