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Barack Hussein Obama II became one of the most consequential political figures in early twenty-first-century American history. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Barack Hussein Obama II was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii.<\/p>\n Hawaii had become the fiftieth American state only two years earlier.<\/p>\n Its social environment differed significantly from much of the continental United States.<\/p>\n The islands contained communities with Native Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Portuguese, European, and other backgrounds.<\/p>\n Race remained important, but Hawaii’s racial history and demographic composition differed substantially from the Black-white racial structure that shaped much of mainland American history.<\/p>\n Obama’s parents themselves represented two very different worlds.<\/p>\n His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was a white American born in Kansas.<\/p>\n His father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., came from Kenya.<\/p>\n They met while studying at the University of Hawaii.<\/p>\n Their relationship occurred during a period when interracial marriage remained controversial and was still prohibited by law in a number of American states.<\/p>\n The Supreme Court would not invalidate state laws banning interracial marriage until Loving v. Virginia<\/em> in 1967.<\/p>\n Obama was therefore born into a family whose existence reflected changing racial boundaries in American society.<\/p>\n His parents’ marriage did not last.<\/p>\n His father eventually left Hawaii, attended Harvard, and later returned to Kenya.<\/p>\n Obama grew up with limited direct contact with him.<\/p>\n The absence of his father became one of the important themes in Obama’s understanding of his own identity.<\/p>\n Obama’s mother became one of the most important influences on his early life.<\/p>\n Ann Dunham had grown up in a family that moved frequently.<\/p>\n Her parents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, eventually settled in Hawaii.<\/p>\n Ann developed interests in anthropology, culture, economic development, and the lives of people outside the United States.<\/p>\n These interests later shaped her professional career.<\/p>\n They also shaped her son’s childhood.<\/p>\n Obama grew up with an awareness that the United States was only one part of a much larger world.<\/p>\n This perspective became even more pronounced after his mother married an Indonesian man named Lolo Soetoro.<\/p>\n The family moved to Indonesia.<\/p>\n Obama was still a young child.<\/p>\n The move exposed him to a society dramatically different from Hawaii.<\/p>\n Obama lived in Indonesia from approximately 1967 until 1971.<\/p>\n Indonesia was experiencing significant political and economic change.<\/p>\n The country had undergone severe political violence during the mid-1960s as General Suharto consolidated power following the weakening of President Sukarno.<\/p>\n Obama was too young to understand the full political context.<\/p>\n But daily life exposed him to economic conditions very different from those experienced by many Americans.<\/p>\n He saw poverty.<\/p>\n He saw crowded neighborhoods.<\/p>\n He encountered different religious traditions.<\/p>\n Indonesia contained the world’s largest Muslim population, although Obama’s household was not organized around strict Islamic religious practice.<\/p>\n His experiences there later became relevant during his political career because opponents sometimes distorted or misrepresented aspects of his childhood.<\/p>\n The historical reality was more ordinary.<\/p>\n Obama was an American child living for several years in Indonesia because his mother had married an Indonesian man.<\/p>\n The experience nevertheless broadened his perspective.<\/p>\n Few future American presidents had spent significant parts of their childhood living in a developing country.<\/p>\n Obama had.<\/p>\n Ann Dunham became concerned about her son’s education.<\/p>\n Obama returned to Hawaii and lived largely with his maternal grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham.<\/p>\n He attended Punahou School, a prestigious private school in Honolulu.<\/p>\n The opportunity gave him access to a strong education.<\/p>\n It also brought questions of race and identity into sharper focus.<\/p>\n Obama was one of a relatively small number of Black students at the school.<\/p>\n His mother was white.<\/p>\n His grandparents were white.<\/p>\n His father was African but largely absent from his daily life.<\/p>\n Where, then, did Obama fit within American racial categories?<\/p>\n The question was personal before it became political.<\/p>\n During adolescence, he struggled with identity, belonging, and his understanding of Black history.<\/p>\n He read African American writers and became increasingly aware of the history of slavery, segregation, racism, and the civil rights movement.<\/p>\n His racial identity was therefore not simply inherited.<\/p>\n It was something he had to understand and construct.<\/p>\n That process would later influence his ability to speak about race from an unusual perspective.<\/p>\n Barack Obama Sr. remained a powerful presence in his son’s imagination despite being largely absent physically.<\/p>\n The elder Obama had come from Kenya as part of a generation of African students who studied abroad during the era of decolonization.<\/p>\n Kenya gained independence from Britain in 1963.<\/p>\n Educated Africans were expected to play important roles in building newly independent states.<\/p>\n Obama Sr. eventually returned to Kenya and worked as an economist.<\/p>\n His life, however, became difficult.<\/p>\n Professional setbacks, political conflicts, personal problems, and alcohol contributed to instability.<\/p>\n He died in an automobile accident in 1982.<\/p>\n Barack Obama was twenty-one years old.<\/p>\n The younger Obama would later travel to Kenya and meet members of his father’s family.<\/p>\n Understanding his Kenyan heritage became an important part of understanding himself.<\/p>\n His first major book, Dreams from My Father<\/em>, explored these questions of family, identity, race, and belonging.<\/p>\n After graduating from Punahou School in 1979, Obama attended Occidental College in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n College became an important period of intellectual and political development.<\/p>\n He encountered students interested in international politics, race, apartheid, and social justice.<\/p>\n The movement against South African apartheid was particularly important on American campuses during this period.<\/p>\n Students organized protests demanding that universities and corporations divest from companies doing business in South Africa.<\/p>\n Obama participated in political discussions and began developing his abilities as a public speaker.<\/p>\n But he had not yet decided on a political career.<\/p>\n He was still trying to determine what kind of life he wanted.<\/p>\n After two years at Occidental, he transferred to Columbia University in New York City.<\/p>\n New York provided another major change in environment.<\/p>\n Obama studied political science with an emphasis on international relations.<\/p>\n He graduated from Columbia in 1983.<\/p>\n The early 1980s were an important period in American political history.<\/p>\n Ronald Reagan had become president in 1981.<\/p>\n Conservative politics was gaining strength.<\/p>\n The Cold War remained intense.<\/p>\n Economic changes were transforming American cities.<\/p>\n Manufacturing employment was declining in many industrial communities.<\/p>\n These economic developments would later matter greatly to Obama.<\/p>\n After college, however, he initially worked in New York.<\/p>\n He held jobs in business and public-interest organizations.<\/p>\n The work did not satisfy him completely.<\/p>\n Obama increasingly wanted a career that connected political ideas with direct community work.<\/p>\n That desire eventually led him to Chicago.<\/p>\n Chicago became the city most closely associated with Obama’s adult identity.<\/p>\n He moved there in 1985 to work as a community organizer.<\/p>\n The South Side of Chicago contained historically important African American neighborhoods.<\/p>\n It had been shaped by the Great Migration, during which millions of Black Americans left the South for cities in the North and West during the twentieth century.<\/p>\n Chicago had produced important Black political, religious, business, cultural, and labor institutions.<\/p>\n But the South Side also faced serious economic problems.<\/p>\n Manufacturing decline had eliminated jobs.<\/p>\n Steel mills had closed.<\/p>\n Unemployment affected working-class families.<\/p>\n Public housing developments suffered from concentrated poverty and inadequate services.<\/p>\n Crime and failing infrastructure created additional difficulties.<\/p>\n Obama entered this environment not as an elected official but as an organizer.<\/p>\n Obama worked with the Developing Communities Project.<\/p>\n The organization cooperated with churches and residents on the South Side.<\/p>\n His work included efforts involving job training, housing conditions, education, and environmental problems.<\/p>\n Community organizing taught Obama a different kind of politics.<\/p>\n Election campaigns focus on winning votes.<\/p>\n Community organizing begins with people’s immediate problems.<\/p>\n A broken heating system matters.<\/p>\n Asbestos in a housing project matters.<\/p>\n Joblessness matters.<\/p>\n School conditions matter.<\/p>\n An organizer’s task is not simply to solve problems for residents.<\/p>\n The deeper objective is to help communities develop enough organization to pressure institutions themselves.<\/p>\n Obama later described these years as an important part of his education.<\/p>\n They taught him the limits of idealism.<\/p>\n A passionate speech could inspire people.<\/p>\n It could not automatically create jobs or force government agencies to act.<\/p>\n Organization required patience.<\/p>\n It required meetings.<\/p>\n It required negotiation.<\/p>\n It required understanding institutions.<\/p>\n It required persuading people who did not always agree.<\/p>\n These lessons later became central to Obama’s political style.<\/p>\n Obama’s organizing work brought him into close contact with African American churches.<\/p>\n Black churches had played major roles in American history.<\/p>\n During slavery, religious communities provided sources of spiritual resistance and collective identity.<\/p>\n After emancipation, churches became important independent Black institutions.<\/p>\n During the civil rights movement, ministers and churches frequently provided leadership, meeting spaces, money, and organizational networks.<\/p>\n Obama had not grown up deeply rooted in a church tradition.<\/p>\n His organizing work changed that.<\/p>\n He joined Trinity United Church of Christ, led by Reverend Jeremiah Wright.<\/p>\n Wright’s church emphasized a form of Black Christian theology concerned with racial injustice, community empowerment, and social responsibility.<\/p>\n Obama’s relationship with Wright became politically controversial decades later during the 2008 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n But during Obama’s Chicago years, Trinity also provided something personally important.<\/p>\n It gave him a stronger connection to a Black community and religious tradition.<\/p>\n After several years of community organizing, Obama concluded that he needed additional tools if he wanted to create larger political change.<\/p>\n Local organizing could pressure institutions.<\/p>\n But law shaped the institutions themselves.<\/p>\n Government regulations mattered.<\/p>\n Court decisions mattered.<\/p>\n Legislation mattered.<\/p>\n Constitutional rules mattered.<\/p>\n Obama decided to attend law school.<\/p>\n In 1988, he entered Harvard Law School.<\/p>\n The decision moved him temporarily away from Chicago.<\/p>\n But it would dramatically accelerate his public career.<\/p>\n Harvard Law School was one of the most prestigious legal institutions in the United States.<\/p>\n Obama performed exceptionally well.<\/p>\n He became involved with the Harvard Law Review<\/em>, one of the country’s most influential student-edited legal journals.<\/p>\n In 1990, he was elected president of the Harvard Law Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n He became the first African American to hold the position.<\/p>\n The achievement brought national media attention.<\/p>\n Obama’s selection was significant not only because of race.<\/p>\n The president of the Law Review had to work with editors holding different political and legal philosophies.<\/p>\n Harvard contained liberals, conservatives, and students with many other perspectives.<\/p>\n Obama developed a reputation for listening carefully and finding ways to work across disagreements.<\/p>\n This ability became one of the defining themes of his later political identity.<\/p>\n Supporters viewed it as evidence of thoughtfulness and pragmatism.<\/p>\n Critics sometimes interpreted the same tendency as excessive caution or an unwillingness to fight aggressively for particular positions.<\/p>\n Both interpretations would follow him throughout his presidency.<\/p>\n After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1991, Obama returned to Chicago.<\/p>\n His credentials could have opened highly lucrative opportunities.<\/p>\n Instead, he combined legal practice, teaching, community work, and eventually politics.<\/p>\n He worked as a civil rights attorney.<\/p>\n He also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School.<\/p>\n This combination gave him experience with both the practical and theoretical dimensions of law.<\/p>\n Civil rights litigation dealt with real disputes involving voting, discrimination, employment, and political representation.<\/p>\n Constitutional law dealt with larger questions.<\/p>\n What powers did government possess?<\/p>\n What rights did individuals have?<\/p>\n How should courts interpret constitutional principles?<\/p>\n How should executive, legislative, and judicial authority be balanced?<\/p>\n These questions later became directly relevant when Obama himself exercised executive power.<\/p>\n Chicago also transformed Obama’s personal life.<\/p>\n During a summer position at the law firm Sidley Austin, he met Michelle Robinson.<\/p>\n Michelle had grown up on Chicago’s South Side.<\/p>\n She had attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School.<\/p>\n When Obama arrived as a summer associate, she was assigned to help advise him at the firm.<\/p>\n Their relationship gradually became romantic.<\/p>\n They married on October 3, 1992.<\/p>\n Michelle Obama became one of the most important people in Barack Obama’s personal and political life.<\/p>\n The couple later had two daughters, Malia and Sasha.<\/p>\n Family life would become an important part of Obama’s public image.<\/p>\n But Michelle was more than a political spouse.<\/p>\n She had her own professional career and deep roots in Chicago.<\/p>\n Her understanding of the city complemented Barack’s experience as someone who had arrived there as an adult.<\/p>\n The 1992 election became another important stage in Obama’s development.<\/p>\n He directed an Illinois voter-registration effort known as Project Vote.<\/p>\n The campaign focused particularly on increasing Black voter registration.<\/p>\n That year carried special significance in Illinois politics.<\/p>\n Carol Moseley Braun won election to the United States Senate, becoming the first African American woman elected to that body.<\/p>\n Bill Clinton defeated President George H. W. Bush nationally.<\/p>\n Obama’s voter-registration work taught him another dimension of politics.<\/p>\n Community organizing focused on building local power.<\/p>\n Electoral organizing converted community participation into votes.<\/p>\n Obama increasingly understood how the two could reinforce each other.<\/p>\n He was moving closer to becoming a candidate himself.<\/p>\n Obama’s Harvard Law Review achievement had attracted interest from publishers.<\/p>\n He eventually wrote Dreams from My Father<\/em>, published in 1995.<\/p>\n The book was unusual for a future politician.<\/p>\n It was not primarily a campaign manifesto or policy argument.<\/p>\n Instead, it explored family, race, identity, Kenya, Hawaii, Chicago, and Obama’s attempt to understand the father he barely knew.<\/p>\n The book later became far more widely read after Obama’s political rise.<\/p>\n Its importance lies partly in what it reveals about his intellectual development.<\/p>\n Obama’s identity was not straightforward.<\/p>\n He was American and connected to Kenya.<\/p>\n He was Black but had been raised largely by white relatives.<\/p>\n He had lived in Hawaii, Indonesia, New York, and Chicago.<\/p>\n He had experienced elite institutions and poor neighborhoods.<\/p>\n His political style later attempted to connect these different worlds.<\/p>\n Whether he succeeded would become one of the major questions surrounding his career.<\/p>\n Obama decided to run for the Illinois State Senate.<\/p>\n The opportunity arose when state senator Alice Palmer pursued another office.<\/p>\n Obama entered the race for her seat.<\/p>\n The campaign produced an early example of the toughness that existed beneath his conciliatory public style.<\/p>\n Questions arose over the validity of nomination petitions filed by his opponents.<\/p>\n Challenges removed several candidates from the ballot.<\/p>\n Obama ultimately won the Democratic nomination and then the election.<\/p>\n In 1997, he entered the Illinois Senate.<\/p>\n He was now an elected politician.<\/p>\n The transition changed his responsibilities.<\/p>\n An organizer could pressure lawmakers.<\/p>\n Obama had become one of the lawmakers being pressured.<\/p>\n Springfield gave Obama practical experience in legislation.<\/p>\n Illinois politics was complicated and frequently partisan.<\/p>\n Chicago’s Democratic political establishment exercised significant influence, while Republicans remained powerful in other parts of the state.<\/p>\n Obama had to learn how to turn policy ideas into legislation that could receive enough votes to pass.<\/p>\n His work included issues involving ethics, healthcare, criminal justice, and support for working families.<\/p>\n He developed relationships with lawmakers from both parties.<\/p>\n This ability became part of the political argument he later made nationally.<\/p>\n Obama claimed that American politics did not need to remain permanently divided into hostile ideological camps.<\/p>\n Critics would later argue that this vision underestimated the depth of partisan conflict in Washington.<\/p>\n But in Illinois, Obama had experienced situations where bipartisan cooperation was possible.<\/p>\n Obama’s rise was not uninterrupted.<\/p>\n In 2000, he challenged incumbent Democratic congressman Bobby Rush for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.<\/p>\n Rush was a well-established Black political figure with deep roots in Chicago.<\/p>\n He had once been associated with the Black Panther Party and had developed a strong constituency.<\/p>\n Obama believed he could offer a new generation of leadership.<\/p>\n Voters disagreed.<\/p>\n Rush defeated him decisively in the Democratic primary.<\/p>\n The loss was humiliating and politically important.<\/p>\n Obama discovered that intelligence, education, and ambition did not automatically produce electoral support.<\/p>\n He had misjudged the district and the strength of an incumbent’s community relationships.<\/p>\n For a time, his political future appeared uncertain.<\/p>\n The defeat could have ended his rise.<\/p>\n Instead, it forced him to reconsider his strategy.<\/p>\n Obama returned his attention to the Illinois Senate.<\/p>\n He continued developing relationships and building a legislative record.<\/p>\n The political environment also changed.<\/p>\n Democrats gained greater influence in the Illinois legislature.<\/p>\n Obama became chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.<\/p>\n He worked on legislation involving healthcare and criminal justice.<\/p>\n One particularly important area involved police interrogation practices.<\/p>\n Illinois had experienced serious controversies involving wrongful convictions and false confessions.<\/p>\n Obama helped advance legislation requiring videotaping of interrogations in certain serious criminal cases.<\/p>\n The measure gained bipartisan support.<\/p>\n This episode later became part of his argument that difficult reforms could be achieved through negotiation rather than purely partisan confrontation.<\/p>\n The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 transformed American politics.<\/p>\n Nearly three thousand people were killed.<\/p>\n The United States invaded Afghanistan after the Taliban government refused to meet American demands concerning al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n The Bush administration then increasingly focused attention on Iraq.<\/p>\n By 2002, national debate centered on whether Saddam Hussein’s government possessed prohibited weapons programs and whether military action was justified.<\/p>\n Obama was still a state senator.<\/p>\n He did not have responsibility for national security policy.<\/p>\n But he publicly opposed the proposed invasion of Iraq.<\/p>\n Importantly, his position was not opposition to every use of military force.<\/p>\n He described Saddam Hussein as dangerous but argued that invading Iraq was strategically unwise.<\/p>\n At the time, many nationally prominent Democrats supported congressional authorization for the use of force.<\/p>\n Obama’s position would later become politically important.<\/p>\n When the Iraq War became increasingly unpopular, he could claim that he had opposed it before it began.<\/p>\n In 2003, Obama announced that he would seek a seat in the United States Senate.<\/p>\n The election represented a major leap.<\/p>\n Illinois was a large and diverse state.<\/p>\n Winning required support far beyond Obama’s Chicago political base.<\/p>\n The Democratic primary included several candidates with greater financial resources or stronger name recognition.<\/p>\n Obama’s campaign needed to introduce him to millions of voters.<\/p>\n His strengths included his speaking ability, biography, grassroots organization, and capacity to appeal to different constituencies.<\/p>\n His campaign gradually gained momentum.<\/p>\n In March 2004, Obama won the Democratic primary.<\/p>\n Suddenly he was a serious candidate for the U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n Then came the event that transformed him from an Illinois politician into a national political figure.<\/p>\n Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s campaign selected Obama to deliver the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston.<\/p>\n The opportunity was enormous.<\/p>\n Most Americans had never heard of Barack Obama.<\/p>\n A nationally televised convention speech could change that.<\/p>\n Obama used the address to present a political message centered on national unity.<\/p>\n He argued against dividing the United States into culturally separate red and blue Americas.<\/p>\n His rhetoric emphasized a common national identity that could exist despite political disagreement.<\/p>\n The speech received widespread attention.<\/p>\n Almost overnight, Obama became a national political figure.<\/p>\n His performance generated discussion about his future far beyond the Senate race.<\/p>\n Some observers began talking about him as a potential presidential candidate.<\/p>\n Obama had not yet even been elected to the U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n Obama’s 2004 Senate election became unusual after Republican nominee Jack Ryan withdrew from the race.<\/p>\n The Illinois Republican Party eventually selected Alan Keyes as its candidate.<\/p>\n Keyes was a conservative political activist who had previously lived outside Illinois.<\/p>\n Obama entered the general election with a major advantage.<\/p>\n He won decisively.<\/p>\n In January 2005, Barack Obama became a United States senator from Illinois.<\/p>\n He was only the fifth African American known to have served in the Senate.<\/p>\n The achievement was significant.<\/p>\n The Senate had existed since 1789.<\/p>\n Yet Black representation in the institution had remained extraordinarily limited.<\/p>\n Obama’s arrival therefore carried historical importance even before his presidential career began.<\/p>\n Most first-term senators spend years building seniority before becoming nationally prominent.<\/p>\n Obama entered the Senate already famous.<\/p>\n His convention speech had created expectations far beyond those normally attached to a freshman senator.<\/p>\n This presented both opportunity and danger.<\/p>\n National attention gave him influence.<\/p>\n But colleagues could resent a newcomer receiving extraordinary publicity.<\/p>\n Obama therefore had to balance his growing national profile with the ordinary work of being a senator.<\/p>\n His committee assignments included Foreign Relations, Veterans’ Affairs, and Environment and Public Works.<\/p>\n The Foreign Relations Committee was particularly useful.<\/p>\n Obama had relatively limited formal foreign-policy experience.<\/p>\n Committee service allowed him to travel, participate in hearings, meet international officials, and develop knowledge of national security issues.<\/p>\n This experience would become important much sooner than most people expected.<\/p>\n Obama’s Senate record reflected several of the themes that had appeared in Illinois.<\/p>\n He worked on ethics reform and government transparency.<\/p>\n He collaborated with Republican Senator Tom Coburn on legislation increasing public access to information about federal spending.<\/p>\n He worked with Republican Senator Richard Lugar on issues involving conventional weapons and securing dangerous materials.<\/p>\n These partnerships reinforced Obama’s image as a politician interested in bipartisan cooperation.<\/p>\n At the same time, he remained a Democrat with generally liberal positions on domestic policy.<\/p>\n The distinction mattered.<\/p>\n Obama’s argument was not that ideological disagreements had disappeared.<\/p>\n Rather, he argued that disagreement did not have to prevent cooperation on every issue.<\/p>\n That message would become central to his presidential campaign.<\/p>\n In 2006, Obama published The Audacity of Hope<\/em>.<\/p>\n Unlike Dreams from My Father<\/em>, the new book was explicitly political.<\/p>\n It discussed government, faith, race, family, foreign policy, and the condition of American democracy.<\/p>\n The book helped introduce Obama’s political philosophy to a national audience.<\/p>\n Its central themes included pragmatism, civic participation, and the possibility of reducing partisan division.<\/p>\n Obama presented himself as progressive but not revolutionary.<\/p>\n He believed government could play an important role in expanding opportunity.<\/p>\n At the same time, he frequently emphasized individual responsibility, family, and community.<\/p>\n The combination allowed him to appeal to some voters who were uncomfortable with more traditional ideological categories.<\/p>\n By the end of 2006, speculation about a presidential campaign had intensified.<\/p>\n The idea of Obama running for president in 2008 initially appeared improbable.<\/p>\n He had been in the United States Senate for only two years.<\/p>\n The Democratic Party already had a powerful potential candidate in Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.<\/p>\n Clinton had been first lady for eight years and had served in the Senate since 2001.<\/p>\n She possessed national name recognition, major donors, experienced advisers, and strong relationships throughout the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n Obama possessed charisma and a compelling biography.<\/p>\n But was that enough?<\/p>\n He faced another fundamental question.<\/p>\n Could an African American candidate win the presidency?<\/p>\n The United States had never elected a Black president.<\/p>\n Racial discrimination remained part of American political life.<\/p>\n Some observers believed Black candidates could succeed in cities or heavily Democratic districts but not nationally.<\/p>\n Obama decided to test that assumption.<\/p>\n On February 10, 2007, Barack Obama announced his candidacy for president in Springfield, Illinois.<\/p>\n The location carried symbolic significance.<\/p>\n Abraham Lincoln had built his early political career in Illinois.<\/p>\n Obama’s campaign emphasized change.<\/p>\n He argued that Americans were tired of the Iraq War, partisan conflict, political cynicism, and government that appeared disconnected from ordinary citizens.<\/p>\n His relative inexperience became part of the argument.<\/p>\n Opponents could describe him as unprepared.<\/p>\n Obama could describe himself as unburdened by decades of Washington habits.<\/p>\n The campaign would ultimately depend on whether voters accepted the second interpretation.<\/p>\n The Democratic primary became primarily a contest between Obama and Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n Their policy differences were real but often narrower than the intensity of the campaign suggested.<\/p>\n Both supported expanding healthcare access.<\/p>\n Both generally represented the center-left of the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n Both opposed many Bush administration policies.<\/p>\n But their political arguments differed.<\/p>\n Clinton emphasized experience.<\/p>\n Obama emphasized change.<\/p>\n Clinton argued that the presidency required someone prepared to manage Washington immediately.<\/p>\n Obama argued that Washington itself needed transformation.<\/p>\n The Iraq War also distinguished them.<\/p>\n Clinton had voted in 2002 to authorize the use of military force against Iraq.<\/p>\n Obama, while not yet in Congress, had publicly opposed the invasion.<\/p>\n As public opinion turned against the war, that difference helped him.<\/p>\n The first major test came in the Iowa caucuses in January 2008.<\/p>\n Iowa’s population was overwhelmingly white.<\/p>\n For Obama, this made the state symbolically important.<\/p>\n If he could win there, he could challenge the assumption that a Black candidate could appeal only to Black voters.<\/p>\n His campaign built an extensive grassroots organization.<\/p>\n Volunteers contacted voters repeatedly.<\/p>\n Young people became particularly important.<\/p>\n Obama won the Iowa Democratic caucuses.<\/p>\n The victory transformed the race.<\/p>\n He had demonstrated that he could defeat Hillary Clinton in a major contest and win substantial white support.<\/p>\n The question was no longer whether his campaign was serious.<\/p>\n The question was whether he could win the nomination.<\/p>\n The Democratic primary continued for months.<\/p>\n Clinton won important states.<\/p>\n Obama won others.<\/p>\n Their campaigns fought over delegates, caucuses, primaries, superdelegates, and party rules.<\/p>\n Race and gender were never far from the contest.<\/p>\n Clinton’s candidacy carried historic significance because no woman had ever become a major American political party’s presidential nominee.<\/p>\n Obama’s candidacy carried historic significance because no African American had ever done so.<\/p>\n Supporters of both candidates sometimes accused the other campaign or its allies of using race or gender unfairly.<\/p>\n The contest exposed tensions inside the Democratic coalition.<\/p>\n But it also demonstrated how dramatically American politics had changed.<\/p>\n The two leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination were a woman and a Black man.<\/p>\n Only a generation earlier, such a contest would have seemed nearly unimaginable.<\/p>\n Obama’s relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright became one of the most serious controversies of the primary campaign.<\/p>\n Video clips circulated showing Wright making highly provocative statements from the pulpit.<\/p>\n Critics argued that Obama should have rejected Wright earlier and questioned Obama’s judgment in maintaining a relationship with him.<\/p>\n Obama responded with a major speech on race in Philadelphia in March 2008.<\/p>\n Rather than treating the controversy solely as a campaign problem, he discussed the broader history of racial division in the United States.<\/p>\n He acknowledged Black anger rooted in discrimination while also discussing resentment among white Americans who believed they were unfairly blamed for injustices they had not personally created.<\/p>\n The speech reflected Obama’s characteristic approach.<\/p>\n He attempted to explain competing perspectives while searching for common ground.<\/p>\n Supporters considered the speech thoughtful and unusually candid.<\/p>\n Critics argued that it did not resolve questions surrounding Wright or Obama’s political associations.<\/p>\n Obama eventually severed his relationship with Wright.<\/p>\n By June 2008, Obama had accumulated enough delegate support to become the presumptive Democratic nominee.<\/p>\n Hillary Clinton ended her campaign and endorsed him.<\/p>\n Obama had accomplished something unprecedented.<\/p>\n A Black American would lead a major political party’s presidential ticket.<\/p>\n He selected Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his vice-presidential running mate.<\/p>\n Biden brought decades of Senate experience, particularly in foreign policy.<\/p>\n The Republican nominee was Senator John McCain of Arizona.<\/p>\n McCain was a Vietnam War veteran, former prisoner of war, and experienced senator.<\/p>\n The general election therefore presented voters with sharply different biographies.<\/p>\n McCain emphasized experience, national security credentials, and political independence.<\/p>\n Obama emphasized change, opposition to the Iraq War, economic reform, and a new political generation.<\/p>\n Then the financial system began to collapse.<\/p>\n The 2008 financial crisis transformed the presidential election.<\/p>\n The American housing market had been weakening.<\/p>\n Financial institutions held enormous quantities of securities connected to mortgages, including risky subprime loans.<\/p>\n When housing prices declined and borrowers defaulted, losses spread through the financial system.<\/p>\n In September 2008, Lehman Brothers collapsed.<\/p>\n Credit markets froze.<\/p>\n Major financial institutions faced potential failure.<\/p>\n The crisis threatened the broader economy.<\/p>\n President George W. Bush’s administration sought congressional approval for an emergency financial rescue program.<\/p>\n Both Obama and McCain had to respond while campaigning.<\/p>\n The crisis shifted voter attention toward economic policy.<\/p>\n Obama argued that inadequate regulation and broader weaknesses in the economic system had contributed to the disaster.<\/p>\n McCain also supported emergency action but faced the political disadvantage of belonging to the same party as the incumbent president.<\/p>\n The economy was moving into a severe recession.<\/p>\n The next president would inherit it.<\/p>\n On November 4, 2008, Americans voted.<\/p>\n Obama defeated McCain and won the presidency.<\/p>\n The victory produced celebrations in cities across the United States.<\/p>\n In Chicago, an enormous crowd gathered in Grant Park.<\/p>\n For many African Americans, the moment carried emotional significance difficult to separate from the nation’s history.<\/p>\n People who had lived under segregation saw a Black family preparing to enter the White House.<\/p>\n The same country that had once legally enslaved people of African descent had elected an African American president.<\/p>\n The historical symbolism was undeniable.<\/p>\n But symbolism did not solve the problems Obama was about to inherit.<\/p>\n Banks remained unstable.<\/p>\n Companies were laying off workers.<\/p>\n The automobile industry faced crisis.<\/p>\n The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continued.<\/p>\n The federal budget deficit was expanding.<\/p>\n Millions of Americans were worried about jobs, homes, retirement savings, and healthcare.<\/p>\n Obama had won an extraordinary election.<\/p>\n Now he had to govern.<\/p>\n Barack Obama took the oath of office on January 20, 2009.<\/p>\n Millions watched the inauguration in Washington and around the world.<\/p>\n At forty-seven years old, he became the 44th president of the United States.<\/p>\n Joseph Biden became vice president.<\/p>\n Obama’s inaugural address acknowledged the severity of the challenges confronting the country.<\/p>\n The celebration of the first Black presidency occurred alongside one of the worst economic crises in generations.<\/p>\n This contrast defined the opening months of his administration.<\/p>\n Expectations were enormous.<\/p>\n Supporters hoped he would transform American politics.<\/p>\n Opponents were preparing to challenge his agenda.<\/p>\n Financial markets demanded immediate action.<\/p>\n Foreign governments were watching closely.<\/p>\n The transition from candidate to president happened instantly.<\/p>\n Campaign rhetoric now had to become policy.<\/p>\n Obama’s first major challenge was preventing the recession from becoming even worse.<\/p>\n The crisis had begun before he entered office.<\/p>\n The Bush administration and Federal Reserve had already taken extraordinary measures to stabilize financial institutions.<\/p>\n Obama continued some of these policies while pursuing a large economic stimulus.<\/p>\n Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009.<\/p>\n The legislation combined government spending, aid to states, infrastructure investment, tax measures, unemployment assistance, and other programs.<\/p>\n Supporters argued that government intervention was necessary because private economic activity had collapsed.<\/p>\n Republican critics argued that the package was too expensive, inefficient, and expanded government unnecessarily.<\/p>\n Economists also debated whether the stimulus was appropriately sized.<\/p>\n The administration argued that the legislation helped prevent a deeper depression.<\/p>\n Critics questioned the pace of recovery and growth of federal deficits.<\/p>\n The disagreement became one of the first major partisan battles of the Obama presidency.<\/p>\n General Motors and Chrysler faced possible collapse during the recession.<\/p>\n The automobile industry supported enormous numbers of jobs directly and indirectly.<\/p>\n Allowing major manufacturers to fail could have created wider economic damage.<\/p>\n The federal government provided assistance tied to restructuring.<\/p>\n The intervention was controversial.<\/p>\n Supporters argued that extraordinary conditions required temporary government action to preserve industrial capacity and employment.<\/p>\n Critics argued that government should not rescue poorly managed private companies or interfere so deeply in markets.<\/p>\n GM and Chrysler survived and later returned to profitability.<\/p>\n But the debate illustrated a larger question running through Obama’s domestic presidency.<\/p>\n How active should the federal government be during economic crises?<\/p>\n Obama generally favored pragmatic intervention when he believed markets alone could not prevent severe economic damage.<\/p>\n Conservatives frequently saw the same policies as dangerous expansions of federal power.<\/p>\n Healthcare reform became the defining domestic legislative battle of Obama’s first term.<\/p>\n The United States spent enormous amounts on healthcare, yet millions lacked health insurance.<\/p>\n Previous presidents had attempted major reforms without achieving universal or near-universal coverage.<\/p>\n Obama decided to make healthcare a central priority.<\/p>\n The resulting legislative process was complicated.<\/p>\n Democrats themselves disagreed over the appropriate structure.<\/p>\n Some progressives wanted a stronger government-run insurance option.<\/p>\n Moderates worried about cost.<\/p>\n Republicans generally opposed the emerging legislation.<\/p>\n Insurance companies, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, employers, unions, doctors, and patient organizations all had interests in the outcome.<\/p>\n The debate lasted for more than a year.<\/p>\n It became increasingly bitter.<\/p>\n In March 2010, Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.<\/p>\n The law became commonly known as the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare.<\/p>\n It created insurance marketplaces, expanded Medicaid in participating states, provided subsidies for eligible individuals purchasing insurance, prohibited insurers from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions, and introduced numerous other changes.<\/p>\n Supporters argued that the law expanded access to insurance and created important consumer protections.<\/p>\n Critics argued that it increased government involvement in healthcare, imposed costly regulations, disrupted some existing insurance arrangements, and created new financial burdens.<\/p>\n The law became one of the most politically divisive pieces of domestic legislation in modern American history.<\/p>\n Republicans repeatedly attempted to repeal it.<\/p>\n Legal challenges reached the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n Despite repeated challenges and later modifications, much of the law survived.<\/p>\n Healthcare reform became one of Obama’s most enduring policy legacies.<\/p>\n Obama’s presidency contributed to a major mobilization of conservative political activism.<\/p>\n The Tea Party movement emerged in 2009.<\/p>\n Its supporters emphasized opposition to government spending, taxation, federal debt, and the Affordable Care Act.<\/p>\n The movement influenced Republican primaries and helped energize opposition to the administration.<\/p>\n Some criticism of Obama focused on ordinary ideological disagreements over government policy.<\/p>\n Other opposition involved false claims about his citizenship or religion.<\/p>\n The “birther” conspiracy theory falsely claimed that Obama had not been born in the United States and was therefore constitutionally ineligible to serve as president.<\/p>\n Obama eventually released his long-form Hawaii birth certificate in 2011 in an effort to end the controversy.<\/p>\n The conspiracy nevertheless demonstrated how questions of race, identity, nationality, and political opposition could become intertwined during his presidency.<\/p>\n The Democratic Party suffered major losses in the 2010 congressional elections.<\/p>\n Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n The result transformed Obama’s ability to govern legislatively.<\/p>\n During his first two years, Democrats had controlled both chambers of Congress.<\/p>\n After 2010, major legislation became substantially more difficult.<\/p>\n Republicans could block or reshape administration priorities in the House.<\/p>\n Budget confrontations intensified.<\/p>\n Disputes over taxes and government spending became central.<\/p>\n The era of large Democratic legislative majorities was over.<\/p>\n Obama increasingly had to negotiate with a divided Congress or rely on executive authority in areas where the law permitted it.<\/p>\n This shift would shape the rest of his presidency.<\/p>\n Obama had built part of his national political identity around opposition to the Iraq War.<\/p>\n As president, he inherited a conflict already undergoing transition.<\/p>\n The Bush administration had negotiated an agreement with the Iraqi government establishing a timetable for American withdrawal.<\/p>\n Obama continued reducing the American military presence.<\/p>\n In December 2011, the remaining U.S. troops operating under that framework left Iraq.<\/p>\n Supporters viewed the withdrawal as fulfillment of a major campaign promise.<\/p>\n Critics argued that the United States withdrew too completely and failed to preserve enough influence to stabilize Iraq.<\/p>\n The debate intensified several years later when the Islamic State captured large areas of Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n Obama eventually ordered American military operations back into Iraq against the group.<\/p>\n The experience demonstrated how difficult it was to declare complex wars permanently finished.<\/p>\n Afghanistan presented a different problem.<\/p>\n Obama had criticized the Bush administration for devoting excessive attention to Iraq while the conflict involving al-Qaeda and the Taliban continued in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n After taking office, he authorized additional American forces.<\/p>\n The policy became known as the Afghanistan surge.<\/p>\n The objective was to weaken Taliban forces, protect population centers, improve security, and create conditions for eventually transferring responsibility to Afghan forces.<\/p>\n The strategy produced debate inside the administration.<\/p>\n Military leaders requested additional troops.<\/p>\n Some civilian advisers worried about an open-ended commitment.<\/p>\n Obama ultimately approved a significant increase while also establishing plans for eventual reductions.<\/p>\n The decision illustrated a recurring tension in his foreign policy.<\/p>\n He was skeptical of large military occupations but unwilling to abandon the use of force when he believed important security interests were involved.<\/p>\n The search for Osama bin Laden continued throughout the first years of Obama’s presidency.<\/p>\n American intelligence eventually identified a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where officials believed bin Laden was hiding.<\/p>\n The president faced a difficult decision.<\/p>\n The intelligence was strong but not absolutely certain.<\/p>\n A raid inside Pakistan risked military casualties and diplomatic consequences.<\/p>\n Obama authorized a special operations mission.<\/p>\n On May 1, 2011 in the United States, Obama announced that American forces had killed Osama bin Laden.<\/p>\n The operation represented a major counterterrorism success for the administration.<\/p>\n Bin Laden had led al-Qaeda when it organized the September 11 attacks.<\/p>\n His death did not eliminate al-Qaeda or global terrorism.<\/p>\n But it removed the organization’s most famous leader and ended a nearly decade-long search.<\/p>\n Beginning in late 2010, protest movements spread across several Arab countries.<\/p>\n Governments fell in Tunisia and Egypt.<\/p>\n Demonstrations and conflicts developed elsewhere.<\/p>\n The movement became known as the Arab Spring.<\/p>\n The Obama administration faced difficult choices.<\/p>\n American interests included regional stability, counterterrorism, relations with longstanding allies, access to energy, Israel’s security, and support for democratic principles.<\/p>\n These objectives did not always align.<\/p>\n Egypt demonstrated the problem.<\/p>\n President Hosni Mubarak had been a longtime American partner.<\/p>\n But large demonstrations demanded his removal.<\/p>\n The administration gradually shifted toward supporting a political transition.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, events became even more complicated.<\/p>\n Libya would become one of the most controversial examples.<\/p>\n Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi faced an armed uprising in 2011.<\/p>\n As government forces advanced against opposition-held areas, international concern grew over potential civilian killings.<\/p>\n The United Nations Security Council authorized measures to protect civilians.<\/p>\n The United States joined NATO allies in military operations.<\/p>\n The intervention helped rebel forces defeat Gaddafi’s government.<\/p>\n Gaddafi was captured and killed by Libyan fighters.<\/p>\n But Libya did not transition into a stable democracy.<\/p>\n The country experienced political fragmentation, militia violence, and civil conflict.<\/p>\n Critics argued that the Obama administration had participated in overthrowing a government without an adequate plan for what would follow.<\/p>\n Obama later acknowledged that failing to prepare sufficiently for Libya’s post-Gaddafi environment was among the serious problems of the intervention.<\/p>\n Supporters of the original decision argued that immediate action had been intended to prevent threatened violence against civilians and that responsibility for Libya’s later instability was shared among numerous domestic and international actors.<\/p>\n The debate became part of the broader argument over humanitarian military intervention.<\/p>\n Obama sought reelection in 2012.<\/p>\n The Republican nominee was former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.<\/p>\n The economy had improved from the depths of the recession, but recovery remained uneven.<\/p>\n Unemployment was still a major concern.<\/p>\n Romney argued that Obama’s economic policies had produced inadequate growth and excessive government intervention.<\/p>\n Obama argued that his administration had prevented a deeper economic collapse and that the recovery needed to continue.<\/p>\n Healthcare, taxes, government spending, social policy, and foreign affairs also shaped the campaign.<\/p>\n Obama won reelection.<\/p>\n He defeated Romney in the Electoral College and won a majority of the national popular vote.<\/p>\n He would have four more years in office.<\/p>\n But his second term would present challenges very different from those of his first.<\/p>\n Obama’s first four years had already transformed his place in history.<\/p>\n He had become the first African American president.<\/p>\n He had entered office during a financial crisis and recession.<\/p>\n His administration had enacted a large economic stimulus.<\/p>\n It had intervened in the automobile industry’s restructuring.<\/p>\n Congress had passed major healthcare and financial reforms.<\/p>\n American forces had killed Osama bin Laden.<\/p>\n The Iraq deployment inherited from the previous administration had largely ended under the existing withdrawal agreement.<\/p>\n The United States had become involved in Libya.<\/p>\n The war in Afghanistan continued.<\/p>\n Political polarization had intensified.<\/p>\n Republicans had taken control of the House.<\/p>\n The Tea Party had become a major force within conservative politics.<\/p>\n Obama had won reelection, but the promise of transforming Washington’s political culture remained largely unfulfilled.<\/p>\n Partisan conflict had not disappeared.<\/p>\n In many respects, it had intensified.<\/p>\n Obama’s second term would therefore focus less on the possibility of a new political beginning and more on governing within a deeply divided political system.<\/p>\n The next four years would bring battles over immigration, guns, healthcare implementation, government shutdowns, same-sex marriage, racial justice, Iran, Cuba, Russia, Ukraine, Syria, the Islamic State, climate change, and the limits of presidential power.<\/p>\n They would also determine much of the historical debate surrounding Barack Obama’s presidency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Barack Obama: A History of His Life, Political Rise, Presidency, and Legacy Introduction Barack Hussein Obama II became one of the most consequential political figures in early twenty-first-century American history. … 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\nOn November 4, 2008, American voters elected him the 44th president of the United States. His victory carried particular historical significance because he became the first African American elected to the presidency.
\nOnly a little more than four decades had passed since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had attacked some of the most significant legal barriers preventing Black Americans from exercising the right to vote.
\nObama’s election therefore became an important moment in the long history of race and American democracy.
\nYet understanding Barack Obama requires considerably more than examining the historical symbolism of his presidency.
\nHis life connected several worlds.
\n<\/span>He was born in Hawaii to a white American mother from Kansas and a Black Kenyan father. He spent part of his childhood in Indonesia. He returned to Hawaii and was partly raised by his maternal grandparents. He attended college in California and New York. He became a community organizer on Chicago’s South Side. He attended Harvard Law School, worked as a civil rights lawyer, taught constitutional law, entered Illinois politics, and eventually became a United States senator.
\nHis rise to the presidency was remarkably rapid.
\nObama entered the U.S. Senate in January 2005. Less than four years later, he was elected president.
\nHe assumed office during an extraordinarily difficult period.
\nThe United States was experiencing the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression. American forces remained engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unemployment was increasing. The housing market had collapsed. Financial institutions were failing or under enormous pressure.
\nDuring his eight years in office, Obama confronted economic recession, healthcare reform, financial regulation, terrorism, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, the rise of the Islamic State, disputes over immigration, climate change, gun violence, racial tensions, and increasingly intense partisan conflict.
\nHis administration produced major policy changes.
\nThe Affordable Care Act reshaped the American healthcare system.
\nThe Dodd-Frank Act changed financial regulation.
\nHis administration participated in the international agreement intended to limit Iran’s nuclear program.
\nThe United States joined the Paris climate agreement.
\nAmerican forces killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.
\nObama also became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Cuba in decades after beginning a normalization process with the Cuban government.
\nHis presidency generated substantial opposition as well.
\nRepublicans strongly criticized his healthcare law, economic policies, executive actions, immigration policies, foreign policy, and expansion of federal authority.
\nCritics on the political left challenged his use of drone strikes, deportation policies, surveillance practices, handling of the financial crisis, and aspects of his foreign policy.
\nHis administration’s responses to Syria, Libya, Russia, and the rise of the Islamic State became subjects of extensive debate.
\nThe Obama years were therefore neither a simple story of political progress nor a simple story of failure.
\nThey were a period of profound change and conflict.
\n<\/span>To understand those years, it is necessary to understand the person who entered the White House in January 2009.
\nThat story begins thousands of miles from Washington, D.C., on the islands of Hawaii.<\/p>\n\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 1: Hawaii<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 2: Ann Dunham<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 3: Childhood in Indonesia<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 4: Returning to Hawaii<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 5: His Father<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 6: College in California<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 7: Columbia University<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 8: Chicago<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 9: Community Organizing<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 10: Churches and Black Chicago<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 11: Why Law School?<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 12: Harvard Law School<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 13: Returning to Chicago<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 14: Michelle Robinson<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 15: Project Vote<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 16: Writing Dreams from My Father<\/em><\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 17: Entering Electoral Politics<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 18: The Illinois Senate<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 19: An Early Political Defeat<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 20: Rebuilding<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 21: September 11 and a Changing America<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 22: The U.S. Senate Opportunity<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 23: The 2004 Democratic National Convention<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 24: Election to the Senate<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 25: A National Political Celebrity<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 26: Senate Work<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 27: The Audacity of Hope<\/em><\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 28: Should He Run?<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 29: Announcing the Presidential Campaign<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 30: Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Contest<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 31: Iowa<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 32: A Long Primary Battle<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 33: Reverend Jeremiah Wright<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 34: Winning the Democratic Nomination<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 35: The Financial Crisis<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 36: Election Night<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 37: January 20, 2009<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 38: The Economic Emergency<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 39: The Automobile Industry<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 40: Healthcare<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 41: The Affordable Care Act<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 42: The Tea Party and Conservative Opposition<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 43: The 2010 Midterm Elections<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 44: Iraq<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 45: Afghanistan<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 46: Osama bin Laden<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 47: The Arab Spring<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 48: Libya<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 49: The 2012 Election<\/h1>\n
\n
\n<\/div>\nChapter 50: The Meaning of the First Term<\/h1>\n