The Whoppers of 2008—The Sequel

Obama's campaign raised $58 million during the first half of 2007, of which "small" donations of less than $200 accounted for $16.4 million. The $58 million set the record for fundraising by a presidential campaign in the first six months of the calendar year before the election.[88] The magnitude of the small donation portion was outstanding from both the absolute and relative perspectives.[89] In January 2008, his campaign set another fundraising record with $36.8 million, the most ever raised in one month by a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries.[90]

Among the January 2008 DNC-sanctioned state contests, Obama tied with Hillary Clinton for delegates in the New Hampshire primary and won more delegates than Clinton in the Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina elections and caucuses. On Super Tuesday, he emerged with 20 more delegates than Clinton.[91] He again broke fundraising records in the first two months of 2008, raising over $90 million for his primary to Clinton's $45 million.[92] After Super Tuesday, Obama won the eleven remaining February primaries and caucuses.[93] Obama and Clinton split delegates and states nearly equally in the March 4 contests of Vermont, Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island; Obama closed the month by winning Wyoming and Mississippi.[94]

In March 2008, a controversy broke out concerning Obama's former pastor of twenty years, Jeremiah Wright,[95] after ABC News broadcast clips of his racially and politically charged sermons.[95][96] Initially, Obama responded by defending Wright's wider role in Chicago's African American community,[97] but condemned his remarks and ended Wright's relationship with the campaign.[98] Obama delivered a speech, during the controversy, entitled "A More Perfect Union"[99] that addressed issues of race. Obama subsequently resigned from Trinity United Church of Christ "to avoid the impression that he endorsed the entire range of opinions expressed at that church."[100][101][102]

On February 10, 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States in front of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois.[84][85] The choice of the announcement site was symbolic because it was also where Abraham Lincoln delivered his historic "House Divided" speech in 1858.[86] Throughout the campaign, Obama has emphasized the issues of rapidly ending the Iraq War, increasing energy independence, and providing universal health care, at one point identifying these as his top three priorities.[87]

Later in 2007, Obama sponsored an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act adding safeguards for personality disorder military discharges.[72] This amendment passed the full Senate in the spring of 2008.[73] He sponsored the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act supporting divestment of state pension funds from Iran's oil and gas industry, which has not passed committee, and co-sponsored legislation to reduce risks of nuclear terrorism.[74][75] Obama also sponsored a Senate amendment to the State Children's Health Insurance Program providing one year of job protection for family members caring for soldiers with combat-related injuries.[76]


Committees
Obama held assignments on the Senate Committees for Foreign Relations, Environment and Public Works and Veterans' Affairs through December 2006.[77] In January 2007, he left the Environment and Public Works committee and took additional assignments with Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.[78] He also became Chairman of the Senate's subcommittee on European Affairs.[79] As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. He met with Mahmoud Abbas before he became President of Palestine, and gave a speech at the University of Nairobi condemning corruption in the Kenyan government.[80][81][82][83]

Obama voted in favor of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and cosponsored the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act.[61] In September 2006, Obama supported a related bill, the Secure Fence Act.[62] Obama introduced two initiatives bearing his name: Lugar???Obama, which expanded the Nunn???Lugar cooperative threat reduction concept to conventional weapons,[63] and the Coburn???Obama Transparency Act, which authorized the establishment of USAspending.gov, a web search engine on federal spending.[64] On June 3, 2008, Senator Obama, along with Senators Thomas R. Carper, Tom Coburn, and John McCain, introduced follow-up legislation: Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008.[65]

Obama sponsored legislation which would have required nuclear plant owners to notify state and local authorities of radioactive leaks, but failed to pass in the full Senate after being heavily modified in committee.[66] In December 2006, President Bush signed into law the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act, marking the first federal legislation to be enacted with Obama as its primary sponsor.[67] In January 2007, Obama and Senator Feingold introduced a corporate jet provision to the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, which was signed into law in September 2007.[68] Obama also introduced Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act, a bill to criminalize deceptive practices in federal elections[69] and the Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007,[70] neither of which have been signed into law.

In mid-2002, Obama began considering a run for the U.S. Senate; he enlisted political strategist David Axelrod that fall and formally announced his candidacy in January 2003.[43] Decisions by Republican incumbent Peter Fitzgerald and his Democratic predecessor Carol Moseley Braun not to contest the race launched wide-open Democratic and Republican primary contests involving fifteen candidates.[44] Obama's candidacy was boosted by Axelrod's advertising campaign featuring images of the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington and an endorsement by the daughter of the late Paul Simon, former U.S. Senator for Illinois.[45] He received over 52% of the vote in the March 2004 primary, emerging 29% ahead of his nearest Democratic rival.[46]

Obama's expected opponent in the general election, Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, withdrew from the race in June 2004.[47]

In July 2004, Obama wrote and delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts.[48] After describing his maternal grandfather's experiences as a World War II veteran and a beneficiary of the New Deal's FHA and G.I. Bill programs, Obama spoke about changing the U.S. government's economic and social priorities. He questioned the Bush administration's management of the Iraq War and highlighted America's obligations to its soldiers. Drawing examples from U.S. history, he criticized heavily partisan views of the electorate and asked Americans to find unity in diversity, saying, "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America."[49] Broadcasts of the speech by major news organizations launched Obama's status as a national political figure and boosted his campaign for U.S. Senate.[50]

In August 2004, two months after Ryan's withdrawal and less than three months before Election Day, Alan Keyes accepted the Illinois Republican Party's nomination to replace Ryan.[51] A long-time resident of Maryland, Keyes established legal residency in Illinois with the nomination.[52] In the November 2004 general election, Obama received 70% of the vote to Keyes's 27%, the largest victory margin for a statewide race in Illinois history.[53]

Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, succeeding State Senator Alice Palmer as Senator from Illinois' 13th District, which then spanned Chicago South Side neighborhoods from Hyde Park-Kenwood south to South Shore and west to Chicago Lawn.[32] Once elected, Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation reforming ethics and health care laws.[33] He sponsored a law increasing tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased subsidies for childcare.[34] In 2001, as co-chairman of the bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, Obama supported Republican Governor Ryan's payday loan regulations and predatory mortgage lending regulations aimed at averting home foreclosures.[35]

Obama was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, and again in 2002.[36] In 2000, he lost a Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of two to one.[37][38]

In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee when Democrats, after a decade in the minority, regained a majority.[39] He sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of legislation to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained and legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations.[34][40] During his 2004 general election campaign for U.S. Senate, police representatives credited Obama for his active engagement with police organizations in enacting death penalty reforms.[41] Obama resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the US Senate.[42]

Beginning in 1992, Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years, being first classified as a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and then as a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004.[28]

He also, in 1993, joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a twelve attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004, with his law license becoming inactive in 2002.[14][29][30]

Obama was a founding member of the board of directors of Public Allies in 1992, resigning before his wife, Michelle, became the founding executive director of Public Allies Chicago in early 1993.[14][31] He served from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund the Developing Communities Project, and also from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of The Joyce Foundation.[14] Obama served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995???2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995???1999.[14] He also served on the board of directors of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and the Lugenia Burns Hope Center.[14]

Obama directed Illinois' Project Vote from April to October 1992, a voter registration drive with a staff of ten and seven hundred volunteers; it achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African-Americans in the state, and led to Crain's Chicago Business naming Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers to be.[26][27]

The publicity from his election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review led to a publishing contract and advance for a book about race relations.[25] In an effort to recruit him to their faculty, the University of Chicago Law School provided Obama with a fellowship and an office to work on his book.[25] He originally planned to finish the book in one year, but it took much longer as the book evolved into a personal memoir. In order to work without interruptions, Obama and his wife, Michelle, traveled to Bali where he wrote for several months. The manuscript was finally published in mid-1995 as Dreams from My Father.[25]

After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago, where he was hired as director of Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale) on Chicago's far South Side, and worked there for three years from June 1985 to May 1988.[14][16] During his three years as the DCP's director, its staff grew from one to thirteen and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000, with accomplishments including helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.[17] Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.[18] In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time to Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of his Kenyan relatives for the first time.[19]

Obama entered Harvard Law School in late 1988. At the end of his first year, he was selected, based on his grades and a writing competition, as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.[20] In February 1990, in his second year, he was elected president of the Law Review, a full-time volunteer position functioning as editor-in-chief and supervising the Law Review's staff of eighty editors.[21] Obama's election as the first black president of the Law Review was widely reported and followed by several long, detailed profiles.[21] During his summers, he returned to Chicago where he worked as a summer associate at the law firms of Sidley & Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990.[22] After graduating with a Juris Doctor (J.D.) magna *** laude[23][24] from Harvard in 1991, he returned to Chicago.[20]

Barack Obama was born at the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children[2] in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black Kenyan from Nyang???oma Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya, and Ann Dunham, a white American from Wichita, Kansas.[3] His parents met while attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was a foreign student.[4] They separated when he was two years old and later divorced.[5] Obama's father returned to Kenya and saw his son only once more before dying in an automobile accident in 1982.[6]

After her divorce, Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, and the family moved to Soetoro's home country of Indonesia in 1967, where Obama attended local schools in Jakarta until he was ten years old. He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents while attending Punahou School from the fifth grade in 1971 until his graduation from high school in 1979.[7] Obama's mother returned to Hawaii in 1972 for several years and then back to Indonesia to complete fieldwork for her doctoral dissertation. She died of ovarian cancer in 1995.[8]

As an adult Obama admitted that during high school he used marijuana, cocaine, and alcohol, which he described at the 2008 Civil Forum on the Presidency as his greatest moral failure.[9][10]

Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years.[11] He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations.[12] Obama graduated with a B.A. from Columbia in 1983, then worked for a year at the Business International Corporation[13] and then at the New York Public Interest Research Group.[14][15]

Barack Hussein Obama II (pronounced /b????r????k h????se??n o????b????m??/; born August 4, 1961) is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2008 United States presidential election.

Obama is the first African American to be nominated by a major American political party for president.[1] A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review, Obama worked as a community organizer and practiced as a civil rights attorney before serving three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, he announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate in January 2003. After a primary victory in March 2004, Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He was elected to the Senate in November 2004 with 70 percent of the vote.

As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, he helped create legislation to control conventional weapons and to promote greater public accountability in the use of federal funds. He also made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. During the 110th Congress, he helped create legislation regarding lobbying and electoral fraud, climate change, nuclear terrorism, and care for returned U.S. military personnel. Obama announced his presidential campaign in February 2007, and was formally nominated at the 2008 Democratic National Convention with Delaware senator Joe Biden as his running mate.

On global warming, Palin said that "a changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made."[210] She later said that "man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue" and that "John McCain and I agree that we gotta do something about it."[211]

Regarding foreign policy, Palin supports the Bush Administration's policies in Iraq, but is concerned that "dependence on foreign energy" may be obstructing efforts to "have an exit plan in place".[212][213] Palin supports preemptive military action in the face of an imminent threat, and supports U.S. military operations in Pakistan. She declined to give a yes or no answer regarding whether U.S. military forces should make cross-border attacks into Pakistan without the approval of the Pakistani government.[214] She supports NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia,[214] and affirms that if Russia invaded a NATO member, the United States should meet its treaty obligations.[215]

Global warming? She oughta live in the southern states!

Palin has been a registered Republican since 1982, and has described the Republican Party platform as "the right agenda for America".[197] Palin is a social conservative. A lifetime member of the National Rifle Association (NRA), she believes the right to bear arms includes handgun possession, and is against a ban on semi-automatic assault weapons.[198] She has supported gun safety education for youth.[199] She supports capital punishment.[200] In a 2006 gubernatorial debate, responding to a question asking the candidates whether they would support teaching creationism in public schools, Palin stated that she supported teaching both creationism and evolution. Shortly after that debate, however, Palin said in an interview that she had only meant to say she supports allowing the discussion of creationism in public schools, but says it does not have to be part of the curriculum.[201] Palin opposes same-sex marriage and supported a non-binding referendum for an Alaskan constitutional amendment to deny state health benefits to same-sex couples; however, early in her gubernatorial term she vetoed such a bill, citing its current unconstitutionality.[120][202] Palin has called herself "as pro-life as any candidate can be"[202] and has called abortion an "atrocity."[203] Palin has stated that abortion should be banned in nearly all cases, including rape and incest, except if the life of the mother is endangered.[204][205] Palin has stated that she does not support embryonic stem cell research.[198] She supports sex education in public schools that encourages abstinence but also discusses birth control.[203][206]

Palin has promoted oil and natural gas resource exploration in Alaska, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.[85] She brought suit to overturn the listing of polar bears under the federal Endangered Species Act,[207] and also opposed strengthening protections for beluga whales in Alaska???s Cook Inlet.[208] The official Alaska press release stated that she had "asked [the National Marine Fisheries Service] to work with the state and other scientists to finalize and implement a conservation plan for the Cook Inlet stock of belugas."[209]

Palin describes herself as a hockey mom. The Palins have five children: sons Track (b. 1989)[186] and Trig (b. 2008), and daughters Bristol (b. 1990), Willow (b. 1995), and Piper (b. 2001).[187] Track enlisted in the U.S. Army on September 11, 2007,[188] and was subsequently assigned to an infantry brigade. He and his unit deployed to Iraq in September 2008, for 12 months.[189] On September 1, 2008, Palin announced that Bristol was five months pregnant and that she intends to keep the baby and marry Levi Johnston, the father of the child.[190] Palin's youngest child, Trig, was prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome.[191]

Palin was born into a Catholic family.[192] Later her family joined the Wasilla Assembly of God, a Pentecostal church.[193] Palin attended the Wasilla Assembly of God for 32 years until 2002. Palin says she switched to Wasilla Bible Church because she preferred the children's ministries there.[194] When in Juneau, she attends the Juneau Christian Center.[195] Her current home church is the Wasilla Bible Church, an independent congregation.[196] Palin described herself in an interview as a "Bible-believing Christian."[192] After the Republican National Convention, a spokesperson for the McCain campaign told CNN that Palin "doesn't consider herself Pentecostal" and has "deep religious convictions."[43]

In 1988, Palin eloped with her childhood sweetheart Todd Palin because, according to her mother, Palin believed that her parents "couldn't afford a big white wedding."[183] Todd Palin works for the London-based oil company BP as an oil-field production operator and owns a commercial fishing business.[80][23] The Palins have an estimated combined net worth of over $1 million.[184] In 2007, Todd and Sarah Palin reported an adjusted gross income of $166,080. They paid $24,738 in federal taxes, and $7,424 in other taxes. They gave $3,325 to charity. Their fishing business returned a net profit of $15,503, but they reported a loss of $9,639 on Todd's snowmachine racing activities.[185]

After McCain announced Palin as his running mate, Newsweek and Time put Palin on their magazine covers,[167] as some of the media alleged that McCain's campaign was restricting press access to Palin by allowing only three one-on-one interviews and no press conferences with her.[168] Among the news organizations that criticized the restrictions were Palin's first major interview, with Charles Gibson of ABC News, met with mixed reviews.[169] Her interview five days later with Fox News's Sean Hannity focuses on many of the same questions from Gibson's interview.[170] However, Palin's performance in her third interview, with Katie Couric of CBS News, was widely criticized, prompting a decline in her poll numbers, concern among Republicans that she was becoming a political liability, and calls from some conservative commentators for Palin to resign from the Presidential ticket.[170][171] Other conservatives remain ardent in their support for Palin, accusing the columnists of elitism.[172] Following this interview, some Republicans, including Mitt Romney and Bill Kristol, questioned the McCain campaign's strategy of sheltering Palin from unscripted encounters with the press.[173]

Palin was reported to have prepared intensively for the October 2 vice-presidential debate with Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden at Washington University in St. Louis. Some Republicans suggested that Palin's performance in the interviews would improve public perceptions of her debate performance by lowering expectations.[174][170][175] Polling from CNN, Fox and CBS found that while Palin exceeded most voters' expectations, they felt that Biden had won the debate.[176][177]

Upon returning to the campaign trail after her debate preparation, Palin stepped up her attacks on the Democratic candidate for President, Senator Barack Obama. At a fundraising event, Palin explained her new aggressiveness, saying, "There does come a time when you have to take the gloves off and that time is right now."[178] In a campaign appearance on October 4, Palin accused Obama of regarding America as "so imperfect that he???s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." The accusation referred to a New York Times article describing Obama's contacts with Bill Ayers, a founder of the 1960s radical group called the Weathermen.[179] The Obama campaign called the allegation a "smear",[180] citing newspaper commentaries critical of Palin's attack. Obama has condemned the Weathermen's violent actions.[181]

Palin appeared on the television show Saturday Night Live on October 18.[182] Prior to her appearance on the show, she had been parodied several times by Tina Fey.

McCain chose Palin, in part, due to her potential to rally Christian conservatives behind his campaign.[153]

During the campaign, controversy erupted over alleged differences between Palin's positions as a gubernatorial candidate and her position as a vice-presidential candidate. While campaigning for vice-president, Palin touted her stance on "the bridge to nowhere" as an example of her opposition to pork barrel spending.[161] In her nomination acceptance speech and on the campaign trail, Palin has often said, "I told the Congress 'thanks, but no thanks,' on that Bridge to Nowhere."[162] Although Palin was originally a main proponent of the Gravina Island Bridge, McCain-Palin television advertisements assert that Palin "stopped the Bridge to Nowhere."[163] These statements have been widely questioned or described as misleading or exaggerations[164] by many media groups in the U.S.[165] Newsweek remarked, "Now she talks as if she always opposed the funding."[166]