The roots of President Obama’s politics and presidential campaign strategy are traced in this up-to-the-minute political biography. The work chronicles his career from his successful run in 1996 to represent Chicago’s South Side in the Illinois Senate to his failed challenge in 2000 to the South Side’s incumbent in the U.S. House to this partial term as the junior U.S. senator from Illinois beginning in 2004 and finally to his landslide election to the U.S. presidency in 2008. Dupuis and Boeckelman analyze in illuminating detail the critical ways in which the political calculus so brilliantly deployed in Obama’s 2007-2008 national campaign was shaped by the lessons he learned from the successes and failures of his previous local and statewide campaigns. This paperback edition is updated and enhanced with post-election analysis, appendices, and photos.