Who is this man, and why are we listening to him? Obama does not come from blue blood or any of the noted prominent Black civil rights families as have Jesse Jackson Jr., or Harold Ford Jr; who preceded him as the Campaign 2000 keynote speaker. By now it's well-known that Obama (42) is the son of a Black man from Kenya, a goat-herder (just what we need, hey, I like the dems, but they have a lot of goats), and a German-American mother from Kansas. Obama may have family in Kansas, but one gets the feeling he is no Dorothy. He openly admits and accepts the fact that he was chosen for the address because he is Black. As a former congressional candidate and an 8-year state law-maker he is battle-tested, as a teacher and former editor of the Harvard Law Review, he is a sound-bite artist in his own right.