Author Obama wants to write new chapter for US

“Our time has come, our movement is real and change is coming to America,” Barack Obama said as the race for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination moves on from Super Tuesday.

A force for change, the Illinois senator’s campaign has attracted widespread excitement around the man who could become the first African American president of the United States.

Often described as a “rock star” or “superhero”, the relatively inexperienced US senator promises to “get off the wrong battlefield in Iraq”, have the US lead the world on reducing greenhouse gases, and implement a overhaul of the health care system by the end of his first term.

With only two years’ experience in national office as he announced his bid for the White House in February, his campaign was hurt by gaffes early on, but his commitment to making society better and tackling tough problems has led him to be seen as the candidate for change and hope for America’s future.

A pattern has emerged where the longer he spends in a state, the more votes he attracts.

Huge crowds have greeted him at election rallies, including 24,000 in New York’s Washington Square Park in September, his two books have both become best-sellers, and many believe an Obama White House in 2009 might help heal the nation’s scarred racial past.

Mr Obama often jokes in speeches that people get his name wrong, calling him “Alabama” or “Yo Mama”, but CNN was forced to apologise after it wrongly put his name on screen during a story about al Qaeda terror mastermind Osama Bin Laden last year.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in August 1961, Barack Hussein Obama Jr was named after his Kenyan father, whose first name means “blessed” in Swahili.

His father grew up in Kenya herding goats but gained a scholarship to study in Hawaii where he met Mr Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, of Kansas.

While still a toddler, his father went to study at Harvard but there was no money for the family to go with him and he later returned to Kenya alone before the couple divorced.

Mr Obama’s mother married Indonesian Lolo Soetoro and the young child spent four of his pre-teen years in that country’s capital, Jakarta.

He then moved back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents and attend school, before studying political science at Columbia University in New York.

He moved to Chicago where he spent three years as a community organiser, before attending Harvard Law School in 1988, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review.

Mr Obama later returned to Chicago to practise civil rights law, representing victims of housing and employment discrimination.

He married lawyer Michelle in 1992 and they have two young daughters, Malia Ann, eight, and Natasha (Sasha), six.

He was a state senator in Illinois from 1997 to 2004, but first attracted international attention when he made a keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, calling for more financial support for families of US troops killed in action.

“When we send our young men and women into harm’s way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they’re going, to care for their families while they’re gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world,” he said.

He became the only current African American US senator the following year – and only its fifth in history.

An early opponent of the Iraq war, Mr Obama has come to represent change in the US while his opponent Hillary Clinton symbolises experience.

On foreign affairs, he has vowed to “engage in aggressive personal diplomacy” with Iran in a bid to help stability in Iraq and would allocate the amount of aid to allied countries based on their commitment to fighting terror.

He has put the reduction of greenhouse gases as one of his most important domestic goals and would create a subsidised public health care plan.

A staunch supporter of abortion rights, he is also in favour of relaxing federal restrictions on stem cell research and has called for a “sensible” approach to gun control.

Labelling his own campaign for change in all aspects of life – from foreign policy to healthcare, education and the legislative process – as an “improbable quest”, Mr Obama still insists “few obstacles can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change”.

But his chances of becoming President may be harmed by his illegal use of cocaine as a youth and his involvement in the purchase of his current home and adjacent land from Antoin Rezko, who was later indicted on corruption charges.

On the latter, Mr Obama said: “I am the first one to announce it was a boneheaded move... given that he was already under a cloud of suspicion.”

And on his campaign, he said: “I believe that Americans want to come together again behind a common purpose. Americans want to reclaim our American dream.

“That’s why I’m running for President of the United States.”