奥巴马其人

巴拉克•奥巴马在当地时间周二的晚间以压倒性优势获胜，扫除了有史以来的种族屏障，当选美国首位黑人总统。奥巴马在胜选演说中向民众高呼：“变革的时代来了！”

Brief Introduction

Barack Hussein Obama, born on August 4, 1961, is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2008 United States presidential election.

Obama is the first African-American to be nominated by a major American political party for president and became the first African-American president in American history on November 4, 2008. A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he became the first black person to serve as president of the Harvard Law Review, Obama worked as a community organizer and practiced as a civil rights attorney before serving three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, he announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate in January 2003. After a primary victory in March 2004, Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He was elected to the Senate in November 2004 with 70 percent of the vote.

As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, he helped create legislation to control conventional weapons and to promote greater public accountability in the use of federal funds. He also made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. During the 110th Congress, he helped create legislation regarding lobbying and electoral fraud, climate change, nuclear terrorism, and care for returned U.S. military personnel. Obama announced his presidential campaign in February 2007, and was formally nominated at the 2008 Democratic National Convention with Delaware senator Joe Biden as his running mate.

奥巴马简介

巴拉克•侯赛因•奥巴马，出生于1961年8月4日，是代表美国伊利诺州的资深联邦参议员，2008年美国总统选举民主党候选人。

奥巴马是美国历史上第一位获得主要政党提名的非裔总统候选人，并于2008年11月4日当选为美国历史上首位非裔总统。他毕业于哥伦比亚大学和哈佛法学院，是《哈佛法律研究》的第一位黑人社长。在连续三届担任伊利诺伊州州参议员之前（1997-2004），奥巴马从事社区工作和民权律师工作。1992年到2004年，他在芝加哥大学教授宪法学。2000年奥巴马竞选美国众议院议员失败，2003年他宣布参选联邦参议员。2004年3月奥巴马取得初步胜利，7月他在民主党全国大会上发表了主题演讲。2004年11月，奥巴马以百分之70的选票当选为联邦参议员。

在第109届国会会期内，作为民主党内的少数族裔，他协助编纂了控制常规武器和使用联邦基金进一步推动公共问责的法律。他还对东欧，中东和非洲进行了官方访问。在第110届国会会期内，他协助编纂了关于游说和选举诈骗，气候变化，核恐怖活动以及帮助退伍军人的法案。2007年2月，奥巴马宣布参加总统竞选，2008年民主党全国大会上获得正式提名，选择代表特拉华州的联邦参议员乔•拜登做副总统人选。

Early life and Education

Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a Luo from Kenya, and Ann Dunham, a white American from Wichita, Kansas. His parents met while attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was a foreign student. They separated when he was two years old and later divorced. Obama's father attended Harward Universtiy for his Doctor’s Degree and returned to Kenya and saw his son only once more before dying in an automobile accident in 1982.

Young Obama and his family

After her divorce, Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, and the family moved to Soetoro's home country of Indonesia in 1967, where Obama attended local schools in Jakarta until he was ten years old. He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents while attending Punahou School from the fifth grade in 1971 until his graduation from high school in 1979. Obama's mother returned to Hawaii in 1972 for several years and then back to Indonesia to complete fieldwork for her doctoral dissertation. She died of ovarian cancer in 1995.

Young Obama and his mother

As an adult Obama admitted that during high school he used marijuana, cocaine, and alcohol, which he described at the 2008 Civil Forum on the Presidency as his greatest moral failure.

Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years. He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations.

Career

Obama graduated with a B.A. from Columbia in 1983, then at the start of the following year worked for a year at the Business International Corporation and then at the New York Public Interest Research Group.

After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago, where he was hired as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP) and worked there for three years from June 1985 to May 1988.

Obama entered Harvard Law School in late 1988. At the end of his first year, he was selected, based on his grades and a writing competition, as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. In February 1990, in his second year, he was elected president of the Law Review, a full-time volunteer position functioning as editor-in-chief and supervising the Law Review's staff of eighty editors.

After graduating with a Juris Doctor (J.D.) magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991, he returned to Chicago.

He served from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, and also from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of The Joyce Foundation.

Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee. He resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the US Senate.

2008 Election

On February 10, 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States in front of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois. Throughout the campaign, Obama has emphasized the issues of rapidly ending the Iraq War, increasing energy independence, and providing universal health care. And he promised “change” in the campaign course.

Barack Obama swept to victory as the nation's first black president Tuesday night in an electoral college landslide that overcame racial barriers as old as America itself. "Change has come," he declared to a huge throng of cheering supporters.

The Democratic senator from Illinois sealed his historic triumph by defeating Republican Sen. John McCain in a string of wins in hard-fought battleground states — Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Iowa and more.

 

巴拉克•奥巴马出生于夏威夷州檀香山，他的父亲老巴拉克是生于肯尼亚的卢欧族人，母亲安•杜汉姆（Ann Duham）出生于美国堪萨斯州的威奇托。

奥巴马的父母在檀香山玛诺亚的夏威夷大学上学时相识，当时他的父亲以国际学生身份在校求学。奥巴马两岁岁时，父母分居，之后离婚。此后，他的父亲便前往哈佛大学攻读博士学位，之后返回肯尼亚。1982年，老巴拉克在一场车祸中丧生，此前他与儿子见最后一次面。

离婚后，奥巴马的母亲嫁给了一位印度尼西亚籍的学生Lolo Soetoro。1967年，奥巴马六岁时，与母亲一家迁居到雅加达并在当地的学校上学。四年后，奥巴马回到夏威夷，与外祖父母住在一起。从五年级起，奥巴马就读于位于檀香山的大型私立学校Punahou学校，并于1979年从这所学校毕业。

1972，奥巴马的母亲回到夏威夷并在这待了几年，之后为了完成她的博士论文，她又返回印度尼西亚进行实地考察和调研。奥巴马的母亲于1995年因卵巢癌去世。

在中年时代，奥巴马吸食过大麻和可卡因，他在“2008年总统公民论坛”上表示，这是他一生中最大的道德失败。

高中毕业后，奥巴马在加州洛杉矶的西方学院（Occidental College）求学两年，随后转至纽约市的哥伦比亚大学，在那里主修政治学及国际关系。

职业生涯

1983年在哥伦比亚大学取得学士学位后，奥巴马在“国际商务集团”和“纽约公共利益研究所”工作了一年。

1985年，他迁往芝加哥，并在之后的三年主持了一个社区发展计划。

奥巴马于1988年底进入哈佛法学院。第一年年末，奥巴马凭借其出色的成绩和在一次论文比赛中脱颖而出，被选为《哈佛法律评论》的编辑。1990年2月，他被选为该学术期刊的主席，任全职主编，手下有八名编辑。

1991年，奥巴马在哈佛大学获得了“极优等”（拉丁文的学位荣誉，magna cum laude）法学士的学位，并回到芝加哥。1994年至2002年，奥巴马分别在芝加哥森林基金会和乔伊斯基金会的董事会任职过一段时间。

1996年，奥巴马进入政坛，当选伊利诺伊州参议员。2003年1月，奥巴马被选为伊利诺伊斯州卫生公共服务委员会主席。2004年11月，他在国会选举中当选伊利诺伊州联邦参议员。

2008年参加美国大选

2007年2月10日，奥巴马在伊利诺斯州首府春田市的老州政府大厦前正式宣布参加2008年总统大选。伊拉克战争、增大能源自主和全民医疗保险是奥巴马竞选纲领所关注的三大主要问题。此外，“变化”是奥巴马的竞选主题。

巴拉克•奥巴马在美国当地时间周二的晚间以压倒性优势获胜，成为美国首位黑人总统。这一结果颠覆了美国有史以来存在的种族隔阂现状。他在获胜后对欢庆胜利的众多支持者们喊道：“变革的时代来了。”

这位伊利诺伊州民主党参议员在俄亥俄、佛罗里达、弗吉尼亚、爱荷华等几个角逐激烈的战场州击败共和党参议员约翰•麦凯恩之后，这一历史性胜利的局面便已锁定。

Romantic story

Obama met his wife, Michelle Robinson, in June 1989 when he was employed as a summer associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin. Assigned for three months as Obama's adviser at the firm, Robinson joined him at group social functions, but declined his initial offers to date. They began dating later that summer, became engaged in 1991, and were married on October 3, 1992. The couple's first daughter, Malia Ann, was born in 1998, followed by a second daughter, Natasha ("Sasha"), in 2001.

Barack Obama and his wife Michelle

A diversified family

In a 2006 interview, Obama highlighted the diversity of his extended family.

"Michelle will tell you that when we get together for Christmas or Thanksgiving, it's like a little mini-United Nations," he said. "I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher." Obama has seven half-siblings from his Kenyan father's family, six of them living, and a half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, the daughter of his mother and her Indonesian second husband. Obama's mother was survived by her Kansas-born mother, Madelyn Dunham until her death on November 2, 2008, just before the presidential election.

Obama plays basketball, a sport he participated in as a member of his high school's varsity team. Before announcing his presidential candidacy, he began a well-publicized effort to quit smoking.

“罗曼史”

1989年6月，奥巴马在芝加哥盛德国际律师事务所做暑期助理期间，结识了米歇尔•鲁宾逊。当时米歇尔被指派为奥巴马3个月工作期间的顾问，她在社交集会时加入了奥巴马的团体，但却拒绝了他最初的约会邀请。那年夏季快结束时，他们才开始约会，随后两人于1991年订婚，并于1992年10月3日正式结婚。他们有两个女儿，大女儿玛丽亚-安出生于1999年，小女儿娜塔莎（萨沙）出生于2001年。

“小联合国”

在2006年的一次采访中，奥巴马让人们了解了他的多样性的大家庭。

他说：“米歇尔最有发言权了，每当过圣诞节或者感恩节，我们家就像一个小联合国一样。我的亲人有的长得像伯尼·麦克（黑人喜剧演员），有的则酷似撒切尔夫人”。奥巴马的父亲是肯尼亚人，在那里他有7个同父异母兄妹，其中6个还健在。他还有一个同母异父的妹妹---玛雅，是他的母亲和他的印尼继父所生。他的母亲先于外祖母去世。奥巴马的外祖母玛德琳•杜汉姆出生于堪萨斯，遗憾的是她在本月2日大选之前去世。

奥巴马喜欢打篮球，高中时曾是校队成员。宣布竞选总统之前，他向民众表示自己会戒烟。

Cultural and Political image

With his Kenyan father and white American mother, his upbringing in Honolulu and Jakarta, and his Ivy League education, Obama's early life experiences differ markedly from those of African American politicians who launched their careers in the 1960s through participation in the civil rights movement. Expressing puzzlement over questions about whether he is "black enough," Obama told an August 2007 meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists that the debate is not about his physical appearance or his record on issues of concern to black voters. Obama said that "we're still locked in this notion that if you appeal to white folks then there must be something wrong."

Echoing the inaugural address of John F. Kennedy, Obama acknowledged his youthful image in an October 2007 campaign speech, saying: "I wouldn't be here if, time and again, the torch had not been passed to a new generation."

Many commentators mentioned Obama's international appeal as a defining factor for his public image. Not only did several polls show strong support for him in other countries, but Obama also established close relationships with prominent foreign politicians and elected officials even before his presidential candidacy, notably with then current British Prime minister Tony Blair, whom he met in London in 2005, with Italy's Democratic Party leader Walter Veltroni, who visited Obama's Senate office in 2005, and with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who also visited him in Washington in 2006.

文化及政治形象

奥巴马的父亲来自肯尼亚，母亲为美国白人，他在檀香山和雅加达两地长大，就读于常青藤名校。他的这些早期经历与在二十世纪六十年代通过民权运动开拓自己事业领域的那些非洲裔美国政界人士明显不同。在关于他是否“够黑”这个问题上，奥巴马在全美黑人新闻工作者协会2007年8月的会议上表示，这样的争论与他的外表或者他对黑人选民问题的关注并无关系。他说：“我们到现在还在被那个固有的观念所影响，觉得受到白人的认可是不可能的。”

对于自己的年轻形象，奥巴马在2007年10月的一次竞选演讲中引用肯尼迪总统就职演说中的话说：“如果不是这个火炬在被一次次地传递到新一代的手上，我不会有这个机会的。”

很多评论家都认为奥巴马在国际上的受欢迎度在他的公众形象中起了决定性作用。他不仅在其他国家的几次民调中都得到了极高的支持率，而且在他成为总统候选人之前就与一些外国政要及在职官员关系密切。这其中就有2005年与奥巴马在伦敦会面、时任英国首相的托尼•布莱尔，同年拜访过奥巴马参议员办公室的意大利民主党领袖瓦尔特•维尔特洛尼，以及现任法国总统尼古拉斯•萨科奇，二人曾于2006年在华盛顿会过面。