2008 United States presidential election
The 2008 United States presidential election was the 56th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior Senator from Illinois, Joe Biden, the senior Senator from Delaware, defeated the Republican ticket of John McCain, the senior Senator from Arizona, Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska. Obama became the first African American to be elected as president. Incumbent Republican President George W. Bush was ineligible to pursue a third term due to the term limits established by the 22nd Amendment; as neither Bush nor Vice President Dick Cheney sought the presidency, the 2008 election was the first election since 1952 in which neither major party's presidential nominee was the incumbent president or the incumbent vice president. McCain secured the Republican nomination by March 2008, defeating Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, other challengers; the Democratic primaries were marked by a sharp contest between Obama and the initial front-runner, Senator Hillary Clinton.
Clinton's victory in the New Hampshire primary made her the first woman to win a major party's presidential primary. After a long primary season, Obama clinched the Democratic nomination in June 2008. Early campaigning focused on the Iraq War and Bush's unpopularity. McCain supported the war, as well as a troop surge that had begun in 2007, while Obama opposed the war. Bush endorsed McCain, but the two did not campaign together, Bush did not appear in person at the 2008 Republican National Convention. Obama campaigned on the theme that "Washington must change,"; the campaign was affected by the onset of a major financial crisis, which peaked in September 2008. McCain's decision to suspend his campaign during the height of the financial crisis backfired as voters viewed his response as erratic. Obama won a decisive victory over McCain, winning the Electoral College and the popular vote by a sizable margin, including states that had not voted for the Democratic presidential candidate since 1976 and 1964.
Obama received the largest share of the popular vote won by a Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964; as of the 2016 presidential election Obama's total count of 69.5 million votes still stands as the largest tally won by a presidential candidate. Hillary Clinton, U. S. Senator from New York John Edwards, former U. S. Senator from North Carolina Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico Dennis Kucinich, U. S. Representative from Ohio Joe Biden, U. S. Senator from Delaware Mike Gravel, former U. S. Senator from Alaska Christopher Dodd, U. S. Senator from Connecticut Evan Bayh, U. S. Senator from Indiana Tom Vilsack, former Governor of Iowa Media speculation had begun immediately after the results of the 2004 presidential election were released. In the 2006 midterm elections, the Democrats regained majorities in both houses of the U. S. Congress. Early polls taken before anyone had announced a candidacy had shown Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as the most popular potential Democratic candidates.
The media speculated on several other candidates, including Al Gore, the runner-up in the 2000 election. Edwards was one of the first to formally announce his candidacy for the presidency, on December 28, 2006; this run would be his second attempt at the presidency. Clinton announced intentions to run in the Democratic primaries on January 20, 2007. Obama announced his candidacy on February 10 in his home state of Illinois. Early in the year, the support for Barack Obama started to increase in the polls, he passed Clinton for the top spot in Iowa. Obama's win was fueled by first time caucus-goers and Independents and showed voters viewed him as the "candidate of change." Iowa has since been viewed as the state that jump-started Obama's campaign and set him on track to win both the nomination and the presidency. After the Iowa caucus, Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd withdrew from the nomination contest. Obama became the new front runner in New Hampshire, when his poll numbers skyrocketed after his Iowa victory The Clinton campaign was struggling after a huge loss in Iowa and no strategy beyond the early primaries and caucuses.
According to The Vancouver Sun, Campaign strategists had "mapped a victory scenario that envisioned the former first lady wrapping up the Democratic presidential nomination by Super Tuesday on Feb. 5." In what is considered a turning point for her campaign, Clinton had a strong performance at the Saint Anselm College, ABC, Facebook debates several days before the New Hampshire primary as well as an emotional interview in a public broadcast live on TV. Clinton won that primary by 2% of the vote, contrary to the predictions of pollsters who had her trailing Obama for a few days up to the primary date. Clinton's win was the
Chuck Schumer
Charles Ellis Schumer is an American politician serving as the senior United States Senator from New York, a seat to which he was first elected in 1998. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the Senate Minority Leader since 2017, he first defeated three-term Republican incumbent Al D'Amato before being reelected in 2004 with 71 percent of the vote, in 2010 with 66 percent of the vote, in 2016 with 70 percent of the vote. He is the current dean of New York's congressional delegation. Before his election to the Senate, Schumer served in the House of Representatives from 1981 to 1999, first representing New York's 16th congressional district before being redistricted to the 10th congressional district in 1983 and 9th congressional district in 1993. A native of Brooklyn and graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, he was a three-term member of the New York State Assembly from 1975 to 1980. Schumer was chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from 2005 to 2009, during which time he oversaw 14 Democratic gains in the Senate in the 2006 and 2008 elections.
He was the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, behind Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Whip Dick Durbin. He was elected Vice Chairman of the Democratic Caucus in the Senate in 2006. In November 2010, he was chosen to hold the additional role of chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. Schumer won his fourth term in the Senate in 2016 and was unanimously elected Minority Leader to succeed Harry Reid, retiring. Schumer was born in the son of Selma and Abraham Schumer, his father ran an exterminating business, his mother was a homemaker. He and his family are Jewish, he is a second cousin, once removed, of actress Amy Schumer, his ancestors originated from the town of Galicia, in what is now western Ukraine. He attended public schools in Brooklyn, scoring a perfect 1600 on the SAT, graduated as class valedictorian from James Madison High School, in 1967. Schumer competed for Madison High on the It's Academic television quiz show, he attended Harvard College, where he became interested in politics and campaigned for Eugene McCarthy, in 1968.
After completing his undergraduate degree, he continued to Harvard Law School, earning his Juris Doctor with honors, in 1974. Schumer passed the New York state bar in early 1975. However, he never practiced law. In 1974, Schumer ran for and was elected to the New York State Assembly, filling a seat held by Schumer's mentor Stephen Solarz. Schumer served three terms, from 1975 to 1981, sitting in the 181st, 182nd and 183rd New York State Legislatures, he has never lost an election. In 1980, 16th District Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman won the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat of Republican Jacob Javits. Schumer won, he was re-elected eight times from the Brooklyn and Queens-based district, which changed numbers twice in his tenure. In 1982, as a result of redistricting, Schumer faced a potential matchup with veteran Brooklyn congressman Steve Solarz, although the matchup did not materialize. In preparation, Schumer "set about making friends on Wall Street, tapping the city's top law firms and securities houses for campaign donations.'I told them I looked like I had a difficult reapportionment fight.
If I were to stand a chance of being re-elected, I needed some help,' he would tell the Associated Press."As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Schumer was one of four congressional members who oversaw the House investigation, of the Waco siege hearings in 1995. In 1998, Schumer ran for the Senate, he won the Democratic Senate primary with 51 percent of the votes against Geraldine Ferraro and Mark Green. He received 54 percent of the vote in the general election, defeating three-term incumbent Republican Al D'Amato. In November 2001, Schumer announced hearings on the decision of President George W. Bush to try terrorists in military tribunals amid Washington concerns that Bush would skip the American legal system in regards to his handling of such cases. Schumer said the two goals of the hearings were to ascertain if Bush had the power to form a tribunal apart from an attempt at interacting with Congress, if a military tribunal was the most efficient instrument to insure a trial that would both protect national security information and guarantee fairness for the suspect.
In March 2002, as the Senate worked on a compromise to save an election reform bill that stalled due to Republicans believing it was not combative enough against voter fraud and Ron Wyden led a successful effort in protecting an amendment allowing first-time voters to be verified with only a signature. In April 2002, during a Senate speech, Schumer referred to the Middle East policy of the Bush administration as "muddled and inconsistent" and said the planned meeting between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Yasser Arafat would be against the president's stated stand against terrorists and those harboring them. In 2002, Schumer authored a provision to an industry-sponsored bill intended to harden the ease by which individuals erase their debts through bankruptcy filing; the measure had opposition from anti-abortion activists who charged it with restricting their ability to use the bankruptcy courts to write off court fines. After the bill appeared to die in May, J. Dennis Hastert spokesman John Feehery opined, "Schumer was pretty obnoxious about how this provision was going to hurt people who were pro-life and that got some of our folks
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III was an American politician and military officer who served as a United States senator from Arizona from January 1987 until his death. He served two terms in the United States House of Representatives and was the Republican nominee for president of the United States in the 2008 election, which he lost to Barack Obama. McCain graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1958 and received a commission in the United States Navy, he flew ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he died in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. While on a bombing mission during Operation Rolling Thunder over Hanoi in October 1967, he was shot down injured, captured by the North Vietnamese, he was a prisoner of war until 1973. He refused an out-of-sequence early release. During the war, he sustained wounds, he moved to Arizona, where he entered politics. In 1982, McCain was elected to the United States House of Representatives, where he served two terms, he entered the U. S. Senate in 1987 and won reelection five times.
While adhering to conservative principles, McCain had a reputation as a "maverick" for his willingness to break from his party on certain issues. His supportive stances on LGBT rights, gun regulations, campaign finance reform were more liberal than those of the party's base. McCain was investigated and exonerated in a political influence scandal of the 1980s as one of the Keating Five, he was known for his work in the 1990s to restore diplomatic relations with Vietnam. McCain opposed pork barrel spending, he belonged to the bipartisan "Gang of 14", which played a key role in alleviating a crisis over judicial nominations. McCain entered the race for the Republican nomination for president in 2000, but lost a heated primary season contest to Governor George W. Bush of Texas, he lost the general election. McCain subsequently adopted more orthodox conservative stances and attitudes and opposed actions of the Obama administration with regard to foreign policy matters. In 2015, he became Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
He refused to support then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in 2016. While McCain opposed the Affordable Care Act, he cast the deciding vote against the ACA-repealing American Health Care Act of 2017. After being diagnosed with brain cancer in 2017, McCain reduced his role in the Senate in order to focus on treatment, he died on August 2018, four days before his 82nd birthday. Following his death, McCain lay in state in the Arizona State Capitol rotunda and in the United States Capitol rotunda, his funeral was televised from the Washington National Cathedral, with former U. S. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama giving eulogies. John Sidney McCain III was born on August 29, 1936, at Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone, to naval officer John S. McCain Jr. and Roberta McCain. He had a younger brother Joe. At that time, the Panama Canal was under U. S. control. McCain's family tree includes English ancestors, his father and his paternal grandfather, John S. McCain Sr. were Naval Academy graduates and both became four-star admirals in the United States Navy.
The McCain family followed his father to various naval postings in the United States and the Pacific. Altogether, he attended about 20 schools. In 1951, the family settled in Northern Virginia, McCain attended Episcopal High School, a private preparatory boarding school in Alexandria, he excelled at wrestling and graduated in 1954. He referred to himself as an Episcopalian as as June 2007 after which date he said he came to identify as a Baptist. Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, McCain entered the United States Naval Academy, where he was a friend and informal leader for many of his classmates and sometimes stood up for targets of bullying, he fought as a lightweight boxer. McCain did well in academic subjects that interested him, such as literature and history, but studied only enough to pass subjects that gave him difficulty, such as mathematics, he came into conflict with higher-ranking personnel and did not always obey the rules, which contributed to a low class rank, despite a high IQ. McCain graduated in 1958.
McCain began his early military career when he was commissioned as an ensign and started two and a half years of training at Pensacola to become a naval aviator. While there, he earned a reputation as a man, he became a naval pilot of ground-attack aircraft. McCain began as a sub-par flier, at times careless and reckless, his aviation skills improved over time, he was seen as a good pilot, albeit one who tended to "push the envelope" in his flying. On July 3, 1965, McCain was 28 when he married Carol Shepp, who had worked as a runway model and secretary. McCain adopted her two young children Andrew, he and Carol had a daughter named Sidney. McCain requested a combat assignment and was assigned
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party; the Democrats' dominant worldview was once social conservatism and economic liberalism, while populism was its leading characteristic in the rural South. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt ran as a third-party candidate in the Progressive Party, beginning a switch of political platforms between the Democratic and Republican Party over the coming decades, leading to Woodrow Wilson being elected as the first fiscally progressive Democrat. Since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democratic Party has promoted a social liberal platform, supporting social justice. Well into the 20th century, the party had conservative pro-business and Southern conservative-populist anti-business wings.
The New Deal Coalition of 1932–1964 attracted strong support from voters of recent European extraction—many of whom were Catholics based in the cities. After Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s, the pro-business wing withered outside the South. After the racial turmoil of the 1960s, most Southern whites and many Northern Catholics moved into the Republican Party at the presidential level; the once-powerful labor union element became less supportive after the 1970s. White Evangelicals and Southerners became Republican at the state and local level since the 1990s. People living in metropolitan areas, women and gender minorities, college graduates, racial and ethnic minorities in the United States, such as Jewish Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans and African Americans, tend to support the Democratic Party much more than they support the rival Republican Party; the Democratic Party's philosophy of modern liberalism advocates social and economic equality, along with the welfare state.
It seeks to provide government regulation in the economy. These interventions, such as the introduction of social programs, support for labor unions, affordable college tuitions, moves toward universal health care and equal opportunity, consumer protection and environmental protection form the core of the party's economic policy. Fifteen Democrats have served as President of the United States; the first was President Andrew Jackson, the seventh president and served from 1829 to 1837. The most recent was President Barack Obama, the 44th president and held office from 2009 to 2017. Following the 2018 midterm elections, the Democrats held a majority in the House of Representatives, "trifectas" in 14 states, the mayoralty of numerous major American cities, such as Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Portland and Washington, D. C. Twenty-three state governors were Democrats, the Party was the minority party in the Senate and in most state legislatures; as of March 2019, four of the nine Justices of the Supreme Court had been appointed by Democratic presidents.
Democratic Party officials trace its origins to the inspiration of the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and other influential opponents of the Federalists in 1792. That party inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans. Organizationally, the modern Democratic Party arose in the 1830s with the election of Andrew Jackson. Since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues, they have been more liberal on civil rights issues since 1948. On foreign policy, both parties have changed position several times; the Democratic Party evolved from the Jeffersonian Republican or Democratic-Republican Party organized by Jefferson and Madison in opposition to the Federalist Party of Alexander Hamilton and John Adams. The party favored republicanism; the Democratic-Republican Party came to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812, the Federalists disappeared and the only national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans.
The era of one-party rule in the United States, known as the Era of Good Feelings, lasted from 1816 until the early 1830s, when the Whig Party became a national political group to rival the Democratic-Republicans. However, the Democratic-Republican Party still had its own internal factions, they split over the choice of a successor to President James Monroe and the party faction that supported many of the old Jeffersonian principles, led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, became the modern Democratic Party. As Norton explains the transformation in 1828: Jacksonians believed the people's will had prevailed. Through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president; the Democrats became the nation's first well-organized national party and tight party organization became the hallmark of nineteenth-century American politics. Opposing factions led by Henry Clay helped form the Whig Party; the Democratic Party had a small yet decisive advantage over the Whigs until the 1850s, when the Whigs fell apart over the issue of slavery.
In 1854, angry with the Kansas–Nebraska Act, anti-slavery Dem
Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis Giuliani is an American politician, attorney and public speaker who served as the 107th Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He acts as an attorney to President Donald Trump. Politically a Democrat an Independent in the 1970s, a Republican since the 1980s, Giuliani served as United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 1983; that year he became the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, holding the position until 1989. He prosecuted cases against corrupt corporate financiers; when Giuliani took office as Mayor of New York City, he appointed a new police commissioner, William Bratton, who applied the broken windows theory of urban decay, which holds that minor disorders and violations create a permissive atmosphere that leads to further and more serious crimes that can threaten the safety of a city. Within several years, Giuliani was credited for making major improvements in the city's quality of life and lowering the rate of violent crimes.
While Giuliani was still Mayor, he ran for the United States Senate in 2000. Giuliani was named Time magazine's Person of the Year for 2001, was given an honorary knighthood in 2002 by Queen Elizabeth II for his leadership in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. In 2002, Giuliani founded Giuliani Partners and sold Giuliani Capital Advisors, joined a Texas firm while opening a Manhattan office for the firm renamed Bracewell & Giuliani. Giuliani sought the Republican Party's 2008 presidential nomination, was considered the early front runner in the race, before withdrawing from the race to endorse the eventual nominee, John McCain. Giuliani was considered a potential candidate for New York Governor in 2010 and for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. Giuliani declined all races, instead remained in the business sector. In April 2018, Giuliani became one of President Trump's personal lawyers. Since he has appeared in the media in defense of President Trump. Giuliani was born in an Italian-American enclave in East Flatbush in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the only child of working-class parents, Harold Angelo Giuliani and Helen Giuliani, both children of Italian immigrants.
Giuliani is of Tuscan origins from his father side, as his paternal grandparents were born in Montecatini, Italy. He was raised a Roman Catholic. Harold Giuliani, a plumber and a bartender, had trouble holding a job, was convicted of felony assault and robbery, serving time in Sing Sing. After his release he worked as an enforcer for his brother-in-law Leo D'Avanzo, who ran an organized crime operation involved in loan sharking and gambling at a restaurant in Brooklyn; the family lived in East Flatbush, Brooklyn until Harold died of prostate cancer in 1981, after which Helen moved to Manhattan's Upper East Side. Helen was featured in a television commercial to promote her son in the 1993 mayoral election; when Giuliani was seven years old in 1951, his family moved from Brooklyn to Garden City South, where he attended the local Catholic school, St. Anne's, he commuted back to Brooklyn to attend Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School, graduating in 1961. Giuliani attended Manhattan College in Riverdale, where he majored in political science with a minor in philosophy and considered becoming a priest.
Giuliani was elected president of his class in his sophomore year, but was not re-elected in his junior year. He joined the Phi Rho Pi fraternity, he graduated in 1965. Giuliani decided to forego the priesthood and instead attended the New York University School of Law in Manhattan, where he made the NYU Law Review and graduated cum laude with a Juris Doctor degree in 1968. Giuliani started his political life as a Democrat, he volunteered for Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1968, he worked as a Democratic Party committeeman on Long Island in the mid-1960s and voted for George McGovern for president in 1972. Upon graduation, Giuliani clerked for Judge Lloyd Francis MacMahon, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York. Giuliani did not serve in the military during the Vietnam War, his conscription was deferred while he was enrolled at NYU Law. Upon graduation from the latter in 1968, he was classified by the Selective Service System as 1-A, he was rejected. In 1969, Judge MacMahon wrote a letter to Giuliani's draft board, asking that he be reclassified as 2-A, because Giuliani, a law clerk for MacMahon, was an essential employee.
The deferment was granted. In 1970, Giuliani received a high draft lottery number. In 1975, Giuliani switched his party registration from Democratic to Independent as he was recruited to Washington, D. C. during the Ford administration, where he was named Associate Deputy Attorney General and chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Harold "Ace" Tyler. His first high-profile prosecution was of Democratic U. S. Representative Bertram L. Podell, convicted of corruption. From 1977 to 1981, during the Carter administration, Giuliani practiced law at the Patterson, Belknap and Tyler law firm, as chief of staff to his previous DC boss, Ace Tyler. Tyler became
2008 Republican Party presidential primaries
The 2008 Republican presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Republican Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 2008 U. S. presidential election. Senator John McCain of Arizona was selected as the nominee through a series of primary elections and caucuses culminating in the 2008 Republican National Convention held from Monday, September 1, through Thursday, September 4, 2008, in St. Paul, Minnesota. President George W. Bush was ineligible to be elected to a third term due to the term limits established by the 22nd Amendment. In a crowded primary of several prominent Republicans eyeing the nomination, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani was the early front runner. However, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee won the Iowa Caucuses as he gained momentum just two months prior to the primary. Moderate U. S. Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain won the New Hampshire primary leading to Giuliani's fall, as the former mayor did not win a single primary.
McCain won the nomination after winning most of the primaries against Mike Huckabee and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney on Super Tuesday. Notes for the following table: Delegate counts is the final estimated delegate count; the vast majority of primaries were of the "winner-take-all" variety, convention rules meant that no one with less than five states in their "pockets" would be allowed to have their names placed in nomination. This guaranteed that the primary season would be short. McCain thus became unstoppable. Huckabee nearly won Missouri but he failed, ending the race. Candidates are listed by delegate counts. Republican candidates in the 2008 U. S. presidential election campaigned for the nomination of their party in a series of primary elections and caucus events. Unlike the Democratic Party, which mandates a proportional representation for delegate selection, the Republican Party has no such limitation. For states with primaries, some states choose to use the "winner-take-all" method to allocate delegates within a state, while others do winner-take-all within a specific congressional district, still others use the proportional process.
Unlike the Democratic Party, state party by-laws determine whether each delegate is pledged and for how long the delegate is pledged. In caucus states, most state parties use a two pronged process. A straw poll called a presidential preference poll, is conducted of the attendees at the caucus; the results are published on the state party website. Delegates are elected to the county conventions, it is at the county conventions that delegates are elected to state conventions, from the state convention to the national convention. At each level, delegates may be unbound to a candidate. If unbound, delegates are not obligated to follow the results of the presidential preference poll. Thus, all estimates of delegates from caucus states are dependent on state party by-laws. With Vice President Dick Cheney choosing not to seek the nomination and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ruling herself out, the race for the 2008 presidential nomination was wide open, it began in March 2006 when John H. Cox became the first candidate to enter the 2008 race.
The Democratic takeover of both houses of Congress and President Bush's unpopularity were strong issues for the GOP field. At the beginning of 2007, the announced Republican field was former Governor of Wisconsin and Cabinet member Tommy Thompson, former Governor of Virginia Jim Gilmore, Senator of Kansas Sam Brownback. Former senator of Virginia George Allen was considered a top contender until his loss in the midterm elections, he announced on December 2006 that he would not seek the 2008 nomination. In early January former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney announced he was forming an exploratory committee. Afterwards several others announced they were running, including U. S. Congressman Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, Rudy Giuliani of New York City, U. S. Senator John McCain, U. S. Congressman Duncan Hunter, U. S. Congressman Tom Tancredo. A poll released in early February had Giuliani leading with 32% and John McCain second with 18%. By early March, Giuliani had become the frontrunner. Alan Keyes and former Senator and actor Fred Thompson entered the race in September.
The first to drop out of the race was former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore in July. After that Tommy Thompson dropped out in August after finishing sixth in the Ames Iowa straw poll. Pro-life advocate Sam Brownback dropped out of the race in October. In December, staunch illegal-immigration opponent Tom Tancredo and businessman John H. Cox left the race. On January 3, 2008, the Iowa caucuses began; the final averaged polling results from Real Clear Politics showed Mike Huckabee at 30%, Romney at 27%, McCain and Thompson tied at 12%, Paul at 7%, Giuliani at 6%. Among those surveyed in Exit Polling data, 45% cited themselves as conservative and voted for Huckabee 35% to Romney's 23% and Thompson's 22%. Among those who called themselves "somewhat conservative", Huckabee won 34% to Romney's 27% and McCain's 18%. Final Results showed Huckabee swept much of the state with the exception of the western and eastern portions of the state which included Davenport, Cedar Rapids, as well as Sioux City. Romney swept the western portions of the state and Paul took one southern county.
The final results in Iowa were Huckabee with 34%, Romney with 25%, Thompson and McCain each with 13%, Paul with 10% and Giuliani with 4%. In the New Hampshire Primary, both McCain and Romney had gambled much on the state. McCain had staked much on his grassroots efforts in the state he won in 2000, as well as the state with one of the mos
Harry Reid
Harry Mason Reid is a retired American politician who served as a United States Senator from Nevada from 1987 to 2017. He led the Senate's Democratic Conference from 2005 to 2017 and was the Senate Majority Leader from 2007 to 2015. Reid began his public career as the city attorney for Henderson, Nevada before winning election to the Nevada Assembly in 1968. Reid's former boxing coach, Mike O'Callaghan, chose Reid as his running mate in the 1970 Nevada gubernatorial election, Reid served as Lieutenant Governor of Nevada from 1971 to 1975. After being defeated in races for the United States Senate and the position of mayor of Las Vegas, Reid served as chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission from 1977 to 1981. From 1983 to 1987, Reid represented Nevada's 1st district in the United States House of Representatives. Reid won election to the United States Senate in 1986 and served in the Senate from 1987 to 2017, he served as the Senate Democratic Whip from 1999 to 2005 before succeeding Tom Daschle as Senate Minority Leader.
The Democrats won control of the Senate after the 2006 United States Senate elections, Reid became the Senate Majority Leader in 2007. He held that position for the last two years of George W. Bush's presidency and the first six years of Barack Obama's presidency; as Majority Leader, Reid helped pass major legislation such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Dodd–Frank Act, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Republicans took control of the Senate following the 2014 United States Senate elections, Reid served as Senate Minority Leader from 2015 to his retirement in 2017. Reid was succeeded as the Senate Democratic leader by Chuck Schumer, whose leadership bid had been endorsed by Reid. Along with Alben W. Barkley and Mike Mansfield, Reid is one of only three Senators to serve at least eight years as Majority Leader. Reid was born in Searchlight, the third of four sons of Harry Vincent Reid, a miner, Inez Orena Reid, a laundress. At the time, Searchlight was a small impoverished town.
His father died by suicide at age 58, when Harry was 32 years old. His paternal grandmother was an English immigrant from Staffordshire. Reid's boyhood home was a shack with no hot water, or telephone. Since Searchlight had no high school, Reid boarded with relatives 40 miles away in Henderson, Nevada to attend Basic High School, where he played football, was an amateur boxer. While at Basic High, he met future Nevada governor Mike O'Callaghan, a teacher there and served as Reid's boxing coach. Reid attended Southern Utah University, graduated from Utah State University where he double majored in political science and history, he minored in economics at Utah State's School of Business Administration. He went to George Washington University Law School earning a J. D. while working as a police officer for the United States Capitol Police. Reid returned to Nevada after law school and served as Henderson city attorney before being elected to the Nevada Assembly for the multi-member fourth district of Clark County in 1968.
In 1970, at age 30, Reid was chosen by O'Callaghan as his running mate for Lieutenant Governor of Nevada. Reid and O'Callaghan won their respective races, Reid served as lieutenant governor from 1971 until 1974, when he ran for the U. S. Senate seat being vacated by Alan Bible, he lost by fewer than 700 votes to former governor Paul Laxalt. In 1975, Reid lost to Bill Briare. Reid served as chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission from 1977 to 1981; when Jack Gordon, La Toya Jackson's future agent and husband, offered Reid a $12,000 bribe to get approval of new games for casinos, Reid brought in the FBI to tape Gordon's bribery attempt and arrest him. After FBI agents interrupted the transaction, as prearranged, Reid lost his temper and attempted to choke Gordon, saying "You son of a bitch, you tried to bribe me!" before agents stopped him. Gordon was sentenced to six months in prison. In 1981, Reid's wife found a bomb attached to the family station wagon. Prior to the 1980 Census, Nevada had only a single at-large member in the United States House of Representatives, but population growth in the 1970s resulted in the state picking up a second district.
Reid won the Democratic nomination for the 1st district, based in Las Vegas, in 1982, won the general election. He served two terms in the House, from 1983 to 1987. In 1986, Reid won the Democratic nomination for the seat of retiring two-term incumbent Republican Senator Paul Laxalt. Reid defeated former at-large Congressman Jim Santini, a Democrat who had turned Republican, in the November election. Reid ran for reelection in 1992. In 1998 he narrowly defeated 1st District Congressman John Ensign in the midst of a statewide Republican sweep. In 2004, Reid won reelection with 61 percent of the vote, defeating Richard Ziser, gaining the endorsement of several Republicans. Ensign was elected to Nevada's other Senate seat in 2000. Ensign and Reid had a good relationship despite their bitter contest in 1998; the two worked together on Nevada issues until Ensign was forced to resign from his Senate seat, due to an ethics scandal. Reid won the Democratic nomination with 75% of the vote in the June 8 primary.
He faced a competitive general election for the Senate in Nevada in 2010. Reid engaged in a $1 million media campaign to "reintroduce himself" to the state's voters, he defeated Republican challenger Sharron Angle in the November election, 50.3% to 44.6%, despite losing 14 of Nevada's 17 counties. In January, 2015, Reid suffered severe injuries in
