Hotmail
Obama: From unknown to nominee
Democrat made a meteoric rise to party's standard bearer
 Alex Brandon / AP Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., a failure in his first political foray just eight years ago, has vaulted to the pinnacle of the Democratic Party. |
|
 | Video: Decision '08 |
Turning Point: 2008 Nov. 5: NBC's Tom Brokaw recaps the historic election of America's first black president. Produced by msnbc.com's Kevin Flynn. |
 | Slide show |
 | more photos |
CHCAGO - When Barack Obama arrived at the Democratic National Convention eight years ago, he was a politician in need of clout.
He had just been trounced in his bid for Congress. His credit card was rejected at the car rental counter. He couldn't snare a floor pass, so he ended up watching most of the speeches on TV monitors in the arena. And he went home early.
His political future was uncertain.
Four years later, Obama attended the 2004 Democratic convention. This time, though, there was a sea change: He had been tapped to be the keynote speaker, a coveted spot for up-and-comers — and as a U.S. Senate nominee generating political buzz, he fit the bill.
Obama still was a lowly state lawmaker, a virtual unknown to the cheering delegates gathered in the Boston convention hall that July night. But his words lit up the crowd.
Now jump forward to the 2008 Democratic convention.
On Aug. 28, Barack Obama will step on the stage at the 50-yard line at the Denver Broncos football stadium before a crowd of 75,000 to accept the Democratic nomination for president. He will be at the apex of American politics — a phenomenon who smashed every fundraising record, drew astounding crowds, and made history.
How did this man go so far so fast?
He's a natural, obviously — a candidate with political savvy and electrifying oratory, enormous confidence and calm, fierce ambition and a keen sense of timing, and an uncanny knack of making friends and forging connections in all the right places.
"He's just a complete political talent," says Abner Mikva, a former Illinois congressman and federal judge who is an Obama mentor. "He likes to get along with people. He likes to listen to them."
Obama has something else going for him, too — good fortune.
"He is a lucky politician," Mikva notes. "A lucky politician is one who knows how to take advantage of a break when he gets it."
|
"It is one of the most unlikely political biographies," says Sen. Dick Durbin, a fellow Illinois Democrat and Obama friend. "Look at his life and there are half a dozen times when he could have failed ... being abandoned by his father, his (troubled) adolescent years. ... But he seems to weather adversity better than most."
"It's a leap electing a 46-year-old black guy named Barack Obama," the Illinois senator told a crowd in July at a Missouri fundraiser.
It's not just his biracial roots and foreign-sounding name that set him apart.
It's his youth spent wrestling with questions about his racial identity and an African father he barely knew. It's his admission that he dabbled in drugs as a teen, the kind of revelation, made in his memoir, rarely divulged by politicians.
It's his odyssey from low-prestige community organizer in the poverty-ravaged corners of Chicago to the high-powered corridors of Harvard Law School.
And it's his rapid climb up the political ladder, starting in a sleepy prairie state capital where no one has made it to the White House since Abraham Lincoln.
"He has this unusual combination of life experiences that don't fit in any stereotype," says Valerie Jarrett, his close friend and adviser.
|
The Kansas-born mother, Stanley (her father wanted a boy) Ann Dunham. The Kenyan-born father, Barack Obama Sr. Their meeting at the University of Hawaii, their marriage, the birth of Barack — "blessed" in Arabic — on Aug. 4, 1961. The father's departure two years later to study at Harvard, his return just once when his son was 10.
The exotic childhood in Indonesia, homeland of his stepfather, Lolo Soetero; the exposure to poverty and beggars, crocodiles and roasted grasshopper.
And then, after his mother's second marriage broke up, the return to Hawaii, where the young Obama — then known as Barry — enrolled in the prestigious Punahou School, a private academy in Honolulu.
Back then, there were no obvious signs (unless you count a grade school essay) that pointed to politics as his destiny.
As a teen, Obama was smart and liked to read but "he wasn't particularly driven or ambitious," says his half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng. "He wasn't part of student government. He wasn't in any AP (advanced placement) classes. He was a young man concerned with ... hanging out with his buddies, playing basketball, body surfing and eating in excess."
When his mother's work as an anthropologist took her back to Indonesia, Obama stayed behind for high school, living with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn, known as Tutu or Toot (Hawaiian for grandparent), and Stanley, or Gramps.
|
|
- Discuss Story On Newsvine
-
Rate Story:
View popularLowHigh - Instant Message
MORE FROM THE CONVENTIONS |
 The conventions Section Front |
| Add The conventions headlines to your news reader: |
Sponsored links
Resource guide