Obama's "humble" Origins

[bucking10]

Agreed, McCain and all his homes and fancy cars, on a government job might I add, shows nothing but elitist. Obama, though, who's family came here from Kenya and didn't have any silver spoons, mined his own treasure through hard work and education, exemplifying the American Dream.
If Mr. Obama is going to tell the tall tale (http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/15/obama-leans-on-poor-upbringing-to-dismiss-elitism-charges-as-silly/#comment-298639) of having grown up, or at any point having been poor- voters are entitled to knowing the truth:
Obama at no point grew up poor in any economic or commonly understood sense of the term.
He may have been born to two flaky college students, so there were inconsistencies in the amount of attention he received at various points in his life, but both these students hailed from the top of the social ladder, and their son would only climb higher - never lower.
[B]For most of his life, Obama

[bucking10]

From age 0 to graduation from Harvard, regardless of whatever anecdotes of deprivation Obama comes up with, the reality of his privileged social and income status is indisputable. We are talking a minimum upper 10 % of our country’s social structure, and most certainly higher. A review of his grandparents income, along with his work activity in Occidental, and Columbia, would clarify whether it is top 7, 5, or even 3 percent.
7) Obama likes to brag that once out of Harvard, he received a less than $1000 a month salary as a community organizer. He neglects to mention that this lasted very briefly, and he was in a solid middle-class income in less than three months.
His comportment as community organizer as early as 1990 already bore marks of elitism and arrogance. He was a Harvard Grad - and he wore it like a flag pin. Obama was top top, through and though [salon (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/02/12/obama_natural/index.html)]
Already in the early nineties Obama was working for a top Chicago law firm and had ties with a millionaire developer- definitely not the story of a typical poor, or middle class American.
http://www.stop-obama.org/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_cool.gif Again, shortly after graduating Harvard, Obama found himself living in a gated lake-front condominium at Hyde Park, his neighbors some of the city’s most influential movers and shakers. Anyone familiar with the neighbourhood, will tell you that Obama’s accommodations were not the Chicago Middle Class Average, and especially not representative of the average for African-Americans. By any measure, Obama was living an upper-middle class/upper income life. Maybe not spectacularly upper upper, but again, not at all poor, modest, or middle class. Remember, he was just getting started. After college, none of the candidates in the running, were living in Villas or Governor’s mansions.
9) Already in the early nineties Obama had three incomes: from part-time lecturing in one of the country’s more generous universities, to part time work as attorney (more like paralegal, as Juanita rightfully puts it (http://www.stop-obama.org/?p=457)), to State Senator, and supposed community work (still unclear on that), living in a lake-front condo.
All of which puts Obama is in the top 10 % of our country’s social structure.

[waveomatic]

I am saying he wasn't born into millions, he DID work hard to achieve where he is, not like "W" who got it for doing nothing.
Barack Obama: Dreams from my Father

The US is a nation of immigrants and migrants who re-invent themselves in their adopted home; and the children of immigrants who seek authenticity in forgotten ethnic traditions. Dreams from My Father (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1400082773/qid=1112591893/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/102-5335181-6095311?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), Barack Obama's autobiography written after graduation from Havard Law School, is part of a genre of American writing in search of roots. In Dreams from my Father, Obama goes searching for community and family, finds both, and find them to be different than he expected.
Barack Obama grew up in a mixed and peripatetic family. His mother's family had migrated to Hawaii from Kansas. His father was an African exchange student at the University of Hawaii. When Obama was two, his father left for Harvard, and returned only once for a brief visit eight years later. Growing up, Obama spent several years in Indonesia with his mother and Indonesian stepfather, then was raised by his grandparents while his mother did graduate research overseas.


Search for community
As a young adult, Obama set off in search of community and purpose, with the great role models of the civil rights movement. To his great credit, he succeeds and finds these things.
The glory days of the civil rights movement were long gone when Obama gets an organizing job in a poor neighborhood on Chicago's South Side plagued by crumbling public housing, disappearing manufacturing jobs, and rising crime. Obama deciphers the limits of their starting position. The group's founder is a Jewish man who is not fully trusted by the community. Its initial allies are the the Catholic Churches, which have an uneasy relationship with their new African-American parishioners. Chicago has just elected Harold Washington, its first Black major who is worshipped as a cult figure, but whose patronage is delivering limited benefits to the communities that elected him.
At the same time that Obama deciphers the political landscape, he makes personal connections. He becomes close with the three middle-aged African-American women who are core to the organization, and develops a friendship with an eccentric, pot-smoking Catholic organizer who wears a clerical collar and a "deacon" t-shirt. He looks out for Kyle, the teenage son of a volunteer who is in danger of getting into trouble. One of the most moving bits in the book where Obama tells the group he is headed off to Harvard Law school, and promises his friends in the neighborhood that he'll be back.
The mix of idealism, political perceptiveness and personal connection are the origins of Obama's political career.


The Limits of "Organizing"
After a series of ignominious defeats, the persistence, skill and empathy of Obama's group begins to pay off. They organize cleanup for the housing project, job training for the neighborhood, mentoring for school kids.
To this reader, though, the section reveals the strength and the limits of the "organizer" model, in which a stranger rides into town, lives in a community, and encourages the locals to demand their rights. The "organizer" helps the powerless to organize and demand their rights from the powerful. This model may be idea for those in abject need, but it underestimates the power that local people have.
Obama visits the scraggly remains of the neighborhood's main retail district trying to get a job training center into a local storefront. I couldn't help but think that the neighborhood needs a traditional chamber of commerce approach to tally up the areas assets, and bring businesses. Walgreens is probably in the neighborhod now. (Later in the book, Obama's African stepbrother Roy starts an import business with the intention of bringing in unemployed relatives; that entrepreneurial attitude sees unused resources as opportunity).
Following a public forum where the neighborhood people demand basic maintenance for public housing project, the bureacrats explain that the Housing Authority budget -- set from Washington -- allows for asbestos removal, or basic repairs, but not both. Washington DC is much too far away to smell overflowing toilets.
Those of you who have done more organizing that I have can tell me if I'm full of nonsense, or whether there's a need for a model that is more empowered and entrepreneurial than the traditional democratic model of "demanding your rights", yet more community-spirited than the traditional republican model of every man for himself and rewards to the deserving wealthy.


Search for family and identity
Obama's search for community in Chicago is linked to a personal search for family and identity, which culminates in the last third of the book.
Feeling out of place in high school, Obama gravitates toward the black kids and works to embrace an African-American culture that matches others' expectations of his appearance, but is different from his upringing and background.
Obama admits and honestly scrutinizes his own ambivalence about ethnic authenticity. At prep school, he teases a friend from LA about taking on a "bad-assed ****** pose" and the friend retorts "a pose? speak for yourself". In college Obama deliberately hangs out with the campus radical crowd to assert his racial credentials (his words); the present narrator acknowledges the shallowness of the college identity politics. In Chicago, the narrator confesses a fear that if he told his friends about his mixed-race, Hawaiian background they wouldn't like him -- but he tells him and they adopt him anyway.
While Obama relentlessly catalogs the ambiguities and subtleties of African-American identity, there are a few places where he doesn't acknowledge quite enough. When Obama started the organizing job, one of the initial challenges was the resentment of the three middle-aged women who'd been running the show, who were annoyed that the boss had brought in a young, good-looking, tall guy to take charge (in the grand tradition of non-profits, where diligent women do the work, and men take the title and the credit.) Obama has his own intelligence, discipline, charm and empathy to credit his success, but he doesn't fully acknowledge the benefits of the middle class outlook and male privilege that code him as "in charge" and "going places."
A trip to Kenya before law school is an opportunity for discovery and healing. Obama grew up with an idealized vision of his father, which both intimidated and inspired him. As he gets to know his African family, he finds out that his father's life was more complex and less perfect than the idealized image.
It turns out that Obama's father had a wife and children in Africa before coming to Hawaii. Barack Senior met yet a third woman at Harvard, who moved to Africa and raised several more children in the extended Obama family. Barack senior is smart and ambitious, and initially successful. But he runs afoul of the Kenyan dictatorship in his arrogance and naivete, loses his job and is blacklisted. Uneployed and broke, he turns to alcohol and delusions of grandeur, while his children raise themselves. He is rehabilitated later by a new regime, but the damage he has done to his family leaves ongoing bitterness after his death.
In Kenya, Barack Junior finds a family that is loving, close, and welcoming but beset with problems -- feuds, alcoholism, poverty. The affectionate welcome also seems like a down payment against future financial success. The climax of the trip to Kenya is a tale by his grandmother about his grandfather. Also an ambiguous figure, Hossein Onyango is a capable servant to white rulers and a prosperous farmer; he is also imperious and cruel to his wives and children.
The stories that Obama hears on his trip make things more complicated, not simpler. The stories provide context for the personality flaws, passions, that which are more meaningful, more admirable, and more forgivable, than a shallow but false idealized image.


From Many, One
Which is the theme of the book. Obama's ideals -- community organizing, close family -- turn out to be less simple and more ambiguous than expected. As an adult, Obama learns to turn those complexities into compassionate synthesis rather than scornful disillusion.
The synthesis what drove Obama's moving speech at the DNC last summer.
If there is a child on the South Side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription drugs and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandparent. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It is that fundamental belief -- that I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper-- that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family. E Pluribus Unum. From many one.

[bucking10]

I am saying he wasn't born into millions, he DID work hard to achieve where he is, not like "W" who got it for doing nothing.

He WAS born into millions.

[waveomatic]

His father was an African exchange student at the University of Hawaii. When Obama was two, his father left for Harvard, and returned only once for a brief visit eight years later.

He wasn't rich, he couldn't go back to see his family for 8 years, all money was going to his education.

[waveomatic]

Bucking, can I ask you who you are voting for this election and why? Off topic. I ask from curiosity and because I like how you get into subjects, whether I agree with you or not on the topics, I do like how you research your point of view

[bucking10]

He wasn't rich, he couldn't go back to see his family for 8 years, all money was going to his education.


Obama SNR:

At 18, he married a girl called Kezia. But Obama Snr was more interested in politics and economics than his family and his political leanings had been brought to the notice of leaders of the Kenyan Independence movement.
He was put forward for an American-sponsored scholarship in economics, with the idea being that he would eventually use his Western-honed skills in the new Kenya. At the age of 23 he headed for university in Hawaii, leaving behind the pregnant Kezia and their baby son.
Relatives say he was already a slick womaniser and, once in Honolulu, he promptly persuaded a fellow student called Ann - a naive 18-year-old white girl - to marry him. Barack Jnr was born in August, 1961.
Two years later, Obama Snr was on the move again. He was accepted at Harvard, and left his little boy and wife behind when he moved to the exclusive east coast university.
At the time, Ann explained to their son that his father had gone because his meagre stipend would not support the family if they lived together. But finance was the least of her worries.
Mr Obama Jnr claims that racism on both sides of the family destroyed the marriage between his mother and father.
In his book, he says that Ann's mother, who went by the nickname Tut, did not want a black son-in-law, and Obama Snr's father 'didn't want the Obama blood sullied by a white woman'.
In fact Ann divorced her husband after she discovered his bigamous double life. She remarried and moved to Indonesia with young Barack and her new husband, an oil company manager.
Obama Snr was forced to return to Kenya, where he fathered two more children by Kezia. He was eventually hired as a top civil servant in the fledgling government of Jomo Kenyatta - and married yet again.
Now prosperous with a flashy car and good salary, his third wife was an American-born teacher called Ruth, whom he had met at Harvard while still legally married to both Kezia and Ann, and who followed him to Africa.
A relative of Mr Obama says: "We told him[Barack] how his father would still go to Kezia and it was during these visits that she became pregnant with two more children. He also had two children with Ruth."
It is alleged that Ruth finally left him after he repeatedly flew into whisky-fuelled rages, beating her brutally.
Friends say drinking blighted his life - he lost both his legs while driving under the influence and also lost his job.

[bucking10]

Bucking, can I ask you who you are voting for this election and why? Off topic. I ask from curiosity and because I like how you get into subjects, whether I agree with you or not on the topics, I do like how you research your point of view

I haven't decided on ho I'm voting for this election.

[waveomatic]

Obama Sr. was born on the shores of Lake Victoria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Victoria) in Nyang’oma Kogelo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyang%E2%80%99oma_Kogelo), Alego (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alego_Constituency), Siaya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siaya_District), Kenya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya) to Hussein Onyango Obama (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onyango_Obama) (c. 1895–1979), and Akumu Habiba (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akuma_Obama).[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.#cite_note-genealogy-0) His family are members of the Luo tribe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luo_%28Kenya_and_Tanzania%29). He was raised as a Muslim, but later became an atheist.[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.#cite_note-spiritual_journey-5) He grew up in Nyang’oma Kogelo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyang%E2%80%99oma_Kogelo), and was married at 18 in a tribal ceremony to Kezia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kezia_Obama). They had four children, two of them after he returned to Kenya from the United States. The marriage was never legally dissolved, and she now lives in Bracknell, England (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracknell).[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.#cite_note-6)

Education

Due to a program offering Western educational opportunities to outstanding Kenyan students that was organized by nationalist leader Tom Mboya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Mboya),[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.#cite_note-Overstate-7) Obama Sr. was awarded a scholarship in economics, and at the age of 23 he enrolled at the University of Hawaii (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Hawaii). He left behind a pregnant Kezia and their infant son. As his son Senator Obama has said, "The Kennedys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy) decided: 'We're going to do an airlift. We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is. This young man named Barack Obama [Sr.] got one of those tickets and came over to this country.'"[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.#cite_note-xan-rice-8) An article by Michael Dobbs in The Washington Post (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post), however, states that the Kennedy family did not become associated with the educational airlift until 1960, a year after Obama Sr. was studying in the United States. Initial financial supporters of the program included Harry Belafonte (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Belafonte), Sidney Poitier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Poitier), Jackie Robinson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Robinson), and Elizabeth Mooney Kirk, a literacy advocate who provided most of the financial support for Obama Sr.'s early years in the United States, according to the Tom Mboya archives at Stanford University (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University).[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.#cite_note-Overstate-7)
Obama Sr. had already turned away from Islam and became an atheist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist) by the time he moved to the United States.[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.#cite_note-spiritual_journey-5) Barack Obama Sr.'s daughter Auma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auma_Obama) has commented that her father "was never a Muslim although he was born into a Muslim family with a Muslim name."[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.#cite_note-xan-rice-8)
On 21 February 1961, Obama Sr. married a fellow student, Ann Dunham (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Dunham) in Maui (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maui), Hawaii (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii).[10] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.#cite_note-9) Their son, Barack Obama, was born on August 4, 1961. Two years later, Obama Sr. was accepted at Harvard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard) for graduate study. He moved to Massachusetts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts) while Ann and their son remained in Hawaii. He and Dunham divorced in 1963. The divorce was filed in Honolulu, Hawaii (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honolulu,_Hawaii) in January 1964, and he only saw his son again once, at age 10. He received a Masters degree (AM) from Harvard in 1965.[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.#cite_note-10)
At Harvard, he met an American-born teacher named Ruth Nidesand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Nidesand) who would follow him to Kenya when he returned after completing his Masters degree. She eventually became his third wife and had two children with him before they divorced.[12] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.#cite_note-Ochieng-11)

Return to Kenya

On his return to Kenya, Obama Sr. was hired by an oil company and then served as an economist in the Ministry of Transportation, and later became senior economist in the Kenyan Ministry of Finance.[13] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.#cite_note-Ghost-12) In 1965 Obama Sr. wrote a paper titled "Problems Facing Our Socialism," published in the East Africa Journal, harshly criticizing the blueprint for national planning titled "African Socialism and Its Applicability to Planning in Kenya" produced by Tom Mboya's Ministry of Economic Planning and Development.[14] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.#cite_note-13) As Senator Barack Obama describes in his memoir, his father's conflict with President Kenyatta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jomo_Kenyatta) destroyed his career.
Obama Sr.'s life then took a tailspin into drinking and poverty, from which he never recovered. His friend, Kenyan journalist Philip Ochieng, has described Obama Sr.'s difficult personality and drinking problems in the Kenya newspaper The Nation.[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.#cite_note-Overstate-7) Obama Sr. lost both legs in an automobile accident, and subsequently lost his job. He died not long afterward at the age of 46 in a car crash in Nairobi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nairobi).[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.#cite_note-Overstate-7)
Obama Sr. is buried in Alego (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alego), at the village of Nyang’oma Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya.

[waveomatic]

His father didn't raise him, nor is Barack Sr. running for office. This man is...







Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honolulu,_Hawaii), Hawaii (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii), to Barack Obama, Sr. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama,_Sr.), a black Kenyan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenyan) of Nyang’oma Kogelo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyang%E2%80%99oma_Kogelo), Siaya District (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siaya_District), Kenya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya), and Ann Dunham (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Dunham), a White American (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_American) from Wichita (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wichita,_Kansas), Kansas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas).[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-1) His parents met while attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Hawaii_at_Manoa), where his father was a foreign student.[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-2) They separated when he was two years old and later divorced.[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-3) Obama's father returned to Kenya and saw his son only once more before dying in an automobile accident in 1982.[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-4) After her divorce, Dunham married Lolo Soetoro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolo_Soetoro), and the family moved to Soetoro's home country of Indonesia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia) in 1967, where Obama attended local schools in Jakarta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakarta) until he was ten years old. He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madelyn_and_Stanley_Dunham) while attending Punahou School (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punahou_School) from the fifth grade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_United_States#School_grades) in 1971 until his graduation from high school in 1979.[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-5) Obama's mother returned to Hawaii in 1972 for several years and then back to Indonesia for her fieldwork. She died of ovarian cancer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovarian_cancer) in 1995.[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-6) As an adult Obama admitted that during high school he used marijuana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijuana), cocaine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine), and alcohol, which he described at the 2008 Civil Forum on the Presidency (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Forum_on_the_Presidency) as his greatest moral failure.[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-7)[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-8)
Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles,_California), where he studied at Occidental College (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occidental_College) for two years.[10] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-9) He then transferred to Columbia University (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_College_of_Columbia_University) in New York City (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City), where he majored in political science (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_science) with a specialization in international relations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_relations).[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-10) Obama graduated with a B.A. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor_of_Arts) from Columbia in 1983, then worked for a year at the Business International Corporation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_International_Corporation)[12] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-11) and then at the New York Public Interest Research Group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Public_Interest_Research_Group).[13] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-Who.27s_Who_2008-12)[14] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-13)
After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago), where he was hired as director of Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_organizing) originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseland,_Chicago), West Pullman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Pullman,_Chicago), and Riverdale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverdale,_Chicago)) on Chicago's far South Side (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Side_%28Chicago%29), and worked there for three years from June 1985 to May 1988.[13] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-Who.27s_Who_2008-12)[15] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-14) During his three years as the DCP's director, its staff grew from one to thirteen and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000, with accomplishments including helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altgeld_Gardens,_Chicago).[16] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-15) Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamaliel_Foundation), a community organizing institute.[17] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-16) In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time to Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of his Kenyan relatives (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_of_Barack_Obama#Paternal_relations) for the first time.[18] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-17)
Obama entered Harvard Law School (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Law_School) in late 1988. At the end of his first year, he was selected, based on his grades and a writing competition, as an editor of the Harvard Law Review (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Law_Review).[19] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-Harvard_Law_2007-18) In February 1990, in his second year, he was elected president of the Law Review, a full-time volunteer position functioning as editor-in-chief and supervising the Law Review's staff of eighty editors.[20] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-Harvard_Law_1990-19) Obama's election as the first black president of the Law Review (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African-American_firsts) was widely reported and followed by several long, detailed profiles.[20] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-Harvard_Law_1990-19) During his summers, he returned to Chicago where he worked as a summer associate at the law firms of Sidley & Austin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidley_Austin) in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990.[21] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-20) After graduating with a Juris Doctor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juris_Doctor) (J.D. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.D.)) magna cum laude (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_honors) from Harvard in 1991, he returned to Chicago.[19] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-Harvard_Law_2007-18)
T

[waveomatic]

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama#cite_note-Harvard_Law_2007-18)

[wajero2007]

He was recruited. End of story. Just like FDR. President doesnt decide anything.. and if he will try he will be next JFK or Nixon.

[waveomatic]

I haven't decided on ho I'm voting for this election.

I feel you man, at least your looking into things that matter to you, thats dope. To me, I also look for qualities like this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_zWbsJr45k