Obama to launch quest for history

SPRINGFIELD: Charismatic Senator Barack Obama is set to launch a historic quest on Saturday to be America's first black president, in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln, the US icon who freed the slaves.   

Obama will formally begin his White House bid in Lincoln's midwestern hometown and promise to heal bitter chasms in modern-day politics, as he dons the mantle of the former president who fought a war to keep his nation whole.   

The 45-year-old, whose dazzling rhetoric has evoked whispered early comparisons to past political giants like John F. Kennedy, will ride a tide of hype into a packed Democratic field dominated by Senator Hillary Clinton.   

"Tommorow, we begin a great journey, a journey to take our country back and fundamentally change the nature of our politics," Obama said in an online video sent to supporters on Friday.   

"I know a lot of you are cynical about the possibilities of that change -- sometimes it seems as if the game is fixed, and it only works for the few and the powerful. But, I fundamentally believe there is another brand of politics," Obama said, as he leapt into a presidential race moving at unprecedented speed nearly two years before Americans chose their 44th president.   

When he braves frigid winter weather at the old Illinois statehouse at 1600 GMT Saturday, his message will recall Lincoln's famous warning, also delivered in Springfield, that "a house divided against itself cannot stand."   

But after only two years in Congress, the political phenom must confront critics who say he is an upstart, low on experience and about to find lofty idealism can be left in tatters by bare fisted campaign combat.   

He must also confront the mighty Clinton election machine. The former first lady's ruthless political streak, money raising muscle and powerful friends have already put her at the front of the field, according to most polls.   

Obama is also likely to face a strong challenge from 2004 Democratic vice presidential pick John Edwards whose White House bid is fired by fierce opposition to the Iraq war and economic populism.   

After his announcement, Obama will bound onto the campaign trail in Iowa and New Hampshire, nearly a year before the two bellweather states hold early nominating contests for the Democratic and Republican presidential tickets.   

President George W. Bush said last month that Obama was "attractive" and "articulate" but still far from the White House. Obama, son of a black Kenyan economist and a white mother from the US heartland state of Kansas, laid out a idealistic blueprint for his campaign at a Democratic National Committee meeting last weekend.   

"We don't want another election where voters are simply holding their noses and feel like they're choosing the lesser of two evils," said Obama, who shot to fame with a rousing speech at the 2004 Democratic convention.   

Obama is betting Americans are yearning for change, and want their politics cleansed of the bitterness distilled by the Iraq war, and years of Washington warfare between Democrats and Republicans.   

With Iraq dominating the early stages of the campaign, Obama reminds voters he always thought the war was a "tragic mistake" and last month called for the withdrawal of all US combat forces by March 31, 2008.   

His clear position on Iraq may reap political dividends, as Clinton and Edwards are still hounded by their 2003 Senate vote to authorize President Bush to go to war with Saddam Hussein.   

Obama will instantly become the most credible African-American presidential candidate ever to mount a White House campaign, and is seen as having a real shot, in the most open White House race for 80 years.   

Though he is being seen as a standard bearer for black politicians, Obama did not, like past presidential hopes like Reverend Jesse Jackson, rise out of the civil rights movement.   

In an interview with Sunday's CBS show "60 Minutes" show he will say race will not dictate the fate of his campaign, one way, or the other.   

"If I don't win this race it will be because of other factors -- I have not shown to the American people a vision for where the country needs to go."   

A resume packed with achievement includes Obama's role as the first black president of the elite Harvard Law Review. His childhood though was tainted hardship, owing to his parents broken marriage. 

When his mother remarried, he lived for several years with his new stepfather in Indonesia, an experience, which opened his eyes to wrenching poverty around the globe.