Meet the 2008 Candidates

John McCain

John McCain’s nomination as the 2008 Republican presidential candidate caps a 50-year career in public service.

After graduating from the Naval Academy in 1958, he became an aviator. He served in Vietnam, where he was held as a prisoner of war for more than five years, and received the Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, and Purple Heart. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, where he served two terms, and has been a member of the U.S. Senate since 1986.

In the Senate, McCain is known for his efforts to reform campaign finance laws and for his leadership in working to restore U.S. diplomatic relations with Vietnam in the 1990s. An early and outspoken advocate of the 2007 U.S. troop surge in Iraq, he has argued for maintaining a U.S. military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan until those nations achieve stability.

McCain was born August 29, 1936, in the Panama Canal Zone and is the son and grandson of U.S. Navy admirals. If elected, he would be the oldest president inaugurated for a first term. McCain and his wife Cindy have seven children, including a son who recently returned from serving in Iraq.

John McCain's Official Web site
John McCain's YouTube Channel

Barack Obama

Barack Obama is a first-term senator from Illinois and the first African-American presidential candidate to win the nomination of a major U.S. political party.

The biracial son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from the American heartland, Obama rose to national prominence with his keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, the same year he was elected to the Senate. Four years later, he captured his party’s nomination for the White House.

In the Senate and during his presidential campaign, Obama has advocated a steady timetable for withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq, for increasing U.S. military and development assistance to Afghanistan, and for stronger nuclear nonproliferation efforts.
Previously, Obama worked as a community organizer in Chicago and as a civil rights attorney. He served for eight years in the Illinois State Senate.

Obama was born August 4, 1961, in Hawaii. He grew up in Hawaii and lived for several years in Indonesia. Obama attended Columbia University in New York and earned a law degree at Harvard University in Massachusetts. Obama and his wife Michelle have two young daughters.


Barack Obama's Official Web site
Barack Obama’s YouTube Channel

Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin is the governor of Alaska and if elected would become be the first female vice president of the United States. Her election in 2006 made her the youngest person and the first woman to serve as Alaska’s governor.

As governor, Palin chairs the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, a multi-state agency that promotes the conservation and efficient recovery of domestic energy resources while protecting health, safety and the environment. She also chairs the National Governors Association Natural Resources Committee, which works to ensure that state needs are considered in the formulation of federal policy on agriculture, energy, environmental protection. As the mother of a child with Down syndrome, Palin has pledged to be the White House advocate for families with special-needs children.

Palin was born February 11, 1964, in Sandpoint, Idaho and earned a degree in communications and journalism from the University of Idaho. Palin and her husband Todd, who is an oil-production operator, have five children.

Joe Biden

Joe Biden, the senior U.S. Senator from Delaware, is both the Democratic vice presidential nominee and a candidate for re-election in the U.S. Senate. If elected, Biden will be the first Roman Catholic vice president.

He was first elected Senator in 1972 at the age of 29 and is serving his sixth term in the Senate. Biden is a long-time member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he currently chairs, and was an outspoken advocate for U.S. military assistance and intervention during the Bosnian War. He is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he chaired from 1987 to 1995, and led the effort to create the Violence Against Women Act.

Biden was born November 20, 1942, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He attended the University of Delaware and Syracuse Law School in New York. Biden and his wife Jill, a professor, have three children and five grandchildren.