Hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it. Hope is the belief that destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by the men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.

He helped set up a job training program a college preparatory tutoring program and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens. Legislative career: 1997–2008


State Senator: 1997–2004

Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996 succeeding State Senator Alice Palmer as Senator from Illinois's 13th District which at that time spanned Chicago South Side neighborhoods from Hyde Park – Kenwood south to South Shore and west to Chicago Lawn. Obama resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the U.

He then defeated Republican nominee John McCain in the general election and was inaugurated as president on January 20 2009. military involvement in the Iraq War increased troop levels in Afghanistan signed the New START arms control treaty with Russia ordered U. He was re-elected president in November 2012 defeating Republican nominee Mitt Romney and was sworn in for a second term on January 20 2013.