The United States Senate career of Barack Obama began on January 4, 2005 and ended on November 16, 2008. His approval ratings while in office during those early years were often around 65 percent. Once elected to the chamber he became the fifth African-American Senator in U.S. history, and only the third popularly elected.
Without question his election and early celebrity was due to his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention.
“I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents’ dreams live on in my two precious daughters. I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.”
He said to an electrified crowd, while a sea of “Obama for Illinois” signs were waved from every angle. Personally the guy had me at “hello”. But In my opinion the best passage in the speech was this —
“Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America — there's the United States of America.
The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too: We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States, and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.”
Within a few hours after delivering that speech people were predicting, rightly, that this man would become the first African American President of the United States. They also predicted it would happen in 2016. He was too young in 2004, too green, and had no national experience. The talking heads, party leaders, and fellow democratic leaders all predicted he was it, just not now. Only one Problem, the likely nominee wasn’t ever popular, and Obama quickly became bored in the US Senate. As early as 2005, his inner circle began coming up with ideas for him to run for the Governorship of Illinois in 2010.
Yeah there was a lot of noise about him running in 2008, and sure it was tempting. But, no one in the camp gave it much thought. In September 1999, Obama ran for the March 2000 Democratic primary election for the U.S. House of Representatives against four-term incumbent candidate Bobby Rush, and lost badly. He was in the state senate at the time and was seen by many to be overstepping. The defeat had made him very cautious.
He started off in the US Senate in much the same way he began in the Illinois legislature, in the minority. His first congress the 109th Congress, Obama worked hard on lobbying and campaign finance reform, sometimes with frustrating results. He quickly became one of the leading democratic figures in the chamber, not given leadership rules, yet plenty of committee responsibilities. He went on fact finding missions and worked hard to remain a junior members to several senators whose egos were sometimes bruised by his early success.
He had developed a mildly negative reputation early on as a “show horse” and got off on the wrong foot quickly with Senator John McCain. He became a leading figure in the 2006 mid term elections, campaigning with countless candidates throughout the nation. When the Democratically controlled 110th congress begun in 2007, Obama was given the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs, serving under the main Foreign relations chair Joe Biden.
By then Obama had already decided to make the plunge and run for the Presidency. He had frustrated himself the entire Holiday season, his staff had added stops to his recent book tour, to simulate a campaign trail. They had to convince Michelle, which took a lot of detailed planning.
In terms of his actual track record in congress the results are mixed.
Ratings of Obama's liberalism by the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), based on 20 ADA-selected votes each year, declined from 100% in 2005 to 95% in 2006, with one vote the ADA counted as not-liberal in 2006, and 75%, with five missed votes, in 2007. A study of the voting records of all 100 senators, using an average of the ratings of seven liberal interest groups, described Obama as "among the least liberal", of the Democrats, scoring an 80%. Some of his sponsored bills included Homes for Heroes Act of 2006, Alternative Diesel Standard Act of 2006, Mercury Market Minimization Act of 2006, Missing Mercury in Manufacturing Monitoring and Mitigation Act, Fuel Economy Reform Act, Designating July 12, 2007, as `National Summer Learning Day', A resolution commemorating the 44th anniversary of the deaths of civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and Military Family Job Protection Act.
The issue Obama faced in both Congresses was the same issue many fellow members faced, a White House that wasn’t interested in their legislative agenda, and a minority that was determined to get back in the majority. It didn’t take long for him to realize that a senator’s life was not for him. You shouldn’t fault him for this realization, many elected senators choose to only serve a single term, some even resign before it ends, it happened in my state as recently as 2009. Its a slow, moderate, and oddly quiet life that is really designed for those at the end of their professional careers. Many of his senate colleagues were empty-nesters, while he had young children, they would frequently schedule hearings when he was trying to schedule family time.
The end result was an up or out plan that turned out to work well for President Obama.
Now that his term has come to an end I want to ask you guys one question. Do you think he should have stayed in the senate, was a good thing for the nation that he won in 2008. I ask because the democrats have had some rough midterms and a pretty shocking presidential election cycle.