On February 10, 2007, Barack Obama, the junior United States senator from Illinois, announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States in Springfield, Illinois. Obama announced his candidacy at the Old State Capitol building, where Abraham Lincoln had delivered his "House Divided" speech. Obama was the main challenger, along with John Edwards, to front-runner Hillary Clinton for much of 2007. He had only recently emerged as a national figure in Democratic politics, having delivered the DNC keynote address just three years prior and won his Senate election shortly thereafter.
Obama's initial victory in the Iowa caucus in January 2008 helped bring him to national prominence from a crowded field of Democratic challengers. Obama benefited from early support from prominent Democrats including Tom Daschle and Ted Kennedy, and his campaign began to trade a series of hard-fought state wins with Clinton through Super Tuesday, in which Obama had great success in large rural states and Clinton was nearly as dominant in high-population coastal areas. Obama continued to have success in small donor fundraising, and continued winning a greater number of contests than Clinton through April.
In early May, after Obama won the North Carolina primary and narrowly lost the Indiana primary, superdelegates began to endorse Obama in greater numbers. Obama's win in Oregon gave him an absolute majority of the pledged delegates. After a rush of support for Obama from superdelegates on June 3, 2008, the day of the final primary contests of Montana and South Dakota, Obama was estimated to surpass the 2,118 delegates required for the Democratic nomination. On June 7, 2008, Clinton formally ended her candidacy and endorsed Obama, making him the party's presumptive nominee.
On August 27, 2008, at the Democratic National Convention, the Democratic Party formally nominated Obama to run for the office of the President of the United States of America. Obama would go on to win the presidential election against Republican nominee John McCain.
Pre-announcement A warmly received keynote address by Obama before the 2004 Democratic National Convention sparked expectations that he would run for the presidency.Sullivan, Amy. "Obama for President," Washington Monthly (guest article), July 28, 2004. Retrieved on January 8, 2007 They intensified after both Obama's decisive victory in the race for senator and John Kerry's loss in the concurrent presidential election in November 2004, even though he told reporters then that "I can unequivocally say I will not be running for national office in four years."
In September 2006, Obama was the featured speaker at Iowa Senator Tom Harkin's annual steak fry, a political event traditionally attended by presidential hopefuls in the lead-up to the Iowa caucuses.Kornblut, Anne E. "For This Red Meat Crowd, Obama's '08 Choice Is Clear," The New York Times, September 18, 2006
In a January 2006 interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press, Obama denied running for president or vice president in 2008, saying he would serve out his full six-year senate term.NBC News. MTP Transcript for Jan. 22, Meet the Press, January 22, 2006. However, exactly nine months later in October 2006 on the same program, the senator seemed to entertain the possibility of a 2008 presidential bid.NBC News. MTP Transcript for Oct. 22, Meet the Press, October 22, 2006. Retrieved on January 8, 2007 Illinois Senator Richard Durbin and State Comptroller Daniel Hynes were early advocates for such a run.Babington, Charles. "Obama's Profile Has Democrats Taking Notice: Popular Senator Is Mentioned as 2008 Contender," The Washington Post, June 18, 2006, Page A01 See also: McQueary, Kristen. Obama, Hynes now war buddies , Daily Southtown, December 10, 2006. Retrieved on January 13, 2007
Many people in the entertainment community expressed readiness to campaign for an Obama presidency, including celebrity television show host Oprah Winfrey, singer Macy Gray, rap artist Common, and film actors George Clooney, Halle Berry, and Will Smith.
In December 2006, Obama spoke at a New Hampshire event celebrating Democratic Party midterm election victories in the first-in-the-nation U.S. presidential primary state, drawing 1500 people.
Speaking at a Democratic National Committee meeting one week before the February announcement, Obama called for putting an end to negative campaigning. "This can't be about who digs up more skeletons on who, who makes the fewest slip-ups on the campaign trail," he said. "We owe it to the American people to do more than that." Full text from CQ Transcripts Wire. Retrieved on November 18, 2007. See also:
Announcement of candidacy
On January 16, 2007, Obama announced via a video on his website that he had formed a presidential exploratory committee, Video at Brightcove.TV. and on February 10 he formally announced his candidacy with these words:
Campaign staff and policy team
On January 14, 2007, the Chicago Tribune reported that Obama had begun assembling his 2008 presidential campaign team, to be headquartered in Chicago. His team included campaign manager David Plouffe and media consultant David Axelrod, who were partners at the Chicago-based political consulting firm AKP&D Message and Media. Communications director Robert Gibbs was previously press secretary for John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.Inside Obama's inner circle Chicago Tribune, January 14, 2007 Penny Pritzker headed the campaign's finance team.
Other members of the campaign staff included Deputy National Campaign Director Steve Hildebrand, New Media Director Joe Rospars, speechwriter Jon Favreau, national press secretary Bill Burton, traveling press secretary Dan Pfeiffer, policy development Cassandra Butts, finance director Julianna Smoot, research director Devorah Adler, and pollsters Paul Harstad and Cornell Belcher.Barack Obama's Impressive Team Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post, January 16, 2007
A number of Obama's top aides have backgrounds with former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who left the Senate due to re-election defeat at the same time Obama was entering it.
Obama's economic advisors included chief Austan Goolsbee, who has worked with him since his U.S. Senate campaign, Paul Volcker, Warren Buffett,Clinton, Obama Tout Rubin, Volcker to Show Expertise Matthew Benjamin and Lorraine Woellert, Bloomberg.com, March 28, 2008 See also:> Obama Says Volcker an Example of Economy Expertise (Transcript) "Political Capital with Al Hunt," Bloomberg.com, March 28, 2008 health economist David Cutler and Jeffrey Leibman.Obama's economic advisers are brainy academics Kevin G. Hall, April 4, 2008 His foreign policy advisors included a core of nine people: Greg Craig, Richard Danzig, Scott Gration, Anthony Lake, Denis McDonough, Samantha Power, Ben Rhodes, Susan Rice, and Daniel ShapiroObama's Inner Circle The New York Sun, February 21, 2008 until March 2008 when Samantha Power stepped down. A larger group of 250 advisers is divided into subgroups of about 20 people, each focusing on a specific area or topic.Obama's Brain Trust Taking Shape Eli Lake, The New York Sun, February 21, 2008 His legal affairs advisors include Martha Minow, Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., Christopher Edley Jr., Eric Holder, and Cassandra Butts.Obama's Inner Circle James A. Barnes, National Journal, March 31, 2008
Among his field staff, Paul Tewes and Mitch Stewart led Obama's winning Iowa caucus campaign, and one or the other of them directed field operations in many other crucial states, including Nevada, Minnesota, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana.
Obama's campaign was notable for extensive use of a logo consisting of the letter O, with the center suggesting a sun rising over fields in the colors of the American flag. It was designed by a team at Chicago design firm Sender LLC.
Pre-primary campaign developments
First half 2007
In March 2007, the Obama campaign posted a question on Yahoo! Answers, entitled: "How can we engage more people in the democratic process?" which ultimately drew in over 17,000 responses. The same month, Obama traveled to Selma, Alabama, along with Hillary Clinton, coinciding with the 42nd anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery marches.
Also in March 2007, Hillary 1984, a mashup of Apple's 1984 launch commercial for the Macintosh with footage of Hillary Clinton used in the place of Big Brother, went viral in the early stages of the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. The video was produced in support of Obama by Phil de Vellis, an employee of Blue State Digital, but was made without the knowledge of either Obama's campaign, or de Vellis' employer: de Vellis stated that he made the video in one afternoon at home using a Mac and some software. Political commentators including Carla Marinucci and Arianna Huffington, as well as de Vellis himself, suggested that the video demonstrated the way technology had created new opportunities for individuals to make an impact on politics.
On May 3, 2007, citing no specific threat but motivated by the large volume of hate mail directed at the candidate, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff announced that the United States Secret Service would provide protection for the campaign, including bodyguards for Obama and other services/resources similar to those employed for the safety of the President of the United States, albeit on a proportionally smaller level. Normally, presidential candidates are not offered Secret Service protection until early February of election year; this was the earliest protection had ever been granted. Senator Hillary Clinton was already under Secret Service protection because of her status as wife of former President Bill Clinton.
Second half 2007 On August 1 when making his foreign policy speech Obama created controversy by declaring that the United States must be willing to strike al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan, with or without the consent of the Pakistani government. He stated that if elected, "If we have actionable intelligence about high value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will." ABC News described the policy speech as "counterintuitive" and commented on how "one of the more liberal candidates in the race, is proposing a geopolitical posture that is more aggressive than that of President Bush" Obama ultimately followed through on this statement of policy four years later when, as President, he ordered the operation to enter Pakistan and kill Osama bin Laden.
After weeks of discourse surrounding the policy, Obama said there was "misreporting" of his comments, stating that, "I never called for an invasion of Pakistan or Afghanistan." He clarified that rather than a surge in the number of troops in Iraq, there needed to be a "diplomatic surge" and that if there were "actionable intelligence reports" showing al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, the U.S. troops as a last resort should enter and try to capture terrorists. That would happen, he added, only if "the Pakistani government was unable or unwilling" to go after the terrorists.
As Democratic debates took place during the summer, Obama received at best mixed notices for his efforts. Democratic strategist Bob Shrum said, "He slips into this tendency, which he probably learned as president of the Harvard Law Review, to overstate his premises before he states his position. In politics, you do the opposite of what you do in the Law Review—you state your position, then say your premises—if you ever get to them." Commentator Eleanor Clift said that, "Obama is almost too cerebral for the sound-bite world of modern politics, but that's part of his appeal."