Barack Obama: A lifetime surrounded by strong women

The Obama campaign is counting on an edge among female voters to help at the polls in November. Many commentators have questioned why challenger Mitt Romney has struggled to connect to that voting bloc, with some Democrats accusing the GOP of a “war on women.” But there are also the questions of why Obama appeals to female voters and who influences him. We search for clues in some of the women in Obama’s life.

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Barack Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was among the most influential figures in his early life. Biographer and Post editor David Maraniss writes that Barack has his mother's will and much of her outlook. Maraniss describes her as a searcher and an idealist and says that if she came across as naive to her children, it was because she was protective of them.

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Obama's mother spent most of her adult life in Indonesia while Barack was raised by his grandparents in Hawaii. In "Dreams From My Father," Obama describes his maternal grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, as "a trailblazer of sorts, the first woman vice-president of a local bank." Maraniss suggests that Barack has some of his grandmother's demeanor.

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Barack lived with his half-sister Maya (pictured here with their mother) for periods of time in Indonesia and Hawaii. Last year, when Maya came to Washington to promote her children's book, "Ladder to the Moon," The Post's Reliable Source wrote: "No denying whose half-sister she is: Maya Soetoro-Ng has the same earnest-calm manner, the same lofty rhetoric punctured by flashes of dry humor."

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Barack didn't meet his half-sister Auma until he was already an adult. But he wonders in "Dreams From My Father" how much impact she had on his life: "Maybe by this time I was already committed to organizing.... I don't know. What's certain is that a few months after Auma's phone call I turned in my resignation at the consulting firm and began looking in earnest for an organizing job." Auma Obama worked for CARE for five years and now runs her own humanitarian foundation. She recently told Time magazine that shared compassion is part of why she and Barack get along so well.

Michael Probst / AP

Genevieve Cook engaged Barack "in the deepest romantic relationship of his young life," Maraniss writes in his upcoming biography, "Barack Obama: The Story." "In Barack Obama she had found a kindred soul, dislocated, caught in between," Maraniss writes. But Cook wondered in her diary whether she was Barack's ideal: "I can't help thinking that what he would really want, be powerfully drawn to, was a woman, very strong, very upright, a fighter, a laugher, well - experienced -- a black woman I keep seeing her as."

Family Photo

Barack met Michelle Robinson when he was a summer associate and she an associate at Sidley Austin in Chicago. They married three years later. Biographer and New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor credits Michelle as a moral compass for the White House. "This was Michelle's most profound influence on the Obama presidency," Kantor writes, "the sense of purpose she shared with her husband, the force of her worldview, her passionate beliefs about access, opportunity, and fairness; her readiness to do what was unpopular and pay political costs."

Richard A. Lipski / The Washington Post

"One could make the argument that [Penny] Pritzker was the most important person in Barack Obama's presidential bid -- except, perhaps, for Obama himself," claims The Post. A Chicago businesswoman and an heiress of Hyatt Hotels, Pritzker met the Obamas when her kids played in a basketball clinic run by Michelle Obama's brother. Pritzker served as national finance chairman for the Obama campaign in 2008 and was mentioned as a candidate for Commerce Secretary. "She's a no-nonsense, no-drama, no-ego person,'' Barack Obama told Bloomberg. "She and I share certain core values about how to run organizations.''

Haraz N. Ghanbari / AP

How welcoming has the Obama White House been to women? Ron Suskind cast some doubt in his book "Confidence Men." The book quotes former communications director Anita Dunn (center) as saying, "This place would be in court for a hostile workplace.... Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women." Dunn later disavowed the quote and said, "The president is someone who when he goes home at night he goes home to house full of very strong women.... He values having strong women around him."

Pete Souza / AP

Certainly there are a number of women in Obama's inner circle. Most central is longtime confidante Valerie Jarrett, who serves as a senior White House adviser. The Post's Dana Milbank wrote that: "Jarrett fills an important role for Obama: She has deep and personal ties to the president, as well as undivided loyalties, and can talk honestly to him on a first-name basis." But Milbank noted that some White House officials "raised questions about Jarrett's effectiveness and judgment."

Pete Souza / The White House

Susan Sher is another Chicago friend who came to Washington with the Obamas as a senior aide. Sher served as associate counsel to the president and then chief of staff for the first lady before returning to the University of Chicago Medical Center last year.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Desiree Rogers, a third Chicago friend, came to Washington as social secretary and was charged with implementing the Obamas' vision of making the White House into the People's House. Rogers resigned in 2010 after taking the fall for Tareq and Michaele Salahi sneaking into a state dinner.

Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images

Obama's initial Cabinet appointments included seven women: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Susan Rice, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer.

Jim Watson / The White House

When it comes to more informal influences, President Obama has often cited his daughters, Sasha and Malia. "It wouldn't dawn on them that somehow their friends' parents would be treated differently," Obama said this week when explaining his thinking on gay marriage. "It doesn't make sense to them and frankly, that's the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective."

Jim Watson / AFP/Getty Images

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