Chapter 26

Breaking Tradition: Barack H. Obama

IN THIS CHAPTER

Obama’s early career

Serving Illinois

Running for president

Succeeding at home

Dealing with the Middle East

Barack Hussein Obama broke a major racial barrier in U.S. politics in 2008. He became the first African-American president in U.S. history.

While president, Obama’s party controlled both houses of Congress until 2010, allowing him to achieve major accomplishments in the first couple of years of his presidency. Beginning in 2010 he had to deal with a hostile House of Representatives and by 2014 with a hostile Senate. Congress then consistently opposed his policies, making it more difficult for Obama to accomplish his goals.

His major accomplishments occurred in the domestic realm. His policies lifted the United States out of a major recession, and the Affordable Care Act reduced the number of uninsured to a historical low. Obama faced problems in foreign policy. By the time he left office, there was major conflict in the Middle East and a new major terrorist threat, ISIL, had arisen.

When Obama left office in January 2017, he enjoyed one of the highest approval ratings of any president, over 60 percent.

Growing Up Global

Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His mother, Ann Dunham, came from a middle-class family in Kansas. Her parents moved frequently, and her father was in the furniture business. While living in Seattle, the family decided to try their luck in an exotic territory that was about to became a state, Hawaii. Attending the University of Hawaii, Ann met a foreign student from Kenya, Barack Obama, Sr. The two fell in love. However, Barack Obama Sr. was married in Kenya and already had one child. He had told Ann, however, that he was divorced, which was not the case, and the two got married. A few months later, Barack Obama was born.

At this time, Barack Obama, Sr. received a scholarship to attend Harvard. Without any hesitation, he accepted the scholarship and moved to Massachusetts, leaving his wife and newborn behind. Ann promptly divorced him.

While continuing her studies at the University of Hawaii, Ann fell in love again, this time with a foreign student from Indonesia. They got married, and her new husband, Lolo Soetoro, moved the family to Indonesia when Obama was 6 years old. According to all accounts, Obama enjoyed growing up in Indonesia. He was taught English and about his African heritage at home by his mother and went to an Islamic school. By 1971, his mother became worried about Obama growing up in Indonesia. So she sent him back to Hawaii, where he was raised by his grandparents.

He truly enjoyed living in Hawaii. He took up surfing; fell in love with the game of basketball, practicing for hours; and was popular with the other students.

He enjoyed his life in Hawaii so much that when his mother asked him to return to Indonesia, he refused, preferring to stay in Hawaii to finish high school. During his senior year, his mother returned and was shocked to see what had happened to her son. His grades had dropped, he was hanging out with friends, smoking and drinking alcohol, even experimenting with drugs. She decided that he had to get out of Hawaii. So she made him apply to a whole slew of colleges, and he received a full scholarship from Occidental College in California. It was here that his political career started.

Barack Obama is the first president born outside of the 48 continental states.

Getting involved in politics

Obama enjoyed his time in California. He continued his beach lifestyle and also became involved in college politics. The cause that brought him into politics was ongoing apartheid (minority white rule, with state repression of the black majority) in South Africa. Obama organized rallies against apartheid and gave his first political speeches. He loved the experience. He decided to major in political science and international relations and transferred to Columbia University in New York City. He turned out to be a top-notch student and graduated in 1983. He was eager to put his newfound knowledge into action. Because he could only find part-time work in New York City, Obama accepted a full-time job with the Developing Communities Project, an organization helping poor black neighborhoods, in Chicago.

During his time with the organization, Obama was able to make connections with local community and church leaders, which would prove helpful for his future career.

Going back to school

By 1987, Obama decided it was time to move on. After a long trip to Kenya to meet his relatives on his father’s side, he decided to go to Harvard law school. He was one of the older and more experienced students and made friends easily. He even became the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review. While at Harvard, Obama also met his future wife, Michelle Robinson. Interestingly, Obama interned at the law firm where Michelle was already an attorney. So she was his boss. They fell in love and got married in 1992.

From Senator to President: Obama’s Political Journey

After graduating from Harvard, Obama decided to get back into politics. He directed the Illinois Project Vote, which registered Chicago’s black population and helped Bill Clinton win the state in the 1992 election.

After joining a prestigious civil rights law firm and teaching part-time at the University of Chicago, Obama’s chance to enter politics came in 1995.

Starting at the state level

Obama decided to run for an open State Senate seat in Illinois, and easily won the overwhelmingly democratic district in 1996.

Obama was not a very successful politician at first. He had no contacts or friends in the State Senate. To make friends quickly, Obama learned how to play golf and joined a weekly poker game.

Being popular and successfully sponsoring several pieces of legislation, including a piece on campaign reform, Obama believed he was ready for the national level. He decided to run for the House of Representatives in 1999 but lost in the democratic primary.

Serving in the U.S. Senate

Undeterred by his loss in the House of Representatives, Obama set his sight on the U.S. Senate. His chance came in 2004, when the Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald decided not to run for reelection. At first his Senate campaign seemed to be a long shot. He was opposed by Republican Jack Ryan, married to well-known actress Jeri Ryan of Star Trek Voyager fame. However, during the campaign it was discovered that Jack Ryan had forced his wife to go to sex clubs and asked her to perform sex acts in public. This scandal resulted in Ryan withdrawing from the election. Obama went on to win the Senate seat with a record 70 percent of the vote. Barack Obama was now a U.S. Senator.

Barack Obama began his national political career in January 2005. Now a United States Senator he gained a seat on the prestigious Senate Foreign Relations Committee and very soon received the reputation of being a moderate Democratic senator willing to work with Republicans. For example, he worked with Republican senators to build a fence at the Mexican border to reduce illegal migration. At the same time, his progressive roots also showed. While in the Senate Obama worked on reinstating the Equal Rights Act, advocated for equal pay, and worked on death penalty reform.

In 2006, Obama and his family went to visit Africa. They received a hero’s welcome in Kenya, the country his father was from.

The fall of 2006 proved to be a watershed for Obama. He had received very positive coverage of his trip to Africa and had just published his second book, The Audacity of Hope. He began to tour the country to publicize his book, appearing on many TV and radio shows.

The audio version of the book, read by Obama himself, would receive a Grammy award, making Obama the first president to receive a Grammy.

Barack now had to make a tough choice: Should he run for president of the United States or governor of Illinois? On February, 10, 2007, he declared his candidacy for the presidency. He was right away endorsed by many African American celebrities, such as Oprah Winfrey, who toured the country for him gaining him tens of thousands of new voters. However, he faced a formidable opponent in former First Lady and now senator from New York, Hillary Clinton.

Obama’s campaign for president was almost sunk by the Reverend Wright scandal. The Obamas had been attending Wright’s church, Trinity United Church of Christ, in Chicago for over 20 years. Suddenly footage of some of Reverend Wright’s sermons appeared in which he blamed the U.S. for the attacks on September 11, 2001 (see Chapter 25) and made racist remarks about whites. Obama quickly refuted the remarks and resigned from the church. Reverend Wright subsequently retired.

Campaigning for the nomination

The race between Clinton and Obama for the democratic nomination was close. As late as April 2008, no candidate had secured enough votes for the democratic nomination. It wasn’t until late May 2008, three months before the Democratic Nominating Convention, that Obama emerged victorious. At the convention Obama announced that he had picked Joe Biden, the senior senator from Delaware, as vice president.

On August 28, 2008, candidate Obama delivered his acceptance speech in front of almost 80,000 people at Invesco field (see Figure 26-1), the home of the Denver Broncos. He uttered the following unforgettable words: “Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who’s willing to work.”

Getting elected president

Obama would face off with Republican Senator John McCain from Arizona. To counter Obama’s star power and love relationship with the media, McCain decided to select a female for vice president, a Republican first. He picked Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska. She was young (McCain was 72), attractive, and a good public speaker. However, the move backfired within weeks, when the media scrutinized her record and called her unprepared.

The Obama campaign was the first presidential campaign to fully utilize social media, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and so on.

FIGURE 26-1: Presidential candidate Obama delivering his nomination acceptance speech in Denver, Colorado.

The election was close until early September 2008. Then the stock market crashed and Lehmann brothers went under (see Chapter 25). President George W. Bush and the Republican party were blamed for the economic disaster. This also hurt McCain, and he never recovered. On election night it was not even close, and Obama received 365 electoral college votes to McCain’s 173. To top it off, the Democratic Party also won control of both Houses of Congress. Obama was now unstoppable, or so he thought.

President Barack H. Obama (2009–2017)

Obama was sworn into office on January 20, 2009, and officially became the 44th president of the United States. See Figure 26-2.

On October 9, 2009, President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on international diplomacy and cooperation, becoming the fourth U.S. president to receive this honor. The other three were Teddy Roosevelt (for ending the Russo-Japanese War), Woodrow Wilson (for creating the League of Nations), and Jimmy Carter (for his efforts to end global conflict and provide humanitarian aid).

To the surprise of many, President Obama appointed his former challenger Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. He also proceeded to appoint the most ethnically diverse cabinet in U.S. history.

FIGURE 26-2: The 44th president of the United States, Barack H. Obama.

Tackling the recession

When Obama became president in January 2009, the country was in a deep recession and still involved in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

With a democratically controlled Congress, Obama moved quickly. His first priority was the declining economy, so foreign policy took a back seat. Within the next few months, the following policies were passed to stimulate the economy:

• The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009): This act extended unemployment benefits, provided healthcare benefits to the unemployed and poor, and set aside monies for public works.

  In addition, an $8,000 tax credit was given to first-time home buyers to stimulate the declining housing market.

• 2010 Tax Relief Act: Tax cuts were implemented in 2010, which extended the Bush tax cuts (see Chapter 25), cut payroll taxes, and provided for tax credits for capital improvements by businesses.
• Cash for Clunkers: This program allowed the public to trade in their old cars at an inflated value for new, more energy-efficient automobiles. The program was so popular with the American public that it ran out of money soon.
• Auto industry bailout: The U.S. government took over two of the three largest U.S. car makers, General Motors and Chrysler, which had gone bankrupt. The bailout of the two companies cost the U.S. government $80 billion, but it saved almost three million jobs. General Motors repaid all the government loans by 2012, and Chrysler was sold to Italian automaker Fiat.

Changing healthcare

President Obama’s most enduring legacy is the Affordable Care Act signed into law on March 10, 2010. Today it is commonly known as Obamacare.

The major provisions of the Affordable Care Act were

• An individual mandate that required people to buy health insurance; if they chose not to, they would have to pay a fine.
• Health insurance companies could no longer deny people health insurance for preexisting conditions.
• Healthcare policies had to cover preventive care, including flu shots, vaccinations, and even colonoscopies.
• Companies had to provide employees who worked 30 hours or more a week with health insurance. If they didn’t, they would have to pay a fine.
• Medicaid, which provides health benefits to the poor, was expanded, and more people were now covered.
• To make health insurance cheaper, the federal government and states set up health insurance exchanges through which private insurance companies could offer their health insurance plans and people could shop around for the plans that would fit them best.
• Federal subsidies were made available to help qualifying Americans pay for their health insurance.

As soon as Obamacare was passed, 27 states sued the federal government, challenging the individual mandate and Medicaid expansion. In 2012, the United States Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate but ruled that states were not bound by Medicaid expansion under Obamacare and could refuse to implement it. Obamacare still went into effect on October 1, 2013.

Twenty-seven states had sued the federal government by 2011 challenging parts of Obamacare. They argued that the federal government violated the constitution by forcing people to buy health insurance and that the federal government did not possess the power to force states to add more people to Medicaid. In March 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that, yes, the federal government could force people to buy health insurance because it is similar to levying a tax, but could not force states to expand Medicaid. In 2017, the Trump administration repealed the individual mandate for the 2019 tax year. The other parts of Obamacare stayed in effect.

Right away there were problems. The website Healthcare.gov failed for several weeks, and the prices offered at the health exchanges were higher than what most people had expected. Most important, many doctors refused to accept Obamacare, so people could not keep their doctors as Obama had promised. Many small businesses could not afford to pay health insurance for their workers so they ended up paying a fine or laying off workers. On the other hand, the number of uninsured dropped dramatically from 17.1 percent before Obamacare to 8.6 percent by 2016.

After President Obama assumed office, a new movement developed to oppose his policies, especially the spending of public monies on healthcare and the bailout of many industries. It called itself the Tea Party (taxed enough already). Soon it attracted thousands of conservative activists and became active in Republican politics. With its help the Republican party won a massive majority in the House of Representatives in the 2010 off-year elections. The movement soon attacked senior moderate Republican senators and moderate senatorial candidates, many of whom would lose the election, allowing the Democrats to maintain control of the Senate.

Being progressive

President Obama was a strong supporter of LGBT rights. In 2010 he repealed the “Don’t ask, don’t tell policy,” in place since the Clinton Administration. From now on gay people serving in the military could openly serve. In 2012, President Obama announced publicly that he now supported gay marriage (he had previously opposed it). Three years later, the United States Supreme Court decided to legalize gay marriage in the United States.

Protecting the environment

In 2012, the Obama administration set new fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks. By 2025, these automobiles had to achieve 54.5 miles per gallon. Obama further enacted the Clean Power Act, which was intended to cut carbon emissions by about one-third by 2030.

The crowning achievement for the Obama administration’s environmental policies came on December 12, 2015, when Obama announced that 196 countries, including major polluters such as China and India, had signed the Paris Climate Agreement. In it, signatories agreed to reduce carbon emissions to limit global warming. After becoming president, Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement (see Chapter 27).

Getting reelected

With the economy slowly improving, President Obama faced a tough reelection in 2012. The Republican Party had nominated the former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney. The race was close until Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast. The American public rallied ’round the president as it usually does in crisis, and Obama overtook Romney in the polls. He was reelected with 51 percent of the vote, winning 332 electoral college votes (270 are needed to win the presidency).

Mitt Romney was the first Mormon to be nominated for the U.S. presidency. After his defeat he remained active in politics and is currently serving as a U.S. Senator from the State of Utah.

Dealing with Foreign Policy

Most of President Obama’s foreign policy was focused on the Middle East. The war in Afghanistan was dragging on and Iraq was suddenly facing domestic problems with the Shia majority government turning on the Sunni minority. To top it off, the Arab Spring started in 2011 and civil wars broke out in Libya and Syria. By 2014, a new enemy appeared in the form of the terrorist group ISIL. While Obama tried his best to deal with the new situation, he was unable to resolve it.

Being stuck in Afghanistan

When President Obama assumed office in 2009, it looked like Afghanistan had turned from a promising experiment in American-style democracy into an international quagmire. The Karzai government (see Chapter 25) only controlled the capital of Kabul and the surrounding areas. Fifty-two percent of Afghanistan’s GDP was generated by the drug trade, and the Karzai government had shown an inability or even unwillingness to deal with it. Afghanistan was now on the brink of falling back into a state of disarray.

The Obama administration decided that the solution to the political instability was to increase the number of NATO troops to 140,000 in 2011, about 100,000 of them being American. It was hoped that this increase in troop size would be enough to defeat the Taliban insurgency. However, this proved to be a false hope.

By 2012, NATO and the United States were looking for an exit strategy and peace talks with the Taliban began under United Nations sponsorship. In 2013, the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, died of tuberculosis. The Taliban kept his death a secret for two years. He was replaced by Mullah Mansour, who was killed in May 2016 by an American drone strike.

President Obama pledged to withdraw all American troops by the end of 2014, ending the American combat mission in Afghanistan.

In December of 2014, Operation Enduring Freedom (ISAF) officially ended. A residual force of 13,000 NATO troops, about 9,000 of them being American, remained in Afghanistan.

They are still there as of this writing. The war in Afghanistan has become the longest war in U.S. history, and as of 2018, the total costs for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are estimated to be about $6 trillion dollars (this number includes all costs including Veteran Affairs services and Homeland Security protection). The human costs are equally staggering. By 2018, 3,459 NATO soldiers, including 2,313 Americans, had died fighting in Afghanistan. It is estimated that over 100,000 Afghanis have died since 2001 (this number includes civilians, Afghani military forces, and Taliban rebels). In 2016, the cost to keep one American soldier in Afghanistan was estimated to be about $3.9 million per year.

On May 2, 2011, President Obama ordered Seal Team 6 to raid a compound in Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden was thought to be housed. Seal Team 6, after entering the compound, found and killed bin Laden. In a live television address, President Obama announced the success of the mission to the American people. He said the following: “Justice has been done.”

Fighting a new enemy

After most American troops had left Iraq by 2011, a power vacuum emerged in the country. Three major groups — Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, and the Kurds — were angling for power. After the Shiite majority took control of the Iraqi government, oppression of the Sunni minority became the norm. Out of resentment many Sunnis turned to a new group emerging in Syria, which was trying to establish a Sunni caliphate. The new group called itself ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham [a part of Syria]).

At first the U.S. government ignored the group; President Obama even made fun of ISIL, calling the group a junior varsity team. The group quickly began to grow in power and took control of parts of Syria and Iraq. It employed extreme violence and terrorist tactics not just in the Middle East but also Europe and the United States. Using social media, the group successfully recruited thousands of Muslim youth from Europe and a few from the United States. Obama quickly ordered airstrikes against ISIL and sent 500 troops to train the Iraqi military in their fight against ISIL. It was too late, and by the time he left office, ISIL was terrorizing Europe and had conquered parts of Syria and Iraq. It would be left up to his successor to destroy ISIL.

The Arab Spring and failing in Syria

In 2011, the Arab Spring occurred. In several Arab countries, including Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, and Libya, the people revolted against long-time dictators. While the uprising overthrew the dictators, democracy did not result as was hoped for. Instead, civil strife and even civil war broke out.

While the popular uprisings resulted in regime change in Tunisia and Egypt, civil war broke out in Syria, Libya, and Yemen. When Libyan dictator Muhammed Gaddafi called upon his military to brutally put down the uprising, President Obama and his NATO allies decided to act. NATO airstrikes resulted in Gaddafi’s downfall, and he was later killed. Libya has subsequently experienced civil war, killing tens of thousands. In Egypt a radical Muslim regime came to power which was subsequently overthrown by the Egyptian military. Egypt is now back under authoritarian rule.

Civil war also broke out in Syria. Syria had been brutally ruled by long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad. When the Arab Spring broke out, many Syrians thought it was time for regime change. They rose up against their longtime dictator. The Assad regime brutally responded, killing up to 400,000 people and freely using chemical weapons against their own population. President Obama ordered support for the antigovernment forces, and soon airstrikes were being conducted and American advisors entered Syria. By now Syria had become an international quagmire involving many outside forces. The United States supported democratic anti-government forces and the Kurdish minority in Syria. Russia and Iran threw their support behind the Assad regime, and Turkey was angling to control parts of the country. All sides did agree on destroying ISIL in Syria, which was finally accomplished during the early months of the Trump administration (see Chapter 27).

The United States declared in October 2019 that it would withdraw all troops from Syria. As of the time of writing of this book, the Assad regime with Russian help has solidified control of the country once more, ISIL has been destroyed, and Turkey is clamoring to take over the northern part of the country.

Being Active in Retirement

President Obama has stayed active in retirement. He took up golf again and toured the world, mostly to get away from the media. Today he has become a widely sought after speaker, and his fees are as high as $400,000 per speech (George W. Bush only commands speaking fees of up to $175,000). Obama and his wife have signed book deals valued at $65 million and even agreed to a multi-year deal with Netflix, producing scripted and unscripted series and documentaries. Clearly life is good for the Obamas after leaving the White House.

Obama also began to work on his presidential library. He picked Chicago as the site for his presidential library, which is expected to open in 2021. At first, Obama upheld the longstanding tradition of not becoming involved in presidential politics after leaving office, but by 2018 he had a change of heart. He again became active in politics and actively campaigned for democratic candidates in the 2018 off-year election. His work paid off when the Democratic Party regained control of the House of Representatives that year.

Obama’s view of the presidency can be best summed up in his words: “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America — there’s the United States of America.”