14. OBAMA STRIVES TO "CHANGE" AMERICA

OBAMA – AND THE 2008 ELECTIONS

Obama was born in 1961 to two students at the University of Hawaii – a White mother, Ann Dunham, from Kansas and a Black father, Barack Obama, from Kenya, the two marrying just before Barry (the name he went by during his pre-teen years) was born.  But soon after his birth, his mother took Barry with her for her studies in Washington State, and his father the next year moved on to study at Harvard.  Then, following their divorce in 1964, he returned to Kenya (actually he was already married to a Kenyan woman at the time).  Young Barry would see his father only once more, very briefly in 1971 when he was age ten.^[2]

His mother returned to Hawaii, married an Indonesian student, Lolo Soetoro, a Muslim by background but quite Western in attitude – at least as long as they were still in the States.  But the family moved to Indonesia in 1967 when Barry was six (his step-father worked with American oil companies), where Barry would take up schooling, first at a Catholic school (three years) and then a public school (Islamic, as Indonesia itself was largely Islamic).  Actually, this highly varied religious experience did not dig deeply into Barry's life, especially as his mother was something of a self-designed spiritualist.

In 1971 Barry was sent back to Hawaii to live with his White grandparents, joined the next year by his mother, who had returned to Hawaii to finish her doctorate, and his younger half-sister Maya. That fall Barry was able to enter 5^th grade at the prestigious Punahou School, thanks to a scholarship – and the hard work of his grandmother, who paid the balance of the costs (his grandfather was retired).  Four years later (1975) his mother returned to Indonesia and Barry would continue on at Punahou, finally graduating in 1979 as "Barack," now preferring the more exotic sound of his father's name.

Indeed, although Hawaii was a land of many races, young Barack had found getting a fix on his own identity problematic.  As a male, he had grown up with largely only strong-willed women to guide him in his personal development, the male input (again, typical of Gen-Xers anyway) largely lacking.  He would idealize his African father[3], but receive no actual direction from him on the path of male development.  And high school drug use would not help the situation any.

He headed on to California and Occidental College, but two years later, with a scholarship in hand, transferring to the more prestigious Columbia University in New York City – to major in political science.  While he was there, he naturally explored that world, in the process discovering the Black cultural world of Harlem to be very inviting.  And thus it was that he began to secure his own identity – despite his "White" upbringing – as "Black."  And he would eventually become quite purposeful in confirming that particular racial identity.  The White world would no longer be his, but instead a highly problematic matter for him.

This process did not happen immediately, but instead developed in stages.  At first, upon graduation in 1983, he took a job with a corporation helping businesses invest and operate abroad.  But that work did not appeal to him.  Then he joined Ralph Nader's campus activist organization, before moving to Chicago (1985) to work with a Catholic organization doing community development work in the city – helping to administer a number of developmental programs, including legal support.

Thus he found himself fascinated by the power of law, and after three years in Chicago headed off to Harvard Law School.  Here he became a very focused, hard-working law student.  Indeed, at the end of his first year he was elected as an editor of The Harvard Law Review.  The next year he was even elected president and editor-in-chief of the Review.

During the two summers between classes, he headed back to Chicago for internships, the first summer (1989) interning under Michelle Robinson, a Princeton University and Harvard Law School graduate, who had joined the firm only the previous year.  By the end of the summer they were actually dating (they would marry three years later, in October of 1992).

Upon graduation in 1991 from Harvard Law summa cum laude (with highest honors) he returned to Chicago and took a position at the University of Chicago as a Visiting Fellow, also working hard in directing a massive voter-register drive designed to get Blacks on the voting lists.  His work in this matter would bring him serious national political attention (as well as his book, Dreams from My Father, which he was putting together at the same time).

Soon he was appointed to the board of directors of a number of major community development corporations, at the same time that he moved up the ranks as Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School.

But the death of his mother in 1995 would shake up his world, when uterine cancer forced her to return to the States in early 1995 – to then die that November.  Not only had her disease and death been a heartbreaker for Obama, all the hassle to get medical attention and accompanying medical insurance coverage for such treatment had also deepened his despair greatly.  It would leave him deeply committed to the idea that something was badly needed to improve such a draining medical system.

The following year (1996) Obama would enter the elective-office world, taking up a vacated seat in the Illinois Senate, then being reelected in 1998 and again in 2002. Meanwhile he had made a run for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, but lost that race rather substantially.  But he was determined to enter national service, and took on the challenge of a race for the U.S. Senate in 2004 – easily winning the spot as the Democratic Party candidate.  And as the election approached, his Republican opponent resigned his candidacy over a sex scandal, opening the door for Obama to an easy win (70% of the state's vote) that November.

Now a U.S. Senator (January 2005) he was assigned to several committees as a junior member, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee being the top of the list in importance ... allowing him some considerable travel abroad.

Then Oprah stepped into the picture in September of 2006, finding in Obama everything she longed to see in a political figure, and worked hard at promoting the idea that, although Obama had no serious amount of experience in political administration, he would make a wonderful U.S. president – representing personally all the values that she supported.  She put more muscle into the effort, interviewing Obama again the following month, with his wife Michelle also participating.  And Oprah pushed Obama's second book, The Audacity of Hope to the number one spot on both The New York Times and Amazon's bestseller list.  And thus it was that Obama became a very serious contender in the 2008 race for the U.S. presidency.

As for the presidential campaign itself, a large field of contenders had narrowed down by early 2008 to only two contenders, Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Along the way a sad event had taken place for Obama, when a sermon delivered by the Chicago pastor Jeremiah Wright was presented in part on the ABC News, showing the Rev. Wright repeatedly cursing America for its failings.  Despite the fact that this pastor had served as something like the father that Obama had long needed – for twenty years, in fact – Obama distanced himself not only from the comments, but from the man himself. Indeed, Obama soon went before the nation in a televised address to deliver a speech "A More Perfect Union," in which he explained his negative views on racism, racism of any sorts.

In the end the controversy and his public response probably helped considerably move his candidacy ahead within the Democratic Party primary process.  For indeed at this point he pulled ahead in the race, and in June Clinton dropped out.  But this had an additional side effect, for in distancing himself from the Rev. Wright, Obama would not find another such pastoral figure to support his spiritual journey as president.

This would merely increase the Secular nature of the leadership flowing from the White House with Obama in place there (January 2009).   This was sad for both the Obama family and the nation.