Barack Obama.....

For those of us in sunny Australia, the name Barack Obama means very little.

I know about him thanks to my ever-so-politcally-aware brother Stephen, who is a very enthusiastic supporter of Obama and suggested that I watch the following speeches from the Democratic National Convention back in 2004:
Part 1, 9:35

Part 2


Some background on Obama:

Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama Sr. of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya, and Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas. His parents met while both were attending the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was enrolled as a foreign student. In his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, Obama describes a nearly race-blind early childhood. He writes: "That my father looked nothing like the people around me –- that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk –- barely registered in my mind."

He's an amazing speaker, a prodigious writer and a true thinker. I hope that if he can't be president (addressing whether the USA is ready for a black or female president is the stuff books are made of), he can still be an influential politician who delivers to his country a world view and can engage in the odd piece of navel gazing (or shoe gazing, I'm never sure which is better).

He's starting his run for president early. I was prompted to post about him as the US papers are reporting about him a lot lately:

• The NY times: Obama Offers Flavor of Potential Campaign
• The Washington Post: Obama Takes First Steps in N.H.