Edwards finished a distant third in the state where he was born and dropped out of the race on January Other contenders for the nomination, including Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, and Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, had already dropped out because of their poor showings in the initial round of primaries and caucuses.
From February through early June, Obama and Clinton battled fiercely through the remaining primaries and caucuses. But Obama had three crucial advantages that enabled him to eke out a narrow victory for the Democratic nomination. Second, although there was little difference between Clinton and Obama on the issues, Obama ran on a theme of change and Clinton on a theme of experience.
In a year when the economy was steadily deteriorating, change was the more appealing theme, especially among Democratic voters. Third, while fighting Clinton in the thirty-nine primaries, Obama did not overlook the seventeen states and territories that, like Iowa, choose their national convention delegates through caucuses.
He strongly out-organized Clinton in those contests, winning fourteen of seventeen caucuses. The delegates Obama won in the caucuses put him over the top. Clinton withdrew from the nominating contest on June 7, As hard-fought as his victory was, Obama faced only one serious crisis during the entire nomination campaign.
But he faced continuing difficulties winning white working class votes against Clinton in the primaries, and some doubted that he could win their support in the general election against the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona. Partly to expand his appeal to working-class whites, and partly to offset his own modest foreign policy credentials, Obama named Senator Joe Biden of Delaware as his vice presidential running mate on August 22, two days before the opening of the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.
Biden had grown up in blue-collar Scranton, Pennsylvania, and during his thirty-six years as a senator from Delaware, had risen up the seniority ladder to become chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. In his acceptance speech on the last night of the convention, Obama outlined the issues of his general election campaign.
Obama left Denver on August 29 enjoying a small lead over McCain in the polls. Palin of Alaska as his running mate. Palin balanced the Republican ticket in some obvious ways: young rather than old Palin was forty-four, McCain was seventy-two , a woman rather than a man, a governor rather than a senator, and a social conservative rather than a national security conservative. Her rousing acceptance speech at the convention helped to propel the Republican ticket into a small lead over Obama and Biden in early September.
McCain maintained his narrow advantage in the polls until mid-September, when the nation's financial sector, heavily invested in risky mortgage-backed securities, went into a sudden tailspin.
In the three nationally televised debates between the presidential candidates that took place from September 26 to October 15, Obama's calm, confident, and competent demeanor impressed voters who were looking for both reassurance that all would be well and a change in the nation's direction. By eschewing federal campaign funds, Obama was also able to outspend McCain substantially on media advertising and grassroots organizing. In addition, Biden impressed most voters as a much more qualified choice for vice president than Palin, whose unfamiliarity with national and international issues was revealed in a series of television interviews.
And, much to his credit, McCain refused to revive concerns about Obama's long association with Reverend Wright for fear of inflaming racial tensions. Obama was elected handily on November 4, He defeated McCain by 53 percent to 46 percent in the national popular vote.
Exit polls revealed that the two candidates broke even among voters who had participated in the election. But Obama built his majority among first-time voters who surged to the polls in , many of them young or African American. In the Electoral College, Obama prevailed by a margin of to Election night inspired gracious oratory by both candidates.
We both realize that we have come a long way from the injustices that once stained our nation's reputation.
Politically, the strategy bore fruit in the midterm elections. And it says: 'Continued on the next bumper sticker. Looking at the stubbornly high unemployment rate Obama inherited on taking office, many voters refused to accept the president's argument that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act had kept joblessness from rising even higher.
The new grassroots conservative Tea Party movement fueled a surge in turnout among Republican voters in even as participation among Obama's core constituencies in —young and African American voters—declined. If we don't stop these kinds of efforts now, what we are going to see is more and more contested elections We are going to see a further de-legitimizing of our democracy," he said, as well as "a breakdown of the basic agreement that has held this magnificent democratic experiment together all these years.
Republican governors of Georgia, Arizona, Florida and Iowa have signed new voting restrictions into law this year, and state legislatures in Pennsylvania and Texas are trying to advance similar measures.
These states will be battlegrounds in the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. The U. Obama, who was born in in Hawaii to a white woman from Kansas and a Black man from Kenya, graduated from Harvard Law School and was a law professor at the University of Chicago before launching his political career in , when he was elected to the Illinois State Senate.
He was re-elected to that post in and In March , he shot to national prominence by winning the U. That November, Obama was elected to the U. Senate in a landslide. On February 10, , in Springfield, Illinois, Obama officially announced his candidacy for president. A victory in the Iowa caucuses in January made him a viable challenger to the early frontrunner, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York , whom he outlasted in a grueling primary campaign to claim the Democratic nomination in early June His team also worked to bring new voters—many of them young or Black, both demographics they believed favored Obama—to become involved in the election.
Additionally, the campaign was notable for its unprecedented use of the Internet for organizing constituents and fundraising. Of those 6. In terms of campaign issues, Obama pledged to get the United States out of the war in Iraq and expand health care, among other promises.
On November 4, more than Obama was the first sitting U. Kennedy in Obama captured some traditional Republican strongholds Virginia , Indiana and key battleground states Florida , Ohio that had been won by Republicans in recent elections. Obama was inaugurated on January 20,
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