ABSTRACT
A talented motivator, Barack Obama expanded the staff and budget, established a tenants rights group, organized voter registration drives, and implemented programs for job-training, college preparatory tutoring, and drug treatment; but the South Side remained a deeply troubled neighborhood. In 2004, Obama attracted national attention for the re-release of his autobiography, which became a run-away best-seller, and for delivering the keynote address at the Democratic partys national convention. The speech was a plum assignment, because Obama was then only a state senator running for the US Senate. According to a recent intellectual biography, Obama was the most penetrating political thinker elected to the presidency in a century. In his first two years as president, Obama had compiled a significant legislative record. In this understanding, Obama believed that Americas exceptional position in the world stemmed, not from its unparalleled virtues, but from a bargain with the devil that depended on an indulgence in militarism, racism, sexism, corporate greed, and environmental disregard.
