Based on the rousing 2004 Democratic Convention keynote address that vaulted junior Illinois Senator Barack Obama to national prominence, the political memoir The Audacity of Hope summarizes Obama’s policy views and values. Obama published the book in the summer of 2006 in order to lay the foundation for his successful campaign for president of the United States. In The Audacity of Hope, Obama uses his experience as a community organizer and law professor to respectfully but firmly disagree with both entrenched conservative and dogmatically liberal views. Instead, he proposes a pragmatic, evidence-based politics based on good will, fellow feeling, and a willingness to approach issues on a case-by-case basis. Reading Obama’s philosophy of government, it is easy to see the way these ideas influenced his two terms as our first African-American commander-in-chief
