Barack Obama

Born: Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii

Home: Chicago

Education: Attended Occidental College, 1979-81; B.A., Columbia University, 1983; J.D., Harvard University, 1991

Religion: United Church of Christ

Military Experience: none

Family: Wife: Michelle; children: Sasha and Malia

Professional Career: President, 2009-current | U.S. senator, 2004-2008 | Illinois state senator, 1996-2004 | Attorney/University of Chicago lecturer, 1993-2004 | Director, Illinois Project Vote!, 1992

Need to Know: Obama

IF OBAMA WINS November 7, 2012

Who Might Serve in a Second Obama Administration?

By George E. Condon Jr.

President Obama may not want many tweaks to his senior staff or his Cabinet in a second term. But, like the past five two-term presidents, he will find that things never stay the same—even if he wants them to. Read more »

ELECTION ANALYSIS November 1, 2012

Hurricane Sandy and the Danger of Homestretch Over-Analysis

By Major Garrett

There are times when governing is as governing does, when the blood-sport of politics receives a jolting transfusion of reality. When dozens of people are dead, power is gone, clean water is scarce, and roads are impassable, there are no optics. Read more »

WHITE HOUSE October 31, 2012

Obama Focused on Storm Recovery at Cost of Campaigning

By George E. Condon Jr.

If the presidential campaign to most voters is television advertising, the campaign continues uninterrupted by Hurricane Sandy because the ad assault persists despite the devastation left behind by the storm. But for residents of the one state that has grown accustomed to repeated personal visits from the candidates, Sandy has changed the way the final week is playing out. Ohioans are still getting the ads but they won’t have President Obama there on Wednesday. Read more »

ELECTION ANALYSIS October 26, 2012

Obama: Not Such a Nice Guy When It Comes to Romney

By George E. Condon Jr.

If President Obama is trying to widen his advantage with women voters or improve his likability numbers, Thursday may not have been the best day he’s had recently. Even in a campaign year noted for its less-than-uplifting tone, this was a low point. Read more »

ELECTION 2012 October 19, 2012

Obama Accuses Opponent of 'Romnesia'

By Sophie Quinton and George E. Condon Jr.

President Obama launched a stinging new attack on challenger Mitt Romney Friday, mockingly accusing him of forgetting the positions he took in the Republican primaries when he was casting himself as a “severely conservative” candidate. To the cheers and laughter of supporters at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., the president dubbed this forgetfulness “Romnesia.” Read more »

ELECTION ANALYSIS September 11, 2012

Stimulus: The Law That Dare Not Speak Its Name

By Jill Lawrence

The stimulus is the law that dare not speak its name – but we’re hearing a lot about it anyway. Read more »

CAMPAIGN 2012 September 10, 2012

Obama Outraises Romney in August

By Sarah Huisenga

BOSTON – For the first time since April, Chicago has outraised Boston, with the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee pulling in more than $114 million in the month of August, while Romney and his supporting Republican committees raised $111.6 million. Read more »

September 6, 2012

A Tenuous Advantage for Obama

By Ronald Brownstein

The back-to-back national party conventions sharpened the arguments of President Obama and Mitt Romney, but they probably did little to reshape the dynamics of a razor-thin race that has demonstrated remarkable stability for months. Read more »

CONVENTIONS 2012 September 6, 2012

Why Obama's Great Speech Fell Short

By Ron Fournier

Obama still has work to do with the vision thing. Convincing voters that he has a credible, practical plan to turn the nation around is a process, not a speech. Read more »

CONVENTIONS 2012 September 6, 2012

Obama: We Can 'Rebuild'

By Jill Lawrence

President Obama said Thursday in excerpts of his convention speech that the path he offers is not easy but will lead to a better place. Read more »

September 5, 2012

What Obama Could Have Done to Hasten the Sluggish Recovery

By Jim Tankersley

The question Americans should be asking themselves heading into November isn’t, “Are we better off today than we were four years ago?” It’s, “Why aren’t we better off than Sweden?” Read more »

CONVENTIONS 2012 September 4, 2012

On Race, Obama Treads With Caution

By Ron Fournier and Caren Bohan

Is Mitt Romney playing the race card on welfare reform? It was a softball question for three Democratic pollsters sitting on a National Journal panel hours before the Democratic National Convention opened Tuesday. But for President Obama’s chief pollster, the question was fraught with political complication. Read more »

CONVENTIONS 2012 September 3, 2012

Obama’s Invisible Second-Term Agenda

By Major Garrett

Democrats are incredulous that Mitt Romney didn’t mention U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan during his nomination acceptance speech. But if Romney was AWOL on Americans fighting and dying to prosecute the first war set in motion by the atrocities of 9/11, President Obama’s description of his second-term agenda is just as invisible. Read more »

September 2, 2012

Chasing Romney, Losing Himself

By Major Garrett

In at least three crucial ways, President Obama is running an unorthodox campaign for reelection, shattering the pattern and priorities of his predecessors in a way that risks rebuke from undecided voters. Read more »

September 2, 2012

Can Romney Counter Obama’s ‘Commander in Chief’ Strategy?

By Michael Hirsh

In an election as close as this one, it is the little intangibles—that intuitive sense of confidence (or lack thereof) about a candidate that ambivalent voters carry with them into the booth—that can make all the difference. And although we’ve heard that this election will be almost entirely about the U.S. economy and not foreign policy, President Obama will make his national-security record a centerpiece of his closing night at the Democratic National Convention this week. Read more »

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