http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46773.html Obama library fight pits Chicago vs. Honolulu Obama library fight pits Windy City vs. Aloha State By: Carol E. Lee December 24, 2010 06:06 AM EST HONOLULU â As President Barack Obama prepares to battle with Republicans for a second term, another fight is already brewing: where to enshrine his legacy once he leaves office. The effort to play host city to Obamaâs presidential library is being complicated by the peripatetic life he has had. His diverse background â a fixture of his political brand â is now fueling a debate at a time when the White House would like to focus on anything but where to store the Obama archives. The University of Hawaii, which Obamaâs parents and sister attended on the island where he was born, claims the president as a native son and is actively pursuing his presidential library. Officials there have formed four working groups to study the matter, including a site-selection committee and a museum and archives committee. There are plans to make a pitch for a library set in Oahuâs signature lush mountains or on a spot with sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean. Officials are expected to settle on a location over the next few months as they look to a target opening date of 2019 or 2020 â presuming the president wins that second term and chooses Hawaii. The Hawaii Legislature passed a resolution asking Obama to choose his birth state for his presidential library. There is an âObama Presidential Library in Hawaiiâ Facebook page, which is not to be confused with the âBarack Obama Presidential Library and Museum Proposalâ at obamaohana.org. The website, dedicated to Hawaiiâs efforts to win the library, resembles Obamaâs presidential campaign design and logo. âWe have mostly a two-term strategy,â said Robert Perkinson, an American studies professor at the University of Hawaii who is leading the effort. âItâs like bidding for the Olympics, except there are no rules and no formal criteria.â But while Perkinson is busily working on the University of Hawaiiâs pitch, the University of Chicago â the city where Obama turned to politics and launched his first campaigns for office â isnât ceding an inch of presidential ground. The University of Chicago is playing like the cool frontrunner. Itâs a luxurious vantage point given the president and first ladyâs ties to institution; he lectured on constitutional law, and first lady Michelle Obama, who was born and raised on the South Side, was a top executive there for years. Many of the first coupleâs closest friends still live there, and Obamaâs top White House advisers have connections to the city as well as the institution. âIdentifying his home state â the one thatâs most his home â is a little bit more complicated than other presidents,â said Benjamin Hufbauer, a University of Louisville professor who wrote âPresidential Temples: How Memorials and Libraries Shape Public Memory.â Obama also has a personal connection to Columbia University, where he was an undergraduate student, and Harvard University, where he attended law school and edited the Harvard Law Review. So far, however, those institutions have stayed out of the fray. âWe would of course be proud to host the presidential library of our distinguished Columbia alumnus, but this is clearly a matter for President Obama and his team to determine in their own way in their own time,â said Columbia University spokesman Robert Hornsby.
I say it should be in Hawaii since he was born there. Harvard and Columbia where he went to school would be good to. Having his name enshrined at such prestigious universities is certainly a plus for those locations.
Well in that case the State dept should get right on that grant to Kenya for his prezidential library.
Actually, I don't really care where the communist SOB was born it's irrelevant now. I suspect the truth will worm it's way out in 50 yrs under the FOIA.