Obama Seeks U.S. Senate seat (Illinois GLBTs, heads up)

[La_Serpiente]

Obama Seeks U.S. Senate seat

Windy City Times is interviewing several of the top candidates for U.S. Senate. Leading up to the March 16 primary, look each week for candidate interviews and election news on the wide variety of posts up for grabs.

After Obama’s WCT interview, he called to clarify that he opposes the proposed U.S. Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. He said he also opposed the two proposed state bills banning same-sex marriage. (He even called back. HOW RESPONSIVE!!!)

WCT: Let’s start with your background.

Obama: The first thing people usually want to know is where I got this funny name. My father was from Kenya, from Africa. My mother is from Kansas, which is where I got my accent from. They actually met as students in Hawaii. I came to Chicago after college, to work as a community organizer on the Far South Side of Chicago, an area that had been devastated by steel plant closings. There were a group of organizations in the area that wanted to see how they could rebuild their communities. So I was hired as a 23-year-old director to work on setting up job training programs, and after-school programs, and other programs for the area. After three and a half years of doing that, which was a wonderful experience and a great education for me, I realized that it was really hard to initiate some of the changes that were needed at a local level, because the economic forces that were hurting these communities were so big. I decided it was a good time for me to step back. So I went to law school. I went to Harvard, graduated in 1991. I was fortunate to be the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review there, and that gave me a variety of options. But I knew I wanted to come back to Chicago and work in public policy. So I ran a voter registration drive, called Project Vote, that registered 150,000 new voters to help get Bill Clinton and Carol Moseley Braun elected. I started working at a civil-rights firm ... that specialized in employment discrimination law and voting-rights law, and I started teaching at the University of Chicago, where I still teach constitutional law and voting rights law. In 1996, this seat here came up, and I ran, and was successful, and I’ve served in the legislature ever since.

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Obama Seeks U.S. Senate seat

[billyf65]

1. VOTE OBAMA!

Another campaign tried to twist Barack into a position where he seemed intolerant/out of step with GLBT issues. Fact is, the guy is the only real progressive with a record to prove it in the race. He was a lead sponsor of SB1, which would prohibit discrimination against GLBT individuals.

There are several good candidates in this race. And one great one. We deserve the great one, no?

[Nailzberg]

2. I think you mean SB101

SB1 is a education funding bill.


I like Obama, and think he's got a good shot in March, but I believe he'll have a real tough November should he come out of the primary. This is a state where the Dems can pick up a seat, and I gotta keep that in mind.