Dov seidman biography of barack obama

A victory in the Iowa primary made him a viable challenger to the early frontrunner, the former first lady and current New York Senator Hillary Clinton , whom he outlasted in a grueling primary campaign to claim the Democratic nomination in early June Obama chose Joseph R. Biden Jr. Biden had been a U. They worked to bring new voters—many of them young or Black, both demographics they believed favored Obama—to become involved in the election.

With several weeks remaining, most polls showed Obama as the frontrunner. On November 4, lines at polling stations around the nation heralded a historic turnout and resulted in a Democratic victory, with Obama capturing some Republican strongholds Virginia , Indiana and key battleground states Florida , Ohio that had been won by Republicans in recent elections.

Bush started, giving billions of dollars to car companies and banks so that they would not go bankrupt. He signed an act written by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd which would regulate Wall Street the financial industry to try to prevent another recession like this from happening again. Obamacare [ change change source ] Obama said he would change the health care system in the United States in order to make healthcare more affordable for Americans.

He received much criticism from Republicans , conservatives , libertarians , and members of the Tea Party as they believed that the federal government was becoming too big and spending too much money, and that his programs were not the best for the country. War in Iraq [ change change source ] Obama made a plan to slowly withdraw troops from Iraq , ending the War in Iraq by the end of , while adding more troops to Afghanistan to help the United States win the War in Afghanistan.

He also decided that the United States should help in the war against Libya. He has said several times that he wants to improve U. Obama reduced US participation in the Iraq War and continued the war on terror which resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden on May 2, Obama started a no-fly-zone policy on the Libyan civil war that ended in October with the killing of Muammar al-Gaddafi.

Economic policy [ change change source ] With rising economic deficits the amount of money the government borrows each month under his administration, he called for taxes to be increased on the rich. He criticized his Republican opponents for wanting to cut welfare benefits for the poor rather than raising taxes to help pay down the debt. Gun control [ change change source ] On December 14, , after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut occurred, Obama had said, "We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics".

On December 21, , Obama and his White House staff observed a moment of silence because of the school shooting in Connecticut. Before his second term began, there has been debating of guns because of the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut that happened on December 14, , as well as shootings in the past. Mitt Romney was officially nominated as his opponent by the Republican party on August 30, While the election results were very close, Obama easily won the electoral college votes he needed to win a second term.

Second term, —17 See the main article: Second inauguration of Barack Obama Obama was inaugurated for a second term privately only his family members could see on January 20, , at the White House. The next day, January 21, , he was inaugurated again, this time in public, at the United States Capitol. His mother and half-sister later joined them.

Obama struggled with the absence of his father, whom he saw only once more after his parents divorced when Obama Sr. He excelled in basketball and graduated with academic honors in As one of only three Black students at the school, he became conscious of racism and what it meant to be African American. He shares a mother with half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng and has five paternal half-siblings.

According to Oprah Daily , he has maintained a warm and close relationship with half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng. The two grew up together and both graduated from the Punahou School. So he really ended up being the man of the house. She and Barack met for the first time when they were in their 20s in Chicago. He and Barack have met several times following their introduction in Kenya.

Dov seidman biography of barack obama

Half-brother David Ndesandjo, born in Barack has only spoken to his youngest half-brother a few times. Obama entered Occidental College in Los Angeles in After two years, he transferred to Columbia University in New York City, graduating in with a degree in political science. After his undergrad studies, Obama worked in the business sector for two years.

He moved to Chicago in , where he worked on the impoverished South Side as a community organizer for low-income residents in the Roseland and the Altgeld Gardens communities. He also visited relatives in Kenya and paid an emotional visit to the graves of his biological father, who died in a car accident in November , and his paternal grandfather. The next year, he met with constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe.

Their discussion so impressed Tribe that when Obama asked to join his team as a research assistant, the professor agreed. He graduated magna cum laude with his juris doctor from Harvard Law School in There, he met Michelle Robinson, a young lawyer who was assigned to be his adviser. Initially, Michelle refused to date Barack, believing that their work relationship would make the romance improper.

However, she relented not long after, and the couple fell in love. Barack and Michelle welcomed two daughters several years later: Malia , born in , and Sasha , born in The couple has stated that their personal priority is their children. During his years as a state senator, Obama worked with both Democrats and Republicans to draft legislation on ethics, as well as expand health care services and early childhood education programs for the poor.

He also created a state earned-income tax credit for the working poor. In , Obama made an unsuccessful Democratic primary run for the U. House of Representatives seat held by four-term incumbent candidate Bobby Rush. Undeterred, he created a campaign committee in and began raising funds to run for a seat in the U. Senate in With the help of political consultant David Axelrod, Obama began assessing his prospects for a Senate win.

Illinois Senator Encouraged by poll numbers, Obama decided to run for the open U. Senate seat, vacated by Republican Peter Fitzgerald. In the Democratic primary, he defeated multimillionaire businessman Blair Hull and Illinois Comptroller Daniel Hynes with 52 percent of the vote. That summer, he was invited to deliver the keynote speech in support of John Kerry at the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

Obama emphasized the importance of unity and made veiled jabs at the George W. Bush administration and the diversionary use of wedge issues. After the convention, Obama returned to his U. Senate bid in Illinois. His opponent in the general election was supposed to be Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, a wealthy former investment banker.

However, Ryan withdrew from the race in June following public disclosure of unsubstantiated sexual deviancy allegations by his ex-wife, actor Jeri Ryan. That August, diplomat and former presidential candidate Alan Keyes accepted the Republican nomination to replace Ryan. With his win, Obama became only the third African American elected to the U.

Senate since Reconstruction. Sworn into office on January 3, , Obama partnered with Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana on a bill that expanded efforts to destroy weapons of mass destruction in Eastern Europe and Russia. Then, with Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, he created a website to track all federal spending. He was locked in a tight battle with then-U.

He campaigned on an ambitious agenda of financial reform, alternative energy, and reinventing education and health care—all while bringing down the national debt. Because these issues were intertwined with the economic well-being of the nation, he believed all would have to be undertaken simultaneously. When he took office at age 47, Obama inherited a global economic recession, two ongoing foreign wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the lowest-ever international favorability rating for the United States.

In foreign affairs, the United States still had troops deployed in difficult conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the first two years of his first term, President Obama was able to work with the Democratic-controlled Congress to improve the economy, pass health-care reform legislation, and withdraw most US troops from Iraq. After the Republicans won control of the House of Representatives in , the president spent significant time and political effort negotiating, for the most part unsuccessfully, with congressional Republicans about taxes, budgets, and the deficit.

After winning reelection in , Obama began his second term focused on securing legislation on immigration reform and gun control, neither of which he was able to achieve.