Hlep to put this information in another so it dont seem like im coping it word for word?

Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. (b. August 4, 1961) is an American politician currently representing the state of Illinois in the United States Senate. Obama announced on February 10, 2007 that he is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. On Nov. 4, 2008, Barack Obama won the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election by defeating Senator John McCain. Obama became the first African-American to win the presidency in America's history.Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, August 4, 1961. His father was a professor from Kenya and his mother an American. He obtained his early education in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Hawaii, and went on to Occidental College in Los Angeles, later transferring to Columbia University in New York City. After graduating from Columbia, Obama studied law at Harvard University, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, and received his J.D. in 1992. He served as a lecturer on constitutional law at the University of Chicago until winning a seat in the Illinois State Senate in 1996. He served in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, until he was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 2004. He began his first term in the U.S. Senate on January 3, 2005. In January, 2007, Obama announced the formation of his Presidential Exploratory Committee, which is the first step to formally declaring his candidacy for the presidency. Soon thereafter, a controversy began related to what kind of schools he attended while living in Indonesia in the 1960s. Fox News reported that Obama attended an Islamic madra school called the Basuki school, that preached a radical version of Islam. CNN reported that Obama attended a secular public school. See also: Obama Education/Madra ControversyOn February 10, 2007, Senator Obama formally declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.Obama won the first contest in the Democratic nomination battle with his victory over Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and the other candidates in the Iowa Caucuses. Clinton then won the New Hampshire Primary, presaging the tight and sometimes hot battle between Obama and Clinton as they each vied for the Democratic Nomination. Controversy over remarks made by Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, led Senator Obama to make an important speech on race and religion in America. (See the YouTube video below).Barack Obama's message of change and hope eventually propelled him past Hillary Clinton and won him the Democratic nomination. As the 2008 Presidential campaign sped on toward its November 4 conclusion, McCain and Obama each spent millions of dollars, mostly on television ads, attacking each other.On Nov. 4, 2008, Senator Barack Obama defeated Republican Senator John McCain in a decisive Electoral College victory. After the major media outlets declared that Obama had won over 270 Electoral Votes, following the close of voting on the West Coast, President-Elect Obama and his family, along with Vice-President-Elect Joseph Biden, appeared before a huge crowd of supporters in Grant Park, Chicago. There, Obama gave an inspiring victory speech in which he declard that he will be the President of all Americans, not just those who voted for him.Transition to PowerPresident-Elect Obama worked swiftly to build his incoming administration, adding many veteran politicians such as former rival Hillary Clinton to his Cabinet. More will be added to this section after Inauguration Day.Media Events:President-Elect Obama appears in the January, 2009 issue of Amazing Spider-Man # 583, in the first meeting between Spider-Man and Mr. Obama, who, as it turns out, is a collector and fan of Spider-Man comics.