Blazing a trail into US history

Washington - Four years ago Democrat Barack Obama was a political unknown. Now after a meteoric campaign, he has reshaped US history to become the first African-American to stand on the brink of the presidency.

The 47-year-old Illinois senator did it by allying his dazzling oratorical skills to an energised, internet-savvy grassroots organisation, injecting freshness and vitality into the war-weary US political scene.

Harnessing the web, Obama's campaign has reached out to millions of voters raising staggering amounts of cash to take on the might of the wealthy Republican machine and its standard-bearer John McCain.

In late August, after a thrilling down-to-the-wire primary race against former first lady Hillary Clinton, Obama stood before 75 000 people packed into a Denver stadium to accept the party's presidential nomination.

His speech came on the 45th anniversary of the watershed "I Have a Dream" address of slain black civil rights hero Martin Luther King.

Evoking King's 1963 march on Washington, Obama said what "people of every creed and colour, from every walk of life" heard "is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked, that together our dreams can be one".

"'We cannot walk alone,'" he said quoting King. "'And as we walk we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.'"

'America, we are better than these eight years'

He held out a promise and a vision of an America radically different than the country forged under President George W Bush who led the nation to war against Iraq.

"America, we are better than these eight years. We are a better country than this," he said.

"We meet at one of those defining moments - a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more."

Obama burst onto the national consciousness at the 2004 Democratic party convention with a soaring speech full of hope and unity.

In the 2008 White House race he has ignited US politics with his call to reconciliation, betting that a nation hungry for change after eight years of rancor under Bush will overlook his relative inexperience.

With the country battling under the weight of a huge financial crisis, Obama has gained an edge in the polls over McCain, with voters blaming Republicans for the economic firestorm.

But as he has struggled to win over large numbers of working-class, white voters, many of whom were loyal Clinton fans, the question remains whether on November 4 he can overcome any doubts about him they may have had.

While often reminded of the groundbreaking nature of his candidacy, Obama has not played up race in his own campaign, which focused on mainstream issues from the Iraq war to economic growth.

Challenges

The McCain campaign have also seized on his intellectual, aloof air to depict him as an elitist out of touch with working-class voters, while mocking his cult status, likening him to fluffy celebrities like Paris Hilton.

Obama did not help his cause by saying blue-collar voters cling to guns and religion - two issues in US politics that candidates highlight at their peril - because they are "bitter" about their fate.

The irony is that compared to McCain, the son and grandson of navy admirals, Obama has had to overcome challenges that in the past might have crippled a presidential aspirant.

He was born in Hawaii in 1961 to a black father from Kenya and white mother originally from the central US state of Kansas. His parents' mixed-race marriage, at that time, was still illegal in many of the mainland US states.

His father abandoned the family when Obama was just two and his mother Ann, a budding anthropologist, resorted to government food handouts at one point to feed her young child.

When she remarried, the family moved to Indonesia where "Barry" Obama, as he became known, attended a local Islamic school - a point seized on by right-wing agitators to portray Obama as a secret Muslim.

In fact, as a controversy over the pastor at his former Chicago church has shown, Obama is a practicing Christian.

Obama returned to live with his grandparents in Hawaii in his teens. He attended Columbia University in New York, dabbling in drugs, according to his own best-selling books.

He then went to the elite Harvard Law School, where he was the first black American to be president of the influential Harvard Law Review, before working as a community organiser in Chicago.

It was while working at a Chicago law firm that he met and then married Michelle, a fellow lawyer, in 1992. The couple has two young daughters, Sasha and Malia.

- AFP