Obama is America's first black president. He became a state senator in 1997, and a U.S. senator in 2005.

Since becoming president, Obama passed the Affordable Care Act, remaking the national healthcare system, ended the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy of barring gays and lesbians from openly serving in the military, and established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Unemployment has remained above 8 percent throughout his term and he has yet to achieve his 2008 campaign promises to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; to pass the Employee Free Choice Act protecting labor unions; and to end Bush-era tax cuts.