[afrocentric]

1---he opposed the war....He did nothing to effectively oppose it until declaring he was running for President.

2---he started the legislation that would, by force of law, begin a redeployment by May 1, 2007 and have all combat forces out of Iraq by March 31, 2008.......He brags about not voting for the resolution but at the time he was not in the US senate.

3---he took that position in the face of polls showing the "no" vote to be the unpopular one, and in the face of the Democratic party per Terry McAulliffe urging Dems to take Iraq off the table in 2002 and do whatever Bush wanted, because he believed that the Dems could win on domestic issues.
Obama, when he ran for Senate in the Democratic primary in Illinois (the campaign was long, running all of 2003 and the first 3 months of 2004), did a real service to the anti-war cause by putting pressure on the other candidates to take a clear position on Iraq.

4---Obama on the other hand is a Constitutional Scholar. And the highpoint of his announcement speech was his declaration that he will destroy the machinery that runs Washington, and return America to a more Constitutional system. He made clear that his primary goal as President would be to return government to an “Informed and Motivated Electorate”.

5---the Republicans lacked a serious candidate and Obama only needed Democratic votes; in truth, the Republican party in Illinois imploded only AFTER Obama won the Dem primary, when its golden boy Ryan, who had been given a very good chance of winning, suddenly had to drop out because of late-breaking allegations of sexual misconduct