While criticizing Senator Ted Cruz, another high-profile first term Senator, the President had this to say about his brief  layover in the Senate.

When Obama got to the Senate, he said, “my attitude was I should just keep a pretty low profile in the Senate and just do the work.” While the media did seek him out, “I didn’t go around courting the media.”

A “low profile” is one way of characterizing his 46-month stint in the Senate from January 4, 2005 until November 16 2008.

He announced he was running for President on May 2, 2007, roughly two years after beginning his term, announcing:

“I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness in this — a certain audacity — to this announcement,” Obama said. “I know that I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington, but I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.