Initial Work
Although a newcomer to Washington, he recruited a team of established, high-level advisers devoted to broad themes that exceeded the usual requirements of an incoming first-term senator. Obama hired Pete Rouse, a 30-year veteran of national politics and former chief of staff to Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, as his chief of staff, and economist Karen Kornbluh, former deputy chief of staff to Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, as his policy director. His key foreign policy advisers have included former Clinton administration officials Anthony Lake and Susan Rice, as well as Samantha Power, author on human rights and genocide (who resigned March 7, 2008). Obama held assignments on the Senate Committees for Foreign Relations; Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; and Veterans' Affairs, and he was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. He was a chairman of the Subcommittee on European Affairs. Nonpartisan analyses of bill sponsorship and voting records placed him as a "rank-and-file Democrat" and "Democratic Party loyalist." The U.S. Senate Historical Office lists him as the fifth African American Senator in U.S. history, the third to have been popularly elected, and the only African American serving in the Senate until he resigned his seat in November 2008 in preparation for his new job as the 44th President of the United States
Read more about this topic: United States Senate Career Of Barack Obama
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