He is a fourty-something African-American lawyer who started his career as a community organizer in the Midwest and went on to win the Democratic party nomination after bruising primaries.
And he won the elections.
Oh, and he is a Muslim.
Keith Ellison talks confidently and enthusiastically about policy proposals during his first term in Congress ("I feel like I've been effective"), his opposition to the war in Iraq and foreign trips he was invited to by the administration - not least because he is the first Muslim in the US House of Representatives.
But the talk constantly drifts to the subject of who he is, rather than what he does.
"It took me a month to understand what's the big deal" about being Muslim, he says about his primary campaign that eventually resulted in a victory in a district where Muslims make up only three per cent of the voters. The race energized thousands of new voters and Jewish organizations endorsed him rather than a Jewish competitor.
Ellison, who converted to Islam when he was 18, claims that voters are more interested in policy proposals of the candidates rather than their religion.
But the legislator who took the oath on a Koran skirts the issue of whether a Muslim can be elected president in the foreseeable future, and is vague about what advice he could offer Barack Obama to dispel the internet claims he is a Muslim. He also admits fears among conservatives that he opened Congress doors to more Muslims.
Religion still seems to be an elephant in the room.
But in the small office of Ellison, it is easy to spot a bigger elephant.
While there are few visible sign of his religion, numerous pictures of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks tell you what might be really important. "America got race wrong from the very beginning," says Ellison.
The first African-American member of Congress from Minnesota claims he does not dream of homogeneity, and implies that it is neither possible nor desirable: "We don't seek to create a color-blind society".
This is a brave admission that the real tolerance - of the kind where people no longer notice race (or religion for that matter) rather than claim that they tolerate 'the others' - is a long way off.
It is also a brave admission from someone who was elected in an overwhelmingly white district, likes to talk about policies instead of his exclusiveness, but still decorates his office with the civil rights iconography, that race is a political issue.
Thus, in the end, Keith Ellison might have some advice to Barack Obama.
He said that is not a big deal. He is the first Muslim elected as a Congressman in United States and he admitted that he is new in “the game of politics”. Keith Ellison has been a Muslim for 28 years and a politician for only 8 years. He ran and won in a “white state”. But for him is not a big deal.
Maybe for that reason he assured that he is fed up with the “Muslim topic”. What is more, when he won in 2006 he almost memorized some phrases for monotonous interviews. Despite the fact of being bored with the same questions, he also knew that the controversy around him is a perfect business card. “I was in the Democratic Republican of Congo talking with a general and he asked me if I was the man who took the oath on the Koran”, Keith Ellison said.
His office is full of photographs and memorabilia is impossible not to see each detail. Not only had space for icons as Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks but for more weird pictures. For example, one with president George W. Bush with the message “To Keith Ellison, with best wishes”.