1.17.2007
Obama Takes First Step in White House Bid (ChicagoTribune.com)
By Mike Dorning and Christi Parsons
Washington Bureau
Published January 16, 2007, 10:00 PM CST
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Barack Obama took an important formal step on Tuesday toward a Democratic presidential campaign that would make him the most formidable African-American candidate ever, offering a call to common purpose as a remedy to bitter partisan divisions and marking a potential turning point in the nation's race relations.
By filing papers to form a presidential exploratory committee, the first-term Illinois senator signaled his intent to run for the presidency, a move that he has been publicly considering for months. Advisers said Obama and his family had made the personal commitment to a grueling, two-year presidential bid and the senator now would concentrate on assembling a campaign apparatus and testing support among financial backers and grass-roots activists.
The Democratic lawmaker will make a formal announcement on his candidacy Feb. 10 in Springfield, Ill., where barely two years ago he served as a mere state senator. He will return a cultural phenomenon, a best-selling author coveted as a guest by television talk show hosts and followed by celebrity photographers. He has come to embody the hopes and dreams of many Americans.
His candidacy would create a historic moment, as the American public contemplates a leader of mixed-race heritage, the son of an African father and white Kansan mother. Race would be a spoken and unspoken subtext to a campaign that also would raise grave policy issues on the war in Iraq, with Obama an early and consistent critic of the ongoing U.S. military mission there.
His efforts to reach toward the center with appeals to common ground is a reversal of the recently successful political formula of polarization to drive up turnout among base voters that won President Bush re-election in 2004.
Obama made the official announcement of his exploratory committee on his Web site, in a simple video that featured him seated, wearing a coat and no tie, telling viewers he wanted to be the first to tell them of the development. He sounded a theme of change, saying he was "struck by how hungry we all are for a different kind of politics."
(More ... Chicago Tribune > Breaking News)
Washington Bureau
Published January 16, 2007, 10:00 PM CST
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Barack Obama took an important formal step on Tuesday toward a Democratic presidential campaign that would make him the most formidable African-American candidate ever, offering a call to common purpose as a remedy to bitter partisan divisions and marking a potential turning point in the nation's race relations.
By filing papers to form a presidential exploratory committee, the first-term Illinois senator signaled his intent to run for the presidency, a move that he has been publicly considering for months. Advisers said Obama and his family had made the personal commitment to a grueling, two-year presidential bid and the senator now would concentrate on assembling a campaign apparatus and testing support among financial backers and grass-roots activists.
The Democratic lawmaker will make a formal announcement on his candidacy Feb. 10 in Springfield, Ill., where barely two years ago he served as a mere state senator. He will return a cultural phenomenon, a best-selling author coveted as a guest by television talk show hosts and followed by celebrity photographers. He has come to embody the hopes and dreams of many Americans.
His candidacy would create a historic moment, as the American public contemplates a leader of mixed-race heritage, the son of an African father and white Kansan mother. Race would be a spoken and unspoken subtext to a campaign that also would raise grave policy issues on the war in Iraq, with Obama an early and consistent critic of the ongoing U.S. military mission there.
His efforts to reach toward the center with appeals to common ground is a reversal of the recently successful political formula of polarization to drive up turnout among base voters that won President Bush re-election in 2004.
Obama made the official announcement of his exploratory committee on his Web site, in a simple video that featured him seated, wearing a coat and no tie, telling viewers he wanted to be the first to tell them of the development. He sounded a theme of change, saying he was "struck by how hungry we all are for a different kind of politics."
(More ... Chicago Tribune > Breaking News)
Labels: 2008 election, Chicago Tribune, Obama
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