Get to Know Barack Obama

Nov. 1, 2007— -- In just a few years, Barack Obama has gone from little-known state senator to promising presidential candidate. His meteoric rise has made Obama one of the most closely watched candidates in the race.

Charles Gibson spoke with Obama as part of a new ABC News series, called "Who Is," which features an interview a week with a presidential candidate, from now until December, with a focus on their private lives.

Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Hawaii. His parents, who met while at the University of Hawaii, came from two very different worlds. Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, was from Kansas. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was born and raised in Kenya. However, the marriage and Obama's relationship with his father, were broken soon after he was born.

When Obama was only 2 years old, his father left to study at Harvard. Eventually, Obama Sr. returned to Kenya, leaving his wife and family behind in Hawaii.

"He was somebody who I think genuinely loved [his wife,] but was also somebody who was more interested in his career and pursuing his ambitions, than he was caring for a family," Obama said. "[My mother] could have been bitter, but she didn't communicate that to me. She would talk about how smart he was, and how generous he was, and how charismatic he was, and for a little boy, that's actually a good thing."

Still, Obama concedes that his father's absence left a lasting mark on his life.

"Some of my drive comes from wanting to prove that he should have stuck around, that I was worthy of his attentions," Obama said.

'Barry' Obama

At the age of 6, Obama, known as "Barry" at the time, moved to Indonesia after his mother married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian oil manager.

"I have wonderful memories of the place, but there's no doubt that, at some level, I understood that I was different," Obama said. "It meant that I was, maybe, not part of the community as much as I might have been, otherwise. On the other hand, it also gave me an appreciation of what it means to be an American."

Even though Obama lacked familial stability, and struggled to fit in with his peers as a child, he now views his diversity as one of his greatest assets.

"What's interesting is how deeply American I feel, considering this exotic background. Some of it is the Midwestern roots of my grandparents, my mother, and the values that they reflect," Obama said.

"But some of it is also a deep abiding sense that what is quintessentially American, is all these different threads coming together to make a single quilt. And I feel very much like I'm one of those threads that belong in this quilt — that I'm a product of all of these different forces — black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Native American. That, somehow, all this amalgam is part of who I am, and that's part of the reason I love this country so much."

A few years later, that marriage fell apart, and his mother placed her two young children in the care of their grandparents in Hawaii. From grades 5-12, Obama attended a prestigious private day school in Honolulu. He admits to losing his way a bit in high school, when he experimented with drinking and drugs.

"I don't want to romanticize it. I mean, it was a 15- or 16-year-old kid getting high. It was just a young man who didn't have a good sense of what was important in life," Obama said. "I think that if I had both parents in the house, and I was guided by a constant and steady hand all the time, that I probably wouldn't have made some of those mistakes."

Moving On

Eventually, Obama grew out of his rebellious streak and focused on his studies. He graduated from Columbia University, but instead of going directly to law school, he decided to spend a few years in Chicago as a community activist, where he tried to improve living conditions in poor and crime-ridden neighborhoods.

"The idea of being part of a community, and helping build that community, was very appealing to me, and very attractive to me," Obama said. "I think that being part of an African-American community was also important to me, because I think that I felt there was a strong gravitational pull, given I had graduated from an Ivy League school to go into a rarefied world in which I wouldn't really be rooted in a particular community. And that was something I wanted to avoid."

Obama went on to Harvard Law School, where he became the first African-American editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review. After practicing civil rights law for a few years, Obama won a seat in the Illinois state Senate, and in 2004, became a freshman senator for the U.S. Senate.

The Road to Candidacy

During that time, Obama married Michelle Robinson, and together, they now have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. Obama says his strained relationship with his father — with whom Obama only met one time after he left — has served as an object lesson for how he treats his own family.

"I think that, both consciously and unconsciously, it's been helpful for me to understand the mistakes that my father made," Obama said. "I think a lot about trying to spend enough time with my kids. I think a lot about not being too heavy-handed with my children. I think about the importance of showing respect to my wife as part of showing love and regard for my kids."

While Obama's sights are set squarely on the White House, he says his priorities have changed in the last few years.

"The approval that I desire now is the approval of my kids," Obama said. "It's an interesting turn in my life, where I'm much more concerned about whether my 9-year-old and 6-year-old think I'm a good dad, than that a crowd of 5,000 people are cheering me on."