Kenyan's son wins senate seat
Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and an American mother who shot from obscurity to political stardom in mere months, trounced his Republican rival to claim a Senate seat in Illinois.
He will be just the third black US senator since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era.
The resounding victory is the latest chapter in a rags-to-riches story for a man who grew up on the beaches of Hawaii and the streets of Indonesia barely knowing his father but has gone on to become a linchpin of the Democratic Party’s future.
He gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention this year, delivering a message of national unity in a stirring speech that made him an overnight political sensation.
National news shows and magazines profiled him, and the 43-year-old state senator from Chicago became a top draw for other Democrats’ campaigns nationwide.
The campaign was one of the strangest races in state history – a contest between a liberal political superstar and a conservative former ambassador who had never lived in Illinois.
And Alan Keyes was far from the Republican Party’s top choice.
Investment banker-turned-teacher Jack Ryan won the Republican primary in March, but dropped out of the race three months later after records were released from his divorce with Star Trek: actress Jeri Ryan.
The documents revealed embarrassing allegations that the candidate took his wife to sex clubs in Paris, New York and New Orleans and tried to get her to perform sex acts with him while others watched.
Before entering politics, Obama was the first black president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review and a civil rights lawyer in Chicago.
