Obama forming exploratory committee
WASHINGTON – Sen. Barack Obama’s decision to take the first formal step toward running for president caps an extraordinarily rapid rise in politics – and sets up a high-stakes competition for campaign money, staff and supporters with the presumed front-runner for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, of New York.
Obama’s announcement Tuesday that he had established a presidential exploratory committee creates a potential face-off between strong black and female candidates for president, adding sizzle and a sense of historic significance to the competition for the party’s nomination.
Having served barely two years in the Senate, Obama also is testing a sturdy piece of conventional political wisdom in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks: that voters are wary of electing a president who might need on-the-job training in foreign policy.
The 45-year-old Illinois Democrat is gambling that voters will see his lack of national governing experience as an asset, not a liability, at a time when the electorate is seething with discontent with the Washington establishment.
“I am struck by how hungry we all are for a different kind of politics,” Obama said in his Tuesday announcement. “The decisions that have been made in Washington these past six years, and the problems that have been ignored, have put us in a precarious place.” In a sign of the importance of the Internet to political campaigning, Obama made his announcement not in a public appearance but in an e-mail statement and a video posted on his Web site.
A charismatic speaker with an unusual life story, Obama has been enthusiastically received by audiences around the country as he traveled to promote his latest book and, increasingly, to sound out voters in states with early presidential primaries and caucuses.
His announcement steps up pressure on Clinton to formally launch her own campaign, a move that is expected soon. Howard Wolfson, a senior Clinton adviser, declined to comment on Obama but said, “Senator Clinton has a strong case to make for her own candidacy and is going to have to make the best case for herself.”
The combined star power and national fame of Clinton and Obama threaten to siphon off vast amounts of money and attention from other candidates in the crowded Democratic field.
One is former Sen. John Edwards, the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee in 2004, who has been trying to position himself as the leading alternative to Clinton.
Other announced Democratic candidates include Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. Also considering a White House bid are Sens. Joe Biden, D-Del., and John F. Kerry, D-Mass., and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
The son of a black, Kenyan father and a white, American mother, Barack Hussein Obama was born in 1961 in Hawaii. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the law review. He settled in Chicago to practice law and also worked as a community organizer. Married since 1992, he and his wife have two daughters.
Obama was elected to the Illinois state Senate in 1996, where he served until he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004.
The little-known lawmaker was catapulted to national prominence when he gave an acclaimed speech at the 2004 Democratic convention.