Posted on 07/27/2004 7:51:30 PM PDT by jmstein7
One rival politician from his home state of Illinois has called Barack Obama "the Tiger Woods of politics."
But that comparison is unfair - to Obama. The 42-year-old U.S. Senate front-runner and Tuesday night's keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention is having a much, much better year than the struggling golfer.
Obama's already been the subject of a publicity avalanche that's included a 5,744-word profile in the New Yorker - not bad for a politician who's never been elected to anything higher than the Illinois state Senate.
Bidding to become just the third African-American since Reconstruction to win a Senate seat, Obama has been leading by 20 percent in the polls - and that was before his original GOP foe dropped out because of a lurid sex scandal.
Even before the balloons and confetti were swept up from his Democratic primary victory in March, the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "If he is elected in November, Obama will immediately replace Colin Powell as the person most talked about to be the first African-American elected president of the United States."
Who the heck is this guy? Here are 10 things you might want to know about Tuesday night's star, Barack Obama.
1. He has a remarkable bio - one that prompted the Democrat's 2000 keynote speaker, Harold Ford Jr., to call him "an American story."
His father was a Kenyan - also named Barack Obama - who was studying economics in Hawaii and later left for Harvard and then his home country, never to return. His mother was an 18-year-old white woman from Kansas. Her second husband was an Indonesian oil manager, so Obama spent part of his youth in Jakarta.
His family struggled, but Obama went to Hawaii's top prep school, then Columbia and Harvard Law School, where he was the first African-American to edit the law review.
2. His first name means "blessing" in Swahili. On the campaign trail, he wins voters over by joking about his unusual name and says that it rhymes with "Yo Mama" - although he steers away from its rhyme to a certain Middle Eastern terrorist.
3. He declared that Iraq didn't have ties to al-Qaida or weapons of mass destruction - back in 2002. The same autumn that candidates John Kerry and John Edwards were voting to authorize President Bush to go to war, Obama was speaking at anti-war rallies.
"I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars," he said two years ago.
4. He can be candid about his past. In 1995, he published his autobiography, "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," and admitted that as a teenager he experimented not only with marijuana but with cocaine.
"I guess you'd have to say I wasn't a politician when I wrote the book," he told the New Yorker. "I wanted to show how and why some kids, maybe especially young black men, flirt with danger and self-destruction."
5. He's very supportive of Bill Cosby's recent controversial comments about African-American teenagers, their parents, and black popular culture.
"I understand the basic premise that Bill Cosby was talking about, and I think he's right about it," Obama said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "There's got to be an element of individual responsibility and communal responsibility for the uplift of the people in inner-city communities."
6. When asked, he says he considers himself an African-American. "The reason that I've always been comfortable with that description is not a denial of my mother's side of the family," Obama told the New York Times. "Rather, it's just a belief that the term African-American is by definition a hybrid term. African-Americans are a hybrid people. We're mingled with African culture and Native American culture and European culture."
He added later: "If I was arrested for armed robbery and my mug shot was on the television screen, people wouldn't be debating if I was African-American or not. I'd be a black man going to jail. Now if that's true when bad things are happening, there's no reason why I shouldn't be proud of being a black man when good things are happening, too."
7. He's unapologetically liberal. After law school, Obama shunned white-shoe law firms and worked as a community organizer in a poverty-stricken Chicago neighborhood.
As a state lawmaker, he pushed for death-penalty reforms and an end to racial profiling. He also pushed for health-care coverage for children.
8. He's not only a good candidate, but a lucky one. The man he was supposed to run against, Republican Jack Ryan, dropped out recently when unsealed divorce papers said he had dragged his wife, TV actress Jeri Lynn Ryan, to sex clubs. Possible replacement candidates, like former Chicago Bears football coach Mike Ditka, have shied away from taking on Obama.
If he wins in November, Obama will become only the second black Democratic senator, after Carol Moseley Braun, also of Illinois. Massachusetts elected a black Republican, Edward Brooke, in the 1960s and '70s.
9. He's ready for prime time, but apparently not on the major broadcast networks. ABC, NBC and CBS, which used to offer wall-to-wall convention coverage, didn't televise the convention at all Tuesday night.
When Obama took the stage around 10 p.m., the networks were airing shows like "Last Comic Standing" and "Navy NCIS." But you could catch the speech on the major cable news channels or C-SPAN.
10. He really could end up in the White House. Why not? He's not only brilliant and a good public speaker but has movie-star good looks and a great story to tell. He's a bit to the political left, but some pundits already see Obama drifting to the center.
Illinois state Senate President Emil Jones recently told a youngster at an event that if his parents voted Obama into the Senate, then he would have a chance to vote for him for president someday.
The "problem"?
I didn't say he was a poor speaker. A poster, not you, said that the speech was "overpowering" and I said it was not. You then wanted to talk it being a good speech compared with convention speeches.
I never said it was a bad speech. One can give a good speech but that doesn't automatically make it reach the heights of "overpowering".
Good night
I have seen this guy speek a few times on TV. He is indeed going to be trouble sometime down the road--he's going to be a Senator, no doubt about it...unless there's some superstar candidate the GOP can pull out of the hat very soon.
They're playing to the swing voters. They don't dare show the true extent of their hate. I can't get a good mad on either and that makes me mad.
It's been a dreaddful convention and I don't see it getting any better.
I think the guy is scary good.
Hell I am looking forward to New York just to see the anarchists going nuts. This is the first time I really believe that a candidate will go down in support after his convention.
I just don't see it.
I have to agree, he is a black Klinton. Now I don't know about the womanizing thing with him, but he certainly can tell people what they want to hear and make them believe he means it. He is SCARY
He is young, charismatic, articulate, and can deliver a good speech.
How can he say that shite? I thought it was wrong to be proud of one's skin tone ('sides....he is half cracker anyhow)
I could care less....red yellow black white hetero queer anglo hispanic or "continental African..lol" ...they are all the same to me.....THE ENEMY!
OK you have just described Jesse Jackson 20 years ago. Now, do you remember any of his speech?
She'd be threatened by him.
I guess .. but did you catch the look on her and Jesse Jackson's face after he was finished speaking??
They were very pleased with themselves
You mean aside from his hatred for traditional America and its families as evidenced by his socialist, looney-left voting record in Illinois? Here - - educate yourself:
Obama is a scumbag.
Can Kerry's divorce papers (re: Julia Stimson) be published likewise?
I just can't see Kerry getting a big BUMP from this convention.The V.P.'s been named,Terry Kerry was ghastly tonight,maybe Edwards will give a "good" speech,but Kerry,himself can't...he make algor look alive.
He has a lovely wife.
Yes, everyone was saying the same things about Ford from TN not long ago, haven't seen him on TV in a LONG time.
It couldn't have been a Kamehameha school, because they only take students of Hawaiian blood. A year ago, a white kid sued to get into the school, and all the liberal locals protested his action. It didn't get much antional attention, however.
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