Obamas previous political experience

Answer 1

Barack Obama served in the Illinois State Senate for eight years representing a liberal district in Chicago.

He was chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Foundation and was in charge of fifty million dollars in grants for schools.

He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives. Although Jesse Jackson Jr was the logical Democratic candidate for an open seat in the U.S. Senate, JJ Sr had antagonized a lot of downstate Illinois and JJ Jr gave his endorsement for Obama to run. Jack Ryan, the Republican candidate initially had a big lead in the polls but had to drop out of the race when details from his divorce from Jeri Ryan became public. Alan Keyes, the last minute Republican replacement, had neither the name recognition needed in Illinois nor the support to mount a credible campaign and Obama won in a landslide. Barack Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996 and has served 8 years from January 1996 to January 2005 when he began serving in the US Senate. Less than two years after being elected to the US Senate, he started an exploratory committee to run for President, after his first book was promoted by Oprah Winfrey. He was appointed by the US Senate to various committees, including the Foreign Relations, Homeland Security, and Veteran Affairs committees. Barack Obama has sponsored 121 bills in the US Senate since Jan 24, 2005. Obama has co-sponsored 490 bills in the US Senate during the same time period.

Answer 2

Barack Obama has a Harvard Law Degree and was the first African American President of the Harvard Law Review. The president of the Harvard Law Review often goes on to become a clerk for a Federal Court of Appeals judge then for an associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Instead, he went back to Chicago to work on a voter registration drive that resulted in voter registration in Chicago's 19 predominantly black wards outnumbering those in the city's 19 predominantly white ethnic wards for the first time in Chicago's history. He then worked as an attorney and constitutional law teacher at the University of Chicago School of Law. Obama was an Illinois state senator from 1996 to 2004. He resigned from the state senate in 2004 when he was elected to the U.S. Senate where he has served one term. Many have made statements about Barack Obama lacking the necessary experience to be elected President of the United States; however, his level of experience going into this election is very similar to that of past presidents such as Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is considered to be one of the greatest U.S. Presidents in history and his experience at the time of his election to office was strikingly similar to that of Barack Obama.

Answer 3

After earning his JD from Harvard, Obama worked on Illinois Project Vote.In 1993 he went to work for Miner, Barnhill and Galland. At that firm he worked on voter rights and employment litigation, real estate transactions involving not-for-profits and low income and mixed income housing projects.Also in 1993 Barack became a legal professor at the University of Chicago. He taught constitutional law.He served in the Illinois Senate from 1997-2004 and served the U.S senate from 2004 to date (127 days).

Answer 4

Columbia University and Harvard Law School graduate, past Community Organizer, Civil Rights Attorney, taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School, and Senate of Illinois.

Answer 5

He does have prior "experience" in government/politics from his state, but really then if you listen to what he says and what kinds of things he'd like government to do / not do, it becomes quickly apparent no "experience" could ever make him qualified--clearly he hasn't actually ever learned about rights and governance.

Answer 6

Barack Obama first ran for political office in 1996. Prior to that, he had been a community organizer and advocate for the poor; a civil rights attorney; and a law school professor. In 1996, Mr. Obama was elected to the Illinois state senate, and was re-elected two more times. He then ran for U.S. senator in 2004 and won.

Answer 7

From January 3, 2005 until November 16, 2008, Obama was a US Senator from Illinois. Before that he was a Member of the Illinois Senate from the 13th District from 1997 until 2004.

Answer 8

He was elected to the Illinois state senate in 1996 and served there until 2004. At that time, he was elected a United States Senator, a position he held until he ran for president.

Answer 9

Nothing. He's not any more qualified than you or I.