US Presidential Election: Profiles of leading candidates

John McCain

Pradeep Gunawardhena

John Sidney McCain III was born in August 29, 1936. at Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone, Panama, to naval officer John S. McCain, Jr. and Roberta (Wright) McCain. He is the senior United States Senator from Arizona and presidential nominee of the Republican Party in the 2008 presidential election.

McCain graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958. He became a naval aviator, flying ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he nearly lost his life in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. In October 1967, while on a bombing mission over Hanoi, he was shot down, badly injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese. He was a prisoner of war until 1973, experiencing episodes of torture and refusing an out-of-sequence early repatriation offer; his war wounds left him with lifelong physical limitations.

He retired from the Navy as a captain in 1981, moved to Arizona, and entered politics. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, he served two terms, and was then elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, winning re-election easily in 1992, 1998, and 2004.

McCain has chaired the Senate Commerce Committee, has opposed spending that he considered to be pork barrel, and played a key role in alleviating a crisis over judicial nominations.

McCain lost his bid for the Republican nomination in the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush. He ran again for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, and gained enough delegates to become the party’s presumptive nominee in March 2008. McCain was formally nominated at the 2008 Republican National Convention in September 2008, together with his chosen running mate from Alaska, Governor Sarah Palin In 1951, the family settled in Northern Virginia, and McCain attended Episcopal High School, a private preparatory boarding school in Alexandria.

He excelled at wrestling and graduated in 1954.

Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, McCain entered the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. There, he was a friend and informal leader for many of his classmates. He also became a lightweight boxer. McCain graduated in 1958.

McCain began as a sub-par flier. His aviation skills improved over time, and he was seen as a good pilot.

On July 3, 1965, McCain married Carol Shepp, a model originally from Philadelphia. McCain adopted her two young children Douglas and Andrew. He and Carol then had a daughter named Sidney.

By then a lieutenant commander, McCain was almost killed on July 29, 1967, when he was near the center of the Forrestal fire. He escaped from his burning jet and was trying to help another pilot escape when a bomb exploded.

McCain was struck in the legs and chest by fragments. The ensuing fire killed 134 sailors and took 24 hours to control. With the Forrestal out of commission, McCain volunteered for assignment with the USS Oriskany, another aircraft carrier employed in Operation Rolling Thunder. Once there, he would be awarded the Navy Commendation Medal and the Bronze Star for missions flown over North Vietnam.

John McCain’s capture and subsequent imprisonment began on October 26, 1967. He was flying his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam, when his A-4E Skyhawk was shot down by a missile over Hanoi.

McCain fractured both arms and a leg, and nearly drowned when he parachuted into Truc Bach Lake. Some North Vietnamese pulled him ashore, then others crushed his shoulder with a rifle butt and bayoneted him. McCain was then transported to Hanoi’s main Hoa Lo Prison, nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton Although McCain was badly wounded, his captors refused to treat his injuries, beating and interrogating him to get information; he was given medical care only when the North Vietnamese discovered that his father was a top admiral.

His status as a prisoner of war (POW) made the front pages of major newspapers. McCain was sent to a different camp on the outskirts of Hanoi in December 1967, into a cell with two other Americans who did not expect him to live a week. In March 1968, McCain was put into solitary confinement, where he would remain for two years.

In mid-1968, John S. McCain, Jr. was named commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theatre, and the North Vietnamese offered McCain early release.

McCain turned down the offer; he would only accept repatriation if every man taken in before him was released as well.

Altogether, McCain was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years. He was released on March 14, 1973. His wartime injuries left McCain permanently incapable of raising his arms above his head.

Having been rehabilitated, by late 1974, McCain had his flight status reinstated, and in 1976 he became commanding officer of a training squadron stationed in Florida. He improved the unit’s flight readiness and safety records, and won the squadron its first-ever Meritorious Unit Commendation.

In April 1979, McCain met Cindy Lou Hensley, a teacher from Phoenix, Arizona, whose father had founded a large beer distributorship. After been divorced from the first marriage McCain and Hensley were married on May 17, 1980. McCain retired from the Navy on April 1, 1981 as a captain. He was designated as disabled and awarded a disability pension. Upon leaving the military, he moved to Arizona.

In 1984 McCain and his wife Cindy had their first child together, daughter Meghan. She was followed two years later by son John Sidney McCain IV (known as “Jack”), and in 1988 by son James (“Jimmy”).Their fourth child, Bridget, was adopted in 1991.

Barack Obama

Barack Obama is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the forthcoming United States presidential election.

Obama is the first African American to be nominated by a major political party for president.

Barack Hussein Obama Jr. was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in August 4, 1961, to a white American mother, Ann Dunham from Wichita, Kansas, and a black Kenyan father, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., who were both young college students at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was a foreign student.

When his father left for Harvard, Barack and his mother stayed behind, they separated when he was two years old and later divorced. His father ultimately returned alone to Kenya, where he worked as a government economist.

Barack’s mother remarried an Indonesian oil manager and moved to Jakarta 1967 when Barack was six. Young 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, Hawaii’s top prep academy from the fifth grade in 1971 until his graduation from high school in 1979.

Obama attended Columbia University, but found New York’s racial tension inescapable. He became a community organizer for a small Chicago church-based group for three years, helping poor South Side residents cope with a wave of plant closings. He then attended Harvard Law School, and in 1990 became the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Eventually he ran as a Democrat for the state senate seat from his district, which included both Hyde Park and some of the poorest ghettos on the South Side, and won.

In 2004 Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat, representing Illinois. In 2008 he sought the Democratic nomination for the US Presidency.

Obama directed Illinois’ Project Vote from April to October 1992.

Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996.

Obama was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, and again in 2002. 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.

Obama was sworn in as a senator on January 4, 2005 and was the fifth African American Senator in U.S. history, and the third to have been popularly elected. He is the only Senate member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

CQ Weekly, a nonpartisan publication, characterized him as a “loyal Democrat” based on analysis of all Senate votes in 2005-2007, and the National Journal ranked him as the “most liberal” senator based on an assessment of selected votes during 2007. In 2005 he was ranked sixteenth, and in 2006 he was ranked tenth. In 2008, he was ranked by Congress.org as the eleventh most powerful Senator.

Barak Obama is married to Michelle Robinson since October 3, 1992. He has two daughters named Malia Obama who is born in 1998 and Sasha Obama in 2001.

He enjoys playing basketball and poker.

His father Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. died in 1982 and his mother Ann Dunham died in 1995.

Barack is also an accomplished author. His 1995 book, Dreams from My Father, is a memoir of his youth and early career. The book was reprinted in 2004 with a new preface and an annex containing the text of his 2004 Democratic Convention keynote speech.