Barack Hussein Obama

Barack Hussein Obama
Party: Democratic
Date of birth: 4-8-1961
Place of birth: Honolulu, Hawaii
Quote: "I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington... I'm asking you to believe in yours."
Personal profile
He is African-American, the son of Barack Obama Sr - a black Kenyan who went to the US on a study scholarship - and Anne Dunham, a white woman with wanderlust from Kansas.
He lived in Indonesia from the age of six to 10 with his mother and stepfather, before returning to live in the pacific island of Hawaii with his grandparents while his mother remained abroad.
A former community organiser on the South Side of Chicago, Obama shot to national prominence when he delivered an inspirational keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. He is accustomed to breaking barriers, becoming the first ever African-American president of the Harvard Law Review in 1991 and only the fifth African-American US senator just four years ago.
He is the 'rock star' candidate. In fact he said to one audience: "I just told (wife) Michelle backstage that the reason I'm running for president is because I can't be Bruce Springsteen." And he regularly delights massive crowds with his message of hope and change.
In short, he is not your average presidential candidate. He often says that his story is possible "only in America," and it certainly hasn't been mirrored anywhere else in the Western world.
Leadership
Obama lacks executive experience, and has never run anything bigger than his own election campaigns. However, if his campaigns are an indication of how he will run the White House, expect an extremely disciplined administration flush with a close team of highly skilled advisers.
He is an academic and fluent communicator, who likes to conduct extensive research and solicit expertise. He considers as many ideas and opinions as possible before deciding on the best solution to a problem. He wants to "suck the room of every idea," said Valerie Jarrett, a close adviser. This suggests his policies will be meticulously thought through and he will try to reach out to opponents and facilitate consensus, although he has no problem disregarding advice that he does not agree with.
Critics suggest that he may be uncomfortable making decisions quickly or abandoning a careful plan when circumstances dictate that he must.
Key issues
The National Journal ranked Obama as having the most liberal voting in the US senate in 2007. However, others argue that he is a consensus-seeking pragmatist with the broad aim of social renewal.
Economy
Obama would abolish Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy and increase taxes on Americans earning over $250,000 a year, while providing targeted tax relief to low and middle-income Americans and small and start-up businesses.
He claims that 95 per cent of Americans will experience tax cuts under his administration. He aims to create jobs by investing $150 billion over 10 years, create five million new green jobs and invest $25 in repairing infrastructure. Obama had called for the restructuring of the financial regulatory system months before the onset of the economic crisis.
Social issues
Obama is solidly pro-choice on abortion and advocates embryonic stem cell research. He opposes gay marriage but also opposes a federal constitutional amendment to ban it. He supports gay civil unions and gay adoptions. In the Illinois legislature, he pushed reforms to prevent innocent people from being executed, but supports the death penalty in extreme circumstances.
Iraq
Obama opposed the war in Iraq from the outset, claiming that "even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences."
Obama supports a phased withdrawal of US forces, with all troops out of combat operations within 16 months of taking office and only a residual force remaining to conduct targeted counter-terrorism missions and protect American diplomatic and civilian personnel.
Foreign policy and security
Obama believes that the war in Iraq distracted the US from the "central front of the War on Terror" in Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan. He intends working with allies to commit more troops and resources and has said that if America received specific intelligence about the whereabouts of Al-Qaeda fugitives inside Pakistan, then he is prepared to act unilaterally if necessary.
Obama hopes to improve US standing in the world by building and restoring alliances without surrendering American interests. He will seek dramatic reductions in US and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons and aims to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
He has called for the closure of Guantanamo Bay and said he is prepared to meet the Iranian leadership for face-to-face talks without preconditions.
Campaign
Perhaps more than any candidate before him, Obama has energised voters - particularly youngsters - and his campaign team have overseen the creation of an unprecedented grassroots operation.
His army of volunteers devote their time to knocking on doors, making calls, helping to register likely Obama voters and helping them to cast their ballot early. Early voting normally favours Republican candidates, but figures released in the past few days show that registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans.
Obama has tried to distance himself from negative campaigning, and his main line of attack is that McCain represents another four years of the "failed policies" of George W. Bush.
Although the Obama campaign has refused to accept donations from Washington lobbyists or political action committees, it has raised a more than $600 million, almost equalling the combined amount both major candidates raised in the 2004 presidential election. This staggering sum has come from more than three million individual donors, many of whom donated small sums over the internet. The impressive fighting fund has helped Obama to dominate advertising space in key states during recent weeks. Last week, the Obama campaign purchased half-hour, prime-time advertisement slots on seven major US TV channels, at a cost of $1 million each.