Who is Barack Obama? 

Who exactly is Barack Obama, and why does he deserve to be President?  Obama is a Democratic senator from Illinois, who is sitting as only the fifth African American Senator in United States history.  Couple that with the fact that he is currently the only African American serving in the Senate and you must concede that he is definitely determined.  

Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996 for the first time, and since has served 3 terms there, including this term.  He tried a very unsuccessful run in 2000 for the United States House of Representatives.  He lost by a margin of 61% to 30%, and lost to four term incumbent Bobby Rush, whom was a former Black Panther.  It leads people to question, if he was unsuccessful at a House of Representatives bid, how is he going to be successful at a bid for the White House.  

One major point which will likely help Obama is he won an endorsement from the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police for his support of gun control measures.  Coming in the weeks and months following the tragic Virginia Tech massacre, this one point may really pull him ahead of some of the other candidates for the election since so many families are feeling the brutal pain and faced with burying their loved ones.  Is this enough, will this one measure be enough to place Barack Obama in the White House?

At this point it looks as if not, but that's not to say that Obama does not have his supporters, in fact he is in the lead as one of the 2008 Presidential hopefuls who has accumulated the most money so far.  Will this success rate hold out, it is really enough and does he have enough supporters to win this election?  At this point, Obama is leading the polls in the youth votes, with more young adults supporting him than any other democratic candidate.  

Last polls showed that Obama lead the race with 35% of the 18 to 24 year-old crowd, with Hillary Clinton coming in at second place with 28% of the same age group.  While these numbers may not seem high, they represent thousands of people in the difference.  The 2006 midterm election saw a huge turnout of young voters, and analysts are wondering if 2008 will see another huge increase of youth voters coming out to express their opinion.  

Obama is a relative newcomer to the political arena, especially the national arena which is a hard place to be successful, and battling Clinton is no small feat, especially since she has been a major political figure since her husband was elected President in 1992. But with all of Hillary's experience, can Barack pull ahead and win?  He has managed to pull in 104,000 donors for his election fund.  Will all of those votes actually manage to pull through and pay off at election time? 

Will his stand on guns and his place in the youth poles be enough to move him towards the White House in a successful bid?  Time will tell as the Democratic hopefuls' battle it out in the political arena.  One thing has been clear, at this point Obama has made it clear he is not running for the number two slot on a ticket, he is running to win.    

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