巴拉克·奧巴馬：美國人生之旅

2008.11.07

巴拉克·奧巴馬：美國人生之旅

Barack Obama - An American Life

 

幼兒時的奧巴馬和母親安?鄧納姆（約攝於1963年）Young Barack with his mother, Ann Dunham, circa 1963The following is excerpted from the U.S. Department of State publication Barack Obama: 44th President of the United States. 巴拉克·奧巴馬(Barack Obama)獨特的生活經歷和競選總統取得的成功為美國政治史掀開了新的一頁。

Barack Obama』s unique biography and successful campaign for the U.S. presidency have opened a new chapter in U.S. politics. 美國第44任總統巴拉克·奧巴馬是美國有史以來第一位非洲裔總統，他有著與以往美國所有總統不同的身世。奧巴馬的父親是肯亞人，母親是美國中部的白人。他於2004年當選伊利諾伊州聯邦參議員，並在同一年召開的民主黨全國代表大會上發表慷慨激昂的主題演講，一躍成為美國政壇上的一顆新星。短短四年後，他從多位民主黨重量級人物中脫穎而出，成為民主黨總統候選人，最後在總統大選中戰勝了共和黨對手麥凱恩。

President Obama, the first African-American president of the United States, brings a life story unlike that of any previous U.S. leader. The biracial son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from the American heartland, Obama shot to national prominence with a well-received keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, the same year he was elected to the U.S. Senate from the state of Illinois. Just four years later, he rose to the top of a field crowded with Democratic heavyweights to clinch his party』s nomination for the White House and win the presidential election against Republican candidate Senator John McCain. 奧巴馬堪稱是一位隨時代應運而生的二十一世紀的競選活動家。他的講話風格雄辯、流暢、激昂，他能夠激發起年輕選民的熱情，並且善於利用最先進的互聯網技術展開競選。奧巴馬在競選過程中強調的兩大主題是：改變華盛頓管理國家的一貫方式；呼籲思想意識、社會地位和種族背景各不相同的美國人為了共同利益團結一心。

With a polished speaking style, a command of eloquent and uplifting rhetoric, the ability to inspire the enthusiasm of young voters, and the sophisticated use of the Internet as a campaign tool, Obama was very much a 21st-century candidate. In his campaign, Obama stressed two overarching themes: changing Washington』s traditional way of conducting the nation』s business and invoking Americans of diverse ideological, social, and racial backgrounds to unite for the common good. 奧巴馬在2004年民主黨全國代表大會上慷慨陳辭："這裡不存在一個自由主義的美國和一個保守主義的美國，而只有一個美利堅合眾國。這裡不存在黑人的美國、白人的美國、拉美裔的美國或亞裔的美國，而只有一個美利堅合眾國。"他說："我們是同一個國家的子民，所有人都宣誓效忠星條旗，所有人都在捍衛美利堅合眾國。"

「There』s not a liberal America and a conservative America — there』s the United States of America,」 Obama said in his address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention. 「There』s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there』s the United States of America. … We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.」  早年生涯The Early Years 奧巴馬父母的身世截然不同。他的母親安·鄧納姆(Ann Dunham)生長在堪薩斯州的一個小鎮，後來隨家人搬到夏威夷群島，並在那裡結識了獲得夏威夷大學獎學金的肯亞留學生老奧巴馬(Barack Obama Sr.)。兩人於1959年結婚，小奧巴馬於1961年8月4日出生在檀香山。兩年後，老奧巴馬離開了年輕的妻子和年幼的兒子，先到哈佛大學讀研究生，然後返回肯亞在政府部門從事經濟工作。小奧巴馬後來僅在十歲時見過父親一面。

Obama』s parents came from vastly different backgrounds. His mother, Ann Dunham, was born and raised in small-town Kansas. After her family moved to the Hawaiian Islands, she met Barack Obama Sr., a Kenyan scholarship student enrolled at the University of Hawaii. The two married in 1959, and on August 4, 1961, Barack Obama Jr. was born in Honolulu. Two years later the senior Obama left his new family, first for graduate study at Harvard and then for a job as a government economist back in Kenya. The young Obama met his father again only once, at age 10. 奧巴馬六歲那年，他的母親再婚，嫁給了一位印度尼西亞石油公司的主管。他們舉家遷往印尼，奧巴馬在首都雅加達的學校上了四年學。他後來返回夏威夷，在那裡讀高中，同外祖父和外祖母一起生活。

When Obama was six, his mother remarried, this time to an Indonesian oil executive. The family moved to Indonesia, and Obama spent four years attending school in the capital city of Jakarta. He eventually returned to Hawaii and went to high school there while living with his maternal grandparents. 奧巴馬寫的第一本書，《父親留下的夢想》(Dreams From My Father)，記錄了他在青少年時期不同於常人的坎坷經歷，他不知如何看待自己的混血身世，因為當時異族通婚依然少見。植根於美國的黑人和白人兩個世界也許拓寬了奧巴馬的視野，使他在多年之後成為一位能夠理解多方面觀點的政界人士。

In his first book, Dreams from My Father, Obama describes this period of his life as having more than the usual share of adolescent turmoil, as he struggled to make sense of a biracial heritage then still relatively uncommon in the United States. Being rooted in both black culture and white culture may have helped give Obama the expansive vision he brought to politics years later, one that understands many points of view. 奧巴馬在法學院時代的同學卡桑德拉·巴茨(Cassandra Butts)對《紐約客》(New Yorker )雜誌記者拉里莎·麥克法誇爾(Larissa MacFarquhar)表示："巴拉克非常善於將似乎互為矛盾的現實融會貫通地綜合分析判斷。這是因為他在白人家庭中長大，走入社會後被視為黑人。"

「Barack has an incredible ability to synthesize seemingly contradictory realities and make them coherent,」 his law school classmate Cassandra Butts told New Yorker magazine writer Larissa MacFarquhar. 「It comes from going from a home where white people are nurturing you, and then you go out into the world and you』re seen as a black person.」 奧巴馬後來再次離開夏威夷，去洛杉磯就讀西方學院(Occidental College)，為時兩年。隨後，他搬遷至紐約市，1983年獲得哥倫比亞大學(Columbia University)文學士學位。奧巴馬在2008年的一個講話中回顧了他當時的心境："……到大學畢業時，我滿腦子都是一個瘋狂的念頭──我要從底層做起，改變現狀。"

Obama left Hawaii to attend Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years. He later moved to New York City and earned a bachelor of arts degree from Columbia University in 1983. In a speech given in 2008, Obama described his thinking at the time: 「 … by the time I graduated from college, I was possessed with a crazy idea — that I would work at a grassroots level to bring about change.」 投身於公共服務事業Called to Public Service 為了尋找自我和實現人生奮鬥目標，奧巴馬後來辭去了在紐約一家國際諮詢公司做金融撰稿人的工作，於1985年去了芝加哥。他在芝加哥南城的一個社區教會聯盟作社區組織工作。這是一個貧困的非洲裔城區，因當地經濟從製造業向服務業轉型而遭到重創。

In search of his identity and a purposeful direction in life, Obama subsequently left his job as a financial writer with an international consulting firm in New York and headed to Chicago in 1985. There, he worked as a community organizer for a coalition of local churches on the city』s South Side, a poor African-American area hard hit by the transition from a manufacturing center to a service-based economy. 奧巴馬後來在宣布參加總統競選的演講中回顧了這段時光。他說："正是在這些社區中，我獲得了出生以來最好的教育，感悟到基督教信仰的真諦。"

「It was in these neighborhoods that I received the best education I ever had, and where I learned the true meaning of my Christian faith,」 Obama recounted years later in the speech announcing his presidential candidacy. 奧巴馬在社區組織工作中獲得一些切實的成功，為南城居民在經濟重建、職業培訓和環境治理等方面爭取了權益。他認為，作為社區組織者，他的主要作用在於充當催化劑，動員普通公民自下而上地努力，制訂地方戰略增強自己的政治和經濟權益。

Obama enjoyed some tangible successes in this work, giving South Side residents a voice in such issues as economic redevelopment, job training, and environmental clean-up efforts. He viewed his primary role as a community organizer, however, as that of a catalyst mobilizing ordinary citizens in a bottom-up effort to forge indigenous strategies for political and economic empowerment. 三年後，奧巴馬認識到，為了真正改善這類貧困社區，需要從更高層參與，即利用立法和政治途徑。因此，他進入哈佛法學院(Harvard Law School)就讀，並成為有威望的《哈佛法學評論》(Harvard Law Review)雜誌社社長，他也是該雜誌社的第一位黑人社長。1991年，奧巴馬以優異成績畢業於哈佛大學。

After three years of such work, Obama concluded that to bring about true improvement in such distressed communities required involvement at a higher level, in the realm of law and politics. Accordingly, he attended Harvard Law School, where he distinguished himself by being elected the first black president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review and graduating magna cum laude in 1991. 奧巴馬競選活動的策劃人戴維·阿克塞爾羅德(David Axelrod)說，憑藉這樣不凡的資歷，奧巴馬完全能做他想做的任何事。奧巴馬回到第二故鄉芝加哥，開始做民權事務律師，並在芝加哥大學講授憲法課程。1992年，奧巴馬與哈佛法學院校友米歇爾·魯濱遜(Michelle Robinson)喜結良緣，同時開始在芝加哥從事推動選民登記的工作，幫助比爾·柯林頓(Bill Clinton)及其他民主黨候選人競選。

With these credentials, 「Obama could have done anything he wanted,」 noted David Axelrod, who served as his presidential campaign strategist. Obama returned to his adopted hometown of Chicago, where he practiced civil rights law and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. In 1992 he married Michelle Robinson, another Harvard Law graduate, and worked on voter registration in Chicago to help Democratic candidates such as Bill Clinton. 

奧巴馬大約10歲時與生父老巴拉克?奧巴馬的合影。Barack, age 10, and his Kenyan father, Barack Obama Sr.「Any African Americans who are only talking about racism as a barrier to our success are seriously misled if they don』t also come to grips with the larger economic forces that are creating economic insecurity for all workers  —  — whites, Latinos, and Asians,」 he said at the time. Among his legislative accomplishments over the next eight years in the state senate were campaign finance reform, tax cuts for the working poor, and improvements to the state』s criminal justice system. 奧巴馬繼續致力於公益事業。1996年，他第一次決定參加公職競選，並在伊利諾伊州參議院競選中贏得代表芝加哥的一個席位。從多方面看來，這場競選是他早年做社區組織工作的自然結果。奧巴馬基本將同樣的世界觀帶入他的政治奮鬥目標中，即政治家要促進基層公民活動並締結廣泛的聯盟。他當時說過："凡是只在口頭上說種族主義是我們獲得成功的障礙的非洲裔美國人，如果他們不同時正視更大的經濟力量給所有工人──白人、拉美裔、亞裔──造成的生活缺乏保障的問題，就是受到了嚴重的誤導。" 在州議會擔任參議員的八年里，他取得的立法成就包括競選經費改革、為貧困工薪階層減稅和完善州刑法系統。

With a continuing strong commitment to public service, Obama decided to make his first run at elective office in 1996, winning a seat from Chicago in the Illinois state senate. In many ways the race was a logical progression of his earlier work as a community organizer, and Obama brought much of that same expansive outlook  — the politician as an enabler of citizen-directed grassroots efforts and a builder of broad-based coalitions — to his vision of politics. 登上國家政治舞台The National Stage 2000年奧巴馬首次競選美國國會議員，但未能戰勝競選對手、來自芝加哥的在任民主黨人博比·拉什(Bobby Rush)。奧巴馬對初選中慘敗在拉什手下感到沮喪，並希望能在伊利諾伊州議會之外有所作為，他因此說服米歇爾接受他競選聯邦參議員的想法，這是他為拓展政治生涯制訂的"破釜沉舟"的計劃。

In 2000 Obama made his first run for the U.S. Congress, unsuccessfully challenging Bobby Rush, an incumbent Democrat from Chicago, for Rush』s seat in the House of Representatives. Dispirited by his lopsided primary loss to Rush and searching for influence beyond the Illinois state legislature, he sold Michelle on the idea of his running for the U.S. Senate in a last-shot 「up or out strategy」 to advance his political career. 2004年在伊利諾伊州舉行的聯邦參議員選舉因當時在任的共和黨人彼得·菲茨傑拉德(Peter Fitzgerald)在前一年宣布將不爭取連任而向所有人敞開了競選大門。有七名民主黨人和八名共和黨人分別為爭取成為本黨提名人展開角逐。奧巴馬獲得53%的投票，大大超過了他的六名對手獲得票數的總和，從而輕而易舉地贏得民主黨提名。

The 2004 U.S. Senate race in Illinois had turned into a free-for-all the year before, when the Republican incumbent, Peter Fitzgerald, announced he would not seek reelection. Seven Democrats and eight Republicans contested their respective party』s primary for the senatorial nomination. Obama easily captured the Democratic nomination, winning a greater share of the vote — 53 percent — than his six opponents combined. 由於當時共和黨人在聯邦參議院的100名成員中以51席占微弱多數，因此在民主黨看來，伊利諾伊州的參議員選舉對他們在11月奪回參議院控制權至關重要(事實上，他們到2006年才奪回控制權)。由於希望讓奧巴馬通過發揮重要作用來給他的競選注入活力，而且由於奧巴馬的雄辨口才人人皆知，以及他當時已經給民主黨總統候選人約翰·克里(John Kerry)留下了良好的印象，因此民主黨決定由奧巴馬在民主黨全國代表大會上作主題演講。

With the Republicans then holding the 100-member U.S. Senate by a razor-thin majority of 51 seats, Democrats saw the senatorial contest in Illinois as critical to their chances of retaking the Senate that November (in fact, they only regained control in 2006). The desire to give Obama』s campaign a boost through a prominent convention role, the well-known oratory skills Obama possessed, and the very favorable impression he already had made on Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry clinched the decision to select Obama as the convention』s keynote speaker. 奧巴馬的演講慷慨激昂，字字珠璣，他強調要超越黨派分野，呼籲以"希望的政治"取代嘲諷的政治，結果不僅使與會者人心大振，而且使奧巴馬一舉成為全國媒體矚目的民主黨後起之秀。後來，他在那年秋季的參議員選舉中以70%的選票輕而易舉地獲勝。雖然那年伊利諾伊州共和黨幾近完全混亂的局面無疑是造成一邊倒的原因之一，但奧巴馬的勝利就其本身而言亦令人矚目：他在全州102個郡中的93個郡獲勝，並贏得超過二分之一的白人選票。奧巴馬作為能夠跨越傳統種族分野的新一代政治家的名聲穩步上升。在《紐約客》雜誌登載的奧巴馬傳略中，文章作者威廉·菲尼根(William Finnegan)指出，奧巴馬具有"微妙地借用他的對話者的用語"的天賦，他"能講美國的各種方言"。奧巴馬對他為什麼能夠與白人選民溝通作出了自己的解釋。他說："我了解這些人。他們跟我的外祖父外祖母一樣。……他們的行為舉止、他們的情感、他們的是非觀──這一切我都非常熟悉。"

Obama』s speech, with its soaring, polished language on the need to transcend partisan divisions and its call for a 「politics of hope」 rather than a politics of cynicism, did more than rouse convention-goers; it catapulted Obama into the national media spotlight as a rising star of the Democratic Party. He went on to win handily in the Senate race that autumn, capturing an overwhelming 70 percent of the popular vote. Although the near-total disarray that year among Republicans in Illinois undoubtedly contributed to the landslide margin, Obama』s victory was impressive in its own right, as he won in 93 of the state』s 102 counties and captured white voters by better than a two-to-one margin.Obama』s reputation as a new breed of politician, one able to overcome traditional racial divides, grew steadily. In a New Yorker profile of Obama, writer William Finnegan, noting Obama』s talent at 「slipping subtly into the idiom of his interlocutor,」 said Obama 「speaks a full range of American vernaculars.」 Obama offered his own explanation why he could connect with white voters.「I know these people,」 he said. 「Those are my grandparents. … Their manners, their sensibilities, their sense of right and wrong — it』s all totally familiar to me.」 奧巴馬在參議院的投票紀錄與民主黨自由派的紀錄一致。他對伊拉克戰爭的批評成為他的標誌之一，甚至可以追溯至這場戰爭開始前。他在2002年的一次講話中警告說，任何此類軍事行動的依據都"不是原則，而是政治" 。他還致力於加強國會的倫理道德標準，改善對退伍軍人的照顧，擴大使用可再生燃料。

In the Senate, Obama amassed a voting record in line with that of the Democratic Party』s liberal wing. His criticism of the war in Iraq has been one of his trademarks, dating back to a speech in 2002, even before the war started, when he warned that any such military action would be based 「not on principle but on politics.」 He also has worked to strengthen ethical standards in Congress, improve care for military veterans, and increase use of renewable fuels. 競選總統Running for President 2008年民主黨漫長的初選角逐，經過50個州的初選或預選會議，具有多重歷史意義。非洲裔候選人和女性候選人過去雖然也參加過總統競選，但這次在兩位領先者中，一位是女性，一位是黑人。2007年，當奧巴馬與其他七位爭取民主黨總統提名的候選人開始組織競選活動時，民意調查一再顯示奧巴馬名列第二，人們理所當然地認為最受歡迎的人物是紐約州聯邦參議員希拉里·柯林頓。但奧巴馬在這場競選的初期十分成功地發揮了一群熱情支持者(尤其是年輕人)的力量，建立起全國範圍的基??競選組織，並通過互聯網籌募競選經費。

The long Democratic primary election campaign of 2008, with elections or caucuses in all 50 states, was historic in several ways. African-American and women candidates had run for the presidency before, but this time the two front-runners were a woman and an African American. As Barack Obama and seven other contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination began to organize in 2007, opinion polls consistently put Obama in second place behind the presumed favorite, New York Senator Hillary Clinton. Obama, however, was highly successful in this early stage of the race at enlisting an enthusiastic cadre of supporters, especially among youth, creating a nationwide grassroots campaign organization, and fundraising through the Internet. 由於柯林頓享有更高知名度、擁有運作十分順暢的競選機器、並獲得州一級主要民主黨人的支持，因此奧巴馬陣營制定了一項新穎的戰略以抵消這些不利因素：把目標對準那些通過預選會議而不是初選產生代表的州，並側重那些在以往總統大選中把票投給共和黨的較小的州。這項戰略充分利用了民主黨的比例代表制──在每一個州按候選人獲得選票的大致比例來分配出席民主黨全國代表大會的代表人數。這與共和黨的票數分配規則正好相反，後者規定在─個州獲勝的候選人獲得全國代表大會大部分或全部代表的選票。

With Clinton enjoying greater name recognition, a well-oiled campaign machine, and support at the state level from leading Democrats, the Obama camp devised an innovative strategy to negate these advantages: targeting states that used caucuses rather than primaries to select delegates and focusing on smaller states that traditionally voted Republican in the general election. This approach capitalized on the Democratic Party』s system of proportional representation — awarding convention delegates in each state in rough proportion to a candidate』s share of the vote — as opposed to the Republicans』 system of awarding most or all convention delegates to the winner in each state. 這項戰略於2008年1月3日在艾奧瓦州舉行的全國第一場預選中奏效，奧巴馬挫敗柯林頓取得意外勝利。正如《華盛頓郵報》(Washington Post)所言，在艾奧瓦州取得的勝利是改變賽況的關鍵球，"戰勝柯林頓......改變了競選的方向，奧巴馬成為她的主要對手，成為有主張、有組織能力、有財務資源、可挑戰她的領先地位的惟一人選。"

The strategy paid off with the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses on January 3, 2008, when Obama scored an upset victory over Clinton. The Iowa win was a game-changer; as the Washington Post put it, 「Beating Clinton … altered the course of the race by establishing Obama as her chief rival — the only candidate with the message, organizational muscle, and financial resources to challenge her front-runner status.」   這項戰略在2月5日"超級星期二"(Super Tuesday)──當日22個州同時舉行選舉──又一次奏效，其結果是奧巴馬與柯林頓不分高下，奧巴馬席捲了南部與西部各農業州。奧巴馬然後再接再厲，在2月份又連續拿下10個較為保守的州，鞏固了他在代表人數方面的領先地位，此後柯林頓再也未能徹底扭轉頹勢。

It paid off once more on 「Super Tuesday」 — the elections held simultaneously in 22 states on February 5 — when Obama dueled Clinton to a tie and swept rural states in the West and South. And it paid off yet again when Obama went on to win 10 more consecutive contests in February, cementing a lead in delegates Clinton never again could catch. 奧巴馬主政An Obama Presidency 奧巴馬是美國歷史上最年輕的總統之一。出生於1946-1964年嬰兒潮末期的奧巴馬也是在1980年代長大成人的第一位總統，而這本身就意味著變化。1960年代的劇烈社會動蕩對嬰兒潮初期出生的人產生了重大影響，而奧巴馬成長期的氛圍則與之明顯不同。誠如奧巴馬在談到由一批戰後早期出生的候選人參選的2000年和2004年總統選舉時所說，"有時，我覺得好像在觀看嬰兒潮那一代人的心理劇──一個在全國舞台上演出的源於很久以前在少數大學校園中策劃的積怨和報復陰謀的故事。"

Barack Obama is the among the youngest U.S. presidents. Born at the tail end of the 1946-1964 baby boom generation, he is also the first president to have come of age in the 1980s, which of itself might portend change. The atmosphere in which he grew up was markedly different from the socially tumultuous 1960s that shaped earlier baby boomers』 outlook. As Obama once said about the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, contested by candidates from a much earlier cohort of that postwar generation, 「I sometimes felt as if I were watching the psychodrama of the baby boom generation — a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago — played out on the national stage.」 《紐約客》的麥克法誇爾對奧巴馬明顯具有超越傳統政治分野的魅力提出了一種解釋。她說："奧巴馬的投票紀錄表明，他是參議院中自由派傾向最明顯的參議員之一，但他總是對共和黨人具有吸引力，這也許是因為他能用保守派的語言來闡述自由派的目標。

The New Yorker』s Larissa MacFarquhar offered one theory on Obama』s noticeable appeal across traditional political lines. 「Obama』s voting record is one of the most liberal in the Senate,」 she observed, 「but he has always appealed to Republicans, perhaps because he speaks about liberal goals in conservative language.」 她寫道："就他的歷史觀來說，就他對傳統的尊重來說，就他認為世界只可能發生極為緩慢的變化的觀點來說，奧巴馬是非常保守的。"

「In his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly,」 she wrote, 「Obama is deeply conservative.」 奧巴馬總統開啟了美國政治的新篇章。他是在很多美國人認為需要根本改變國家方向之際加入競選的。《華盛頓郵報》政治專欄作家迪翁(E.J. Dionne)或許對奧巴馬成為總統候選人和美國當今思潮的巧合作出了最為恰如其分的總結。他寫道：

President Obama has broken new ground in U.S. politics. His candidacy came at precisely the time when many Americans believed their country needed a fundamental transformation in its direction. Washington Post political columnist E.J. Dionne may have summed up perfectly the serendipitous confluence between Obama』s candidacy and the American zeitgeist when he wrote: "今天，最重要的是變革，而不是經驗。在競選演講中，最有效的是氣勢磅礴，而不是把握細節。最有價值的承諾是要與過去徹底決裂，而不是僅僅重返過去的美好時光。"

Change, not experience, was the order of the day. Sweep, not a mastery of detail, was the virtue most valued in campaign oratory. A clean break with the past, not merely a return to better days, was the promise most prized.

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