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Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. (born August 4, 1961) is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. He married in 1992 and has two daughters. Obama has written two books: a memoir of his youth titled Dreams from My Father, and The Audacity of Hope, a personal commentary on U.S. politics.

Born to a Kenyan father and an American mother, he passed most of his childhood and adolescent years in Honolulu, Hawaii. At age six, he moved to Jakarta where he lived with his mother and Indonesian stepfather for four years. A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama worked as a community organizer, university lecturer, and civil rights lawyer before serving in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.

Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, he announced his campaign for U.S. Senate in early 2003. The next year, while still an Illinois state legislator, Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2004 with 70% of the vote.