The Obama versus McCain election
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Barack Obama was a junior Senator for the State of Illinois. He was the first African-American to be nominated for a presidential campaign by a major political party. Obama ran for the presidency on the Democratic party. The campaign for the party’s nomination was hotly contested between him and Hillary Clinton. The nomination campaigns stalled to June while McCain had already garnered his Republican Party nomination in March. When Clinton lost the nomination, she urged her supporters to back Obama in the campaigns. The two campaigned together after the primaries as a gesture of good faith. Obama carefully chose his running mate from a list of Democratic party senators. Joe Biden was the vice president during his eight-year tenure. Obama chose Biden because of three reasons. First, Obama perceived Biden to be conversant with blue-collar Americans since he was from Pennsylvania. Secondly, Biden had a multitude of connections in Capitol Hill, and thirdly, because he was more conversant with foreign policy than Obama (Lizza, 2008).
McCain was a long term serving senator of Arizona. It was his second attempt to run for the presidency after he lost the 2000 primaries to George W. Bush. The media described him as a political celebrity due to his long-standing presence in the political scenes. McCain made his first informal urge to run for the presidency on February 28th,2007 (Halperin & Heilemann, 2010). McCain made substantial ventures into his elements of the 2000 insurgency campaigns. He lagged behind the Democrats in polls and fundraising and by July 2007 that he was forced to restructure his campaigns. McCain trailed behind Senator Obama for most of the general election campaign gaining only a lead following the announcement of Sarah Palin as his running mate. The McCain team lost to the Obama team because of various reasons. Throughout the campaigns, the McCain team tried to discredit Obama on the clause of natural citizenship with no success. Some critics argue that based on the same principle, McCain was also not a natural citizen.
Both candidates traveled to Europe and the Middle East to appeal for international support. The two candidates met at the White House following the onset of the 2008 financial crisis. In this meeting, the two candidates were accompanied by President Bush. The critics were concerned that Obama had no comprehension of the financial crisis but were shocked that he was able to give suggestions on how to fix the economy. On the other hand, McCain was completely blank. This was the turning locus of the presidential campaign. McCain’s short suspension of his campaigns did not bring him support (Lizza, 2008). The Obama campaign team broke various records of presidential fundraising. Obama got massive funds from private donors. During this time, the Americans were fighting the war in Iraq. Obama believed it was time for the army to vacate the land while McCain firmly believed that they were making progress in the war. As a gesture of solidarity with the Bush policy, McCain stated it was now easy to walk in the streets of Baghdad than it was earlier. His statements were refuted by the US commander for Iraq. Days after McCain visited Baghdad, scores of women and children were killed. This negatively affected his polls in favor of Obama’s (Talbot).
Obama preached messages of hope to the American people. The messages were well received as the country needed it since during this time they were going through a period of financial instability. The Obama team used the slogans “yes we can” and “change we can believe in” to sway voters. Obama was the first president to successfully use the internet. He used social media to inform the public of his policies. On the other hand, McCain did not use the internet during his campaigns. Obama’s ventures into MySpace and Facebook built relationships with the supporters. Obama emphasized the need to increase energy independence, lower the influence of lobbyists, and encouraging UHC. Obama’s votes doubled McCain’s electoral votes. He won because he had a solid grass-roots organization and because he was able to encourage people to vote. He garnered 53% of the popular vote and 365 of the electoral votes (Talbot, 2008). Obama set the stage for people of color and also standardized future online campaigns.
References
Halperin, M., & Heilemann, J. (2010). Game change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain, and Palin, and the race of a lifetime. New York: Harper, http://www. politico. com/news/stories/0, 110(3131), 8.
Lizza, R. (2008). How Obama Won. New Yorker.
Talbot, D. (2008). How Obama really did it. Technology Review, 111(5), 78-83.