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THE RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE: BARACK OBAMA: DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE

Juliann Vachon

November 2, 2008

It's been a long journey since Barack Obama announced he was running for president in February 2007. But after winning the hard-fought Democratic nomination, Obama became the first black presidential nominee of a major political party.

Critics say Obama, 47, is too inexperienced to be president, and some argue that his style is too cool and professorial. However, the first-term senator's message of change has struck a chord with millions of voters.

Obama says his top priorities include mandating health care for children, implementing a universal health insurance program and providing tax relief for middle-class families. He pledges to withdraw troops from Iraq within 16 months and redeploy brigades to Afghanistan. He also says he wants to eliminate oil imports from the Middle East and Venezuela within 10 years.

Obama began his political career in the Illinois State Legislature, where he served from 1997 to 2004. He won the Democratic primary for an Illinois U.S. Senate seat in 2004 and later that year delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. His performance transformed him quickly into a political star. He won a Senate seat that year and still is serving his first term.

Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, to a white mother from Kansas and black father from Kenya. He grew up with his mother and her parents in Hawaii and lived for a few years in Indonesia.

In the presidential campaign, he's dealt with a stream of rumors based on ethnicity and religion - some claiming incorrectly that he is a Muslim, when in fact he is Christian. And while he leads McCain in the polls, some supporters worry that the so-called "Bradley effect" - in which voters who identify themselves to pollsters as undecided or likely to vote for a black candidate end up voting for the white candidate - may come into play on Election Day. The phenomenon, which some analysts dismiss as baseless, is named for Tom Bradley, an African-American who lost the 1982 California governor's race despite being ahead in some voter polls.

In 1983, Obama graduated from Columbia University and moved to Chicago, where he worked with a church-based group as a community organizer. It was there, working in poor neighborhoods, that Obama says he formed a basis for his advocacy work. He then earned his law degree in 1991 from Harvard, where he served as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.

He married Michelle Obama in 1992, and they have two daughters, Malia and Sasha.

About the job

President of the United States of America

Term: 4 years

Salary: $400,000

Duties: Heads executive branch of government; serves as commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces; conducts foreign policy; appoints ambassadors, high-ranking officers and members of the federal judiciary; reports to Congress on the state of the union; has veto power over bills passed by Congress and grants reprieves and pardons for federal offenses.