As a young politician with barely two years in the U.S. Senate, Obama enters the political arena with an unblemished record, untainted with the type of controversies that hounded Bill Clinton during his administration or with anything pertaining to the war in Iraq . The fact that he is the only African-American senator in the U.S. Senate today only serves to affirm and concretize this Harvard Law graduate's role as a unifying agent of change that could lead the free world to even greater heights. If and when he does decide to run for the 2008 U.S. presidential elections, it will serve as an acid test for the nation who declares that it votes candidates without regard for creed or color but who, so far, have been able to put into office mostly white male presidents.

Whatever he decides to do in 2008, Barack Obama, at this early stage of the game, knows how much he is loved and accepted by many people. His maiden visit to New Hampshire got the reception mostly reserved for celebrities. Consistently coming out in the opinion polls as the second most popular choice among Democratic voters for their party's nomination in the 2008 presidential election behind New York senator Hillary Clinton, Obama is enjoying a meteoric rise to popularity that has surprised even Obama himself. Humble and self-effacing, he is quick to attribute this popularity more to the Americans' desire for change than to himself. A seemingly genuine 'nice guy', Barack Obama is the Democrat Party's brightest star on the horizon today.

Barack Obama was born in Honolulu , Hawaii on August 4, 1961 to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., an economist from Kogelo, Siaya District , Kenya and Ann Dunham of Wichita Kansas . He was born when his parents were still in school together at the East-West Center in the University of Hawaii in Manoa. This was a happy time for Barack who recalls that despite his mother being 'as white as milk' and his dad 'as black as pitch', no one really made them feel any differently.

Two years later, his parents divorced and his father went back to Kenya . His mother married an Indonesian foreign student, Lolo Soetero, who brought them to Jakarta when Barack was six years old. When Barack was ten, he returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents who enrolled him in the fifth grade at Punahou School , the same school he graduated high school from in 1979.

After high school, Barack moved to California and studied at Occidental College for two years before transferring to Columbia College where he earned a degree in Political Science with International Relations as his specialization. Columbia College is the undergraduate division of Columbia University .

His first job after graduating from college in 1983 was at the Business International Corporation where he worked for a year before moving to Chicago to join a non-profit organization that helped local churches organize job-training programs for poor neighborhoods.

In 1988, he left Chicago to study at Harvard Law School where he earned his law degree graduating magna cum laude. He also became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review.

It was about this time that he met Michelle Robinson, also a lawyer, whom he married in 1992 and with whom he now has two daughters, Malia, born in 1999, and Sasha who was born in 2001. The Obamas belong to Chicago 's Trinity United Church of Christ.

On his return to Chicago , Obama joined a civil rights law firm Miner, Barnhill, & Galland and the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School where he taught constitutional law from 1993 onwards until he joined politics.

In 1996, Barack Obama, the young idealistic Harvard Law School graduate ran and won in the Illinois State Senate under the Democratic Party who named him Chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee in January 2003 after the Democrats regained control of the chamber.

As Senator of Illinois he authored legislation geared towards helping the underprivileged. For one, he helped author the Illinois Earned Income Tax Credit that provided benefits to the working poor and sought legislation that would provide assistance to residents too poor to afford medical insurance. He also sought to increase funding for AIDS prevention and care programs.

People who observed his career as Illinois Senator noted how Obama seemed to be able to successfully work with both Democrats and Republicans. As commentators noted, Obama was great at creating coalitions with members of the opposition.

Despite a setback in 2000 when he sought to gain a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives against the four-term incumbent candidate Bobby Rush that saw Rush garnering 61% of the vote and Obama, 30%, Obama again ran for U.S. Senator in 2004 against multimillionaire businessman Blair Hull and Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes.

In the midst of his campaign for U.S. Senator, Barack Obama was tasked to deliver the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston , Massachusetts . This was made more significant by the fact that he is only the third African-American to do this. People took notice and in just a few months, January 4, 2005 to be exact, Barack Obama was sworn in as America 's fifth African-American U.S. Senator in history and the only African-American Senator currently serving in the U.S. Senate.

Following his victory in the U.S. Senate and after the much-publicized keynote address in the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the question topmost in his supporters' mind is whether he will be running for U.S. president in 2008. When hounded for answers, the charismatic Obama initially replied that he wanted to complete his term as Senator first. However, with the increased clamor from various sectors, he seems to be softening his stand and now addresses the persistent question with a request to be allowed more time to think through this very important decision of his life.

Political commentators agree that Obama is a potent force. His only problem, if it can be regarded as a problem, is not so much that he is Black but that he is, as Newsweek Magazine calls him, "green". Barely two years in the U.S. Senate, oppositionists scoff at his idealism and declare that he still needs a lot of experience, especially in foreign policy, to qualify for the position of U.S. President. Moreover, they declare, he still needs to establish a record of accomplishment in the Senate. With the Democrats regaining control of the chamber in the recent elections, the opportunity for Obama to prove himself may come sooner than expected.

In the span of his career as a lawyer and a senator, Barack Obama has successfully established many 'firsts'. It will not surprise anyone, therefore, if he adds "first African-American Leader of the Free World" to his list. We'll just have to wait and see.