Barack Obama Democratic Party

Date of Birth: August 4, 1961 Education: Bachelor’s degree, 1983, Columbia University; law degree, 1991, Harvard Law School Family: Wife, Michelle; two daughters, Malia and Sasha Religion: Christian

Barack Obama made history in 2008 when he was elected as the first black president of the United States.

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to a white mother, Ann Dunham, from Kansas and a Kenyan father, Barack Obama, Sr., who had come to the US on an academic scholarship.

In 1965, Obama's mother married an Indonesian man, Lolo Soetoro, and they moved to Indonesia in 1967.  In 1971, Obama moved back to Hawaii and was raised by his maternal grandparents.

Obama earned his law degree from Harvard Law School, where he went on to become the first black editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.

Having received his law degree, Obama did various stints in the private sector, until taking up a teaching position at the University of Chicago Law School, where he taught constitutional law for 12 years, from 1992 to 2004. He also served as a member of the Illinois State Senate for three terms during the same period.

In 2004, Obama came to prominence upon having been elected to the US Senate. But it was his widely praised keynote address to the Democratic National Convention in 2004 that shot Obama into the political limelight and the seeds for a future presidential run were sown.

Since his inauguration as president in 2009, Obama has struggled as president to revive the US economy, after a 2008 financial crisis during which it was on the verge of collapse. Unemployment topped 10 per cent for a short period in 2009.

The landmark achievement of his administration has been the passage of healthcare reform legislation and his overseeing of the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed Osama Bin Laden. However, his record as president has been plagued by the gridlock in Congress, and an inability of both parties to reach consensus on a number of issues.

His bid for a second term focuses on America’s economic recovery, speaking as a voice for the American middle class.

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