As a presidential candidate, Obama faced serious obstacles. He was a Black man in a country that had elected only white presidents, at least a dozen of whom had, at one time or another, enslaved Black people. He had foreign-sounding first and last names, and a middle name that also belonged to a Middle Eastern tyrant the U.S. military had chased into a spider hole. For voters who weren’t prone to racism or xenophobia, there was the question of his inexperience: at the time he announced his candidacy, he had served in the United States Senate only two years. Still, to some commentators, none of
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