| Senator of Illinois:
In 1996, Obama decided to run for the senator of Illinois from 13 electoral districts, after garnering support of existing senator of State, Alice Palmer, from Democratic party, who had decided to participate in elections in House of Representatives. But Palmer lost the elections and demanded that Obama too withdraws his name from elections in Senate of State. However, Obama refused to do so. Palmer hurriedly lodged the application for participation in elections in the senate, but was disqualified after checking the signatures for her nomination, upon which Obama insisted. Subsequently, Obama managed to be ahead of other candidates from Democratic Party in primaries and won the elections with big margin against Republican Party candidate.
Obama represented Democratic Party in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. In this post, Obama worked both with Democrats as well as with Republicans: along with representatives of both parties, Obama worked on programs to support the low-income families through reduction of taxes. Obama projected himself as an active supporter for the development of preschool education. He also supported the measures on toughening the control over working of investigating bodies: due to his efforts, laws were adopted in the state, which demand recording the interrogations of people, arrested for attempt to murder, on video camera and also maintain statistics of race details of drivers, who were intercepted by policemen.
In 2000, Obama made an attempt to run in elections for House of Representatives from 13th electoral district of Illinois. In primaries, his opponent was an existing congressman Bobby Rush - former member of "Black Panthers" movement. Shortly before this, Rush lost the elections for the post of mayor of Chicago, however, he made a lustrous pre-election campaign for House of Representatives and in primaries, received two times more votes than Obama, whereas, mainly white population voted for Obama. After losing in the elections for House of Representatives, Obama quickly restored popularity amongst the black population. In January 2002, after the democrats got majority in the State Senate, he became Chairman of Health and Human Services Committee.
In 2002, Obama gained popularity for his speech in an anti-war meeting in Chicago, during which he criticized the George Bush Administration for operations in Iraq.
Career in US Senate:
In 2004, Obama entered the race for one of the posts from Illinois in US Senate. Barack Obama won convincingly over six opponents during primaries. Obama's chances of victory increased when his Republican opponent "Jack Ryan" was forced to withdraw his nomination: reason was scandalous charges moved against Ryan during his divorce case.
On July 29, 2004, during the pre-election campaign, Obama addressed the national convention of Democratic Party. His speech was broadcasted on television and made Barack Obama extremely popular in USA. Senate candidate urged the audience to return to the roots of American society and once again make USA a country of "open possibilities": he illustrated on examples of his own and his father's biography as an ideal for open possibilities.
In elections for Senate, Obama had confident victory over Republican Alan Keyes, by collecting 70 % of votes. He assumed office on January 4, 2005 and became fifth black senator in the history of USA. Subsequently, experts noted that, as in Chicago, Obama would quickly adapt to political climate of Washington and create coalition of supporters.
Barack Obama became a member of several committees of Senate: on environmental issues and community works, on issues, pertaining to veterans and on international relations.
As before, in Senate of state, Obama worked in close association with Republicans on various issues, particularly over legislation on transparency of government activities. Apart from this, Obama visited Russia along with Richard Lugar, well-known senator-Republican: trip was dedicated towards cooperation in nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In general, Obama voted in the Senate in accordance with liberal side of Democratic Party. He paid special attention to the idea of developing alternative energy sources. |
President Barack “O-bow-ma” bowed again, this time to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
Obama first raised public brows when he apparently bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Just recently he also gave a bow to another foreign leader - Japan's Emperor Akihito. Republicans ask "How low will he go?"
