Obama Takes First Step in White House Bid

The Democratic senator Barack Obama today confirmed he was taking the first formal step towards a presidential campaign that could make him the first black American to occupy the White House.

Mr Obama, an Illinois senator, announced plans to file a presidential exploratory committee on his website. He said he would announce more about his intentions in his hometown, Chicago, next month.

"I didn't expect to find myself in this position a year ago," he said in a webcast. "I've been struck by how hungry we all are for a different kind of politics. So I spent some time thinking about how I could best advance the cause of change and progress we so desperately need."

Mr Obama said the decisions made by the Bush administration over the past six years, and the problems that had been ignored, had put the US "in a precarious place".

"Many of you have shared with me your stories about skyrocketing healthcare bills, the pensions you've lost and your struggles to pay for college for your kids," he said.

"Our continued dependence on oil has put our security and our very planet at risk. And we're still mired in a tragic and costly war that should have never been waged."

Despite the "magnitude of our problems", what concerned Mr Obama most was the "smallness of our politics", he added. "America's faced big problems before," he said. "But today, our leaders in Washington seem incapable of working together in a practical, commonsense way.

"Politics has become so bitter and partisan, so gummed up by money and influence, that we can't tackle the big problems that demand solutions. And that's what we have to change first."

Mr Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 to the son of a Kenyan who had herded goats with his father, a domestic servant to Kenya's colonial rulers, as a child.

Barack Obama Snr left Kenya on an academic scholarship and met and married Ann Dunham, born in the mid-western state of Kansas, while they were students at the university of Hawaii.

At public engagements in recent months, Mr Obama has been met by often ecstatic crowds who have urged him to announce an exploratory committee - an organisation established to help determine whether a potential candidate should run for an elected office.

Last month, John DiStaso - a political columnist on the Union Leader, New Hampshire's largest newspaper - who has been covering the primaries since 1980, said he was astonished by such excitement so early in the electoral cycle.

Mr Obama's new book, the Audacity of Hope, has been number two in the bestseller lists of both the New York Times and Amazon.

His announcement increases the likelihood of him competing against Hillary Clinton to become the Democractic candidate in next year's presidential election, with the New York senator expected to reveal her intentions in the near future.