Illinois Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama, right, works the crowd at a breakfast in Chicago. It was announced yesterday that the Hawaii-born Obama will deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston on July 27.
Obama to deliver
Dem keynoteThe Punahou grad is an Illinois
candidate for the U.S. Senate
WASHINGTON » A Punahou School graduate who could become the third black senator since Reconstruction will deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.
Illinois Senate candidate Barack Obama, who was born in Hawaii and graduated from Punahou in 1979, will speak on July 27, the second night of the convention, with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
Obama, a law professor and Illinois state senator, is scheduled to talk about the future of America that a Democratic administration would provide, along with the need to make jobs, families and communities top priorities.
"Barack is an optimistic voice for America and a leader who knows that together we can build an America that is stronger at home and respected in the world," Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said in a statement.
The announcement from the Kerry campaign came on the same day that the Democrat launched $2 million worth of ads for television, radio and newspapers targeting black voters. Democrats handily won the black vote in 2000 by a 9-to-1 margin, and the party and Kerry campaign want to boost that turnout this November.
Obama's days as a relative unknown outside Illinois are fading. He scored a decisive victory in the state's primary over state comptroller Dan Hynes, and he had a comfortable lead in statewide polls before his Republican opponent abandoned the race. Jack Ryan dropped out last month over embarrassing allegations in his divorce papers that he took his wife to sex clubs before they split up.
The GOP's top choices have refused to run, sending Republicans scrambling to line up opposition. One potential candidate had been former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka, who met with Republican officials Tuesday. But last night, Illinois GOP officials said that Ditka had decided he would not run.
Obama has widespread appeal and a compelling story: His father was a member of Kenya's Luo tribe, born on the shores of Lake Victoria. He met Obama's mother, a white woman, when both were students at the University of Hawaii.
When Obama was 2, his father left the family, returning to Kenya, where he eventually became a senior economist in the Ministry of Finance.
After graduating from Punahou in 1979, where he was a member of the school's state champion basketball team, Obama went on to graduate from Columbia University in New York and received his law degree from Harvard Law School. He was the first black president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.
He worked as a community organizer in New York and Chicago on job training programs and other projects, and as a civil rights lawyer. He is now a senior instructor in constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School.
Obama's campaign press secretary, Pam Smith, says Obama and his family spend every Christmas in Hawaii, where his grandmother and sister still live.
The four-day convention takes place in Boston, starting July 26.
