Obama Quits Senate, Thanks Ill. for Showing Him the Way

Will meet with McCain today in Chicago
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 16, 2008 8:00 PM CST
Obama Quits Senate, Thanks Ill. for Showing Him the Way
A Jan. 31, 2007 file photo shows then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., right, huddling with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., left, on Capitol Hill in Washington.    (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Barack Obama’s presidential transition moved forward this weekend as he officially stepped down as senator, the Washington Post reports, ahead of a lame-duck session on a new stimulus package for the economy this week. In a letter in Illinois newspapers announcing his senate resignation, he thanked his constituents and said he was “ending one journey to begin another.”

In the letter, Obama credits his political education to Illinios. "It was in Springfield, in the heartland of America, where I saw all that is America converge—farmers and teachers, businessmen and laborers, all of them with a story to tell, all of them seeking a seat at the table, all of them clamoring to be heard."
(More President Obama stories.)

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