Obama, born in 1961, is the 44th president of the United States, having won election in November 2008. In his bid for reelection, Obama is using the campaign slogan "forward", trying to highlight his accomplishments and arguing that he needs a second term to continue them. Obama has tried to portray Romney as unsuccessful on economic issues.

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Obama formally launched his re-election campaign on April 4 by releasing a video and sending an e-mail to supporters. Soon after, he conducted major fund-raising swings through California and New York, raising millions of dollars in the process.

To date, Obama faces no significant competition from within the Democratic Party, and it is expected that he will win his party's presidential nomination in 2012 during the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. Health care reform, financial regulartory reform, jobs and the economy have been hallmarks of Obama's first term in office.

Obama's victory in the 2008 general election was aided by his tremendous fund-raising success. Since he first began running for president in early 2007, his campaign relied on bigger donors and smaller donors nearly equally, pulling in successive donations, mostly over the Internet. After becoming his party's nominee, Obama declined public financing and the spending limits that came with it, making him the first major-party candidate since the system was created to reject taxpayers' money for the general election. He is expected to do the same in his 2012 campaign.

Prior to becoming president, Obama served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008, and an Illinois state senator, serving from 1997 to 2004. He also made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, losing in a Democratic primary to incumbent Bobby Rush.