Politics

Presidential Election: Presidential Candidates 2008 - Election Coverage

Democratic Presidential Candidates Ranking

Written by Gaurav Bhola, MSM, Managing Editor & Community Manager on August 27, 2007 10:48 pm EST

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The presidential election of 2008 has a gamut of newbies and known faces as presidential candidates. I see the current landscape littered with so much misinformation that I thought it my duty to distill the issues from non-issues and information from misinformation.

I hope to present to you a breakdown of the presidential candidates, their positions for the 2008 presidential election, and any other topic I believe to be important. So, while I write about other topics of interest for Gimmie the Scoop; I will do my very best to present election coverage till the end of the 2008 presidential election.

The goal of my posts will be to filter the soundbytes and present to you a viable alternative to the popular media; unlike, what you may see on CNN or FOX and read about in newspapers or weekly dallies like Time or Newsweek. Today, I present to you general bio’s of the 2008 Democratic presidential candidates. I have ranked them according to viability in getting their party’s nomination. Of course, these rankings are not static, they may change as more information becomes available during the primaries.

1. Hillary Clinton

Born: October 26, 1947

Hillary Clinton is a former First Lady, married to Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States. They have a famous daughter in Chelsea. Currently, she is the junior Democratic Senator from New York.

She is a native of Illinois. Clinton began her career as an attorney in the 1970s after graduating from Yale Law School. She married Bill Clinton in 1975 and later became First Lady of Arkansas as wife of then, Governor Bill Clinton. Hillary was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000.

2. Barack Obama

Born: August 4, 1961

Barack Obama is the junior United States Senator from Illinois, elected in 2004. He is the only African American serving as Senator in the U.S. Congress. He was born to a Kenyan father and a white American mother in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School.

His political service started with his election to the Illinois State Senate in 1996 where he served as State Senator from 1997 to 2004. He launched his bid for U.S Senate in 2003 and won the seat by a landslide vote of 70%. He married Michelle Obama in 1992 and has two daughters.

3. John Edwards

Born: June 10, 1953

John Edwards is the former one time Senator from North Carolina. He was born in Seneca, North Carolina. He was the first person in his family to attend college. Edwards graduated from North Carolina State University with a degree in textile technology in 1974 and later with a law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). At UNC, he met his present wife Elizabeth Edwards. They married in 1977 and had four children.

Unfortunately, in 1996 their son Wade, age 16, was killed in an auto accident when heavy winds forced his Jeep off a North Carolina highway. In 1998, Edwards defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in North Carolina’ Senate election. He launched a bid for the 2004 presidential election but eventually became the vice-presidential candidate on John Kerry’ presidential campaign. However, Kerry lost to Republican nominee George W. Bush and Edwards returned to private life.

4. Bill Richardson

Born: November 15, 1947

Bill Richardson is the current Governor of New Mexico. He has previously served as a Congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives, Ambassador to the United Nations, and as U.S. Secretary of Energy in the Clinton administration. He was born in Pasadena, California to immigrant parents, his mother being of Mexican descent. He received his master’s degree from Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

He ran a second time for Congress and won in 1982 from New Mexico’s third district. He married his high school sweetheart in 1972, Barbara Flavin. He has strong international diplomacy credentials.

5. Joe Biden

Born: November 20, 1942

Joe Biden is the senior Senator from Delaware. He was born in Scanton, Pennsylvania. He married his second wife Jill Tracy Jacobs in 1977 with whom he has a daughter. His first wife Neilia Hunter died in a car accident along with their infant daughter. He has two sons from his first marriage.

He is serving his sixth term as Senator and is Delaware’s longest-serving Senator. Biden received his law degree from Syracuse University College of Law, in 1968. Currently, he is the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

6. Christopher Dodd

Born: May 27, 1944

Christopher Dodd is a senior Senator from Connecticut. He has also served as congressman from 1975 to 1981 and is the current Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

Dodd was born in Willimantic, Connecticut. He graduated from Providence College in 1966 with a degree in English Literature and in 1972 received his Juris Doctor from the University of Louisville. He married in 1999, his second wife Jackie Marie Clegg with whom he has two children.

7. Dennis Kucinich

Born: October 8, 1946

Dennis Kucinich is a Congressman, representing the 10th District of Ohio. He is currently chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Kucinich was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from Case Western Reserve University with master’s degree in speech and communication.

In 2005, he got married to his third wife Elizabeth Harper, thirty-one years his junior. He had a short stint as Mayor of Cleveland between 1977 and 1979. He pursued many different local, state, and federal political positions until striking success in 1996 with his election to the U.S. House of Representatives.

8. Mike Gravel

Born: May 13, 1930

Mike Gravel is a former Senator from Alaska, having served two terms from 1969 to 1981. He graduated from Columbia University with a B.S. in economics. He married his second wife Whitney Stewart Gravel in 1984.

Gravel has two children from his first marriage in 1959 to Rita Jeannette Martin. He is the only candidate running in the 2008 presidential race with a “zero net worth.”

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