President Barack Hussein Obama, 51, was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father was from Kenya and his mother was from Kansas. Obama’s parents divorced when he was 2 years old, and he moved to Indonesia shortly after when his mother remarried.
He had a brief reunion with his biological father when he was 10, and they stayed connected by occasionally writing letters. However, Obama Sr. was killed in a car crash while living in Kenya in the early 1980s.
When Obama returned to Hawaii at the age of 10, he was raised primarily by his grandparents. His grandfather served in Patton’s army, and his grandmother was the vice president at a local bank.
Obama studied at Columbia University as well as at Harvard Law School. In 1990, he became the first African-American to be president of the Harvard Law Review journal. After moving to Chicago, he began dating a Harvard law graduate named Michelle Robinson, and the two were married in 1992. They have two daughters, Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11.
Obama caught the public’s attention as an orator during the 2004 Democratic National Convention. As the keynote speaker, he delivered his self-written speech “The Audacity of Hope” and gained worldwide recognition.
In 2004, Oprah Winfrey interviewed him for O Magazine shortly after the convention. He acknowledged recognizing his gift with words at an early age.
“I didn’t grow up in a setting where I had a lot of formal training, but I always knew I could express myself. I knew I could win some arguments. I knew I could get my grandparents and mom frustrated,” Obama told Winfrey.
He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004 and won with nearly 70 percent of the vote. He served only four years before announcing his intentions of running for president in 2008. On Nov. 5, 2008, he won the U.S. presidential election and became the first African-American President of the United States.
During his presidency, Barack Obama has taken firm stances on issues ranging from health care to gay marriage.
This past May, Obama said gay marriage should be legal, and that his stance on the issue was “evolving.”
“At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” he told a reporter from ABC.
In this month’s Rolling Stone interview, Obama said the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, will “provide people with some core security from the financial burdens of an illness or bad luck.”
He also gave insight regarding his international goals.
“Having ended the war in Iraq, I am now committed to ending the war in Afghanistan by 2014,” Obama told Rolling Stone.
Last year, Obama gave the order that sent Navy Seals into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden. He told the American people, “Justice has been done.”
During his first campaign, Obama said he would close Guantanamo Bay, a prison located inside a U.S. Navy base in Cuba. The prison detains enemy combatants and suspected terrorists, and has been criticized for violating human rights. He recently admitted the prison will not close anytime soon.
“Obviously I haven’t been able to make the case right now, and without Congress’s cooperation, we can’t do it,” Obama told the Associated Press.
A number of tragic shootings brought up the issue of gun control during the presidential election race, an issue that Obama has mostly avoided.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Obama said, “I’m not going to take away your guns,” in September 2008 to a group of factory workers in Duryea, Pa.
“Even if I want to take them away, I don’t have the votes in Congress,” he said. “This can’t be the reason not to vote for me.”
According to The Washington Post, Obama said new laws are needed in regards to “gun show loopholes” and reinstating a ban on assault weapons.
Obama has been criticized for the government’s spending during his first term. The federal budget has exceeded $1 trillion every year he has been in office. Forbes Magazine called him “the biggest government spender in world history.”
However, Obama feels his policies have been assisting the country in regaining its economic footing.
“Because of the actions we took, we averted a Great Depression,” he said.
He is locked in a dead-heat with Republican candidate Mitt Romney, and it still appears the outcome is too close to call. A poll released by Reuters/Ipsos Saturday showed the candidates were tied just three days prior to the election. Obama is still confident he will be the victor Tuesday.
“We’re going to have a full agenda in the second four years, but people shouldn’t underestimate how much we can get done,” Obama said.
