48. Profile of Barack Obama

If elected president of the United States, Barack Obama would be the country's first African-American president.

It is a prospect that, in a country scarred from centuries of racial tension and violence, has tantalised many.

Whatever happens in the November's poll, his victory in the Democratic nomination contest following a drawn out battle was a historic moment in US politics.

There is little doubt that he enjoys considerable popular support, having forged a campaign that has drawn on the backing of African-Americans and young voters.

But Obama's message of change has also turned into a fundraising phenomenon, raising more than $330 million dollars since his campaign began, 99 per cent of it from individual donors, easily outstripping his Democratic rivals.

Critics say that Obama's campaign is based on style over substance and he has been attacked by some commentators for seeming to shy away from making definitive policy statements.

And in recent months Obama has been accused of revising and even backtracking on some of his positions on key issues such as the Middle East peace process.

The son of a Kenyan father and American mother, Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961. After his parents divorce, his mother remarried and he lived in Indonesia for several years.

He later obtained his degree in New York and spent several years working for church groups assisting the poor in Chicago in the midwestern state of Illinois.

Obama eventually, like several other presidential candidates, entered the legal profession, becoming the first African-American president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review while obtaining his law degree.

He then returned to Chicago, teaching and working as a civil rights lawyer before entering the Illinois state senate in 1997.

In 2004, Obama was elected to the US senate, only the third African-American to achieve such a post since the US's Reconstruction era of the late 19th century, as his website proudly touts.

Not long afterwards, Obama delivered the keynote speech at the Democratic party's annual convention in Boston, Massachusetts, in which he criticised George Bush, the US president and called for an end to the Iraq war.

The speech sparked national interest in the young senator, and soon led to breathless queries from the media over whether he would announce his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.

When he finally did so, there was a media frenzy. The young, photogenic senator was feted by many as the new face of the Democrats.

But it took a long, at times bitter and often bruising presidential primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, the New York senator and former first lady, for Obama to clinch the Democratic nomination.

And after capturing the nomination Obama had to move quickly to wrest initiative from Republican nominee John McCain.

The prospect of an African-American with a Muslim heritage becoming president has raised hopes of many around the world for changes in US foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East.
However in his first major speech after winning the nomination Obama angered many Arabs when he told an influential pro-Israel US lobby group that Jerusalem should be the undivided capital of Israel.

Those fears were heightened during Obama's visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, when he once again underlined his support for Israel.

However, on Iraq and Iran, Obama has said he will chart a very different course from that of the Bush administration.

Obama has also made much of his early opposition to the war on Iraq and his stated policy is to withdraw US troops from the country.

The Illinois senator has also said he could be prepared to negotiate with the leaders of countries that are perceived to be hostile to the US, such as Iran and Cuba.

At home, however, Obama is going to have to work hard to to quell concerns over his perceived lack of experience in foreign policy.

During his drawn out primary battle, Obama struggled to win the votes of white, working-class voters in many areas, a consideration that could influence his choice of running mate.

And while polls have indicated that Obama is by far the candidate most countries across the world would like to see win the election, it is his own people he must convince in order to capture the presidency and make US history.

Source: Al Jazeera