Pre election career

After a two year stint working in corporate research and at the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago, where he took a job as a community organizer with a church based group, the Developing Communities Project. For the next several years, he worked with low income residents in Chicagos Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens public housing development on the citys largely black South Side. Obama would later call the experience the best education I ever got, better than anything I got at Harvard Law School, the prestigious institution he entered in 1988.

In 1996, Obama officially launched his own political career, winning election to the Illinois State Senate as a Democrat from the South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park. Despite tight Republican control during his years in the state senate, Obama was able to build support among both Democrats and Republicans in drafting legislation on ethics and health care reform. He helped create a state earned income tax credit that benefited the working poor, promoted subsidies for early childhood education programs and worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.

Re elected in 1998 and again in 2002, Obama also ran unsuccessfully in the 2000 Democratic primary for the U. S. House of Representatives seat held by the popular four term incumbent Bobby Rush. As a state senator, Obama notably went on record as an early opponent of President George W. Bushs push to war with Iraq. During a rally at Chicagos Federal Plaza in October 2002, he spoke against a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq: I am not opposed to all wars. Im opposed to dumb wars