Election ’08 Mid-Term Review

Gregory Morgan

Hattiesburg, Miss -

The 2008 presidential election cycle kicked off nearly as soon as George W. Bush was re-elected to his second term as president of the United States. Since his second term, President Bush’s approval ratings have been very low in most national polls. Many candidates jumped into the 2008 race promising to improve on the areas where they believed that Bush failed. The campaign, like most presidential campaigns since the famous John Adams-Thomas Jefferson battle of 1800, has been full of disagreements on policy, promises made to voters, and personal attacks against competitors. As we enter April 2008, the field has been narrowed, although the answer to the question “Who will be the best president?” remains unclear.

As we get closer to the general election, many issues have risen in importance. The economy and its struggles are growing more important by the day. Americans are fretting over higher gas prices while seeing the dollar continue to lose value. Another major issue continues to be the war in Iraq. March 20, 2008, will mark the beginning of the sixth year since U.S. forces entered Baghdad. Opinion polls show that Americans have grown tired of the war effort despite the administration’s insistence that the U.S. cannot “cut and run” and must win the War on Terror. Other important issues include immigration, health care, and the Bush tax cuts.

The 2008 presidential election is the first election since 1928 where neither an incumbent president nor incumbent vice president ran for the presidency. Voters of both parties, thus, have had to choose from a list of candidates who have never served in the White House. The leading candidates on the Republican side were former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Sen. Fred Thompson from Tennessee, Rep. Ron Paul from Texas, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, former Gov. Mike Huckabee from Arkansas and Sen. John McCain of Arizona. In January, both Giuliani — once labeled the front-runner — and Thompson suspended their campaigns and Romney, who seemed to be the front-runner for much of the second half of 2007, did the same in February. Gov. Huckabee won an estimated 270 delegates and stayed in the race until early March. Paul, the only Republican candidate to oppose the war effort in Iraq, won 45 delegates, but announced in March that his candidacy was winding down. McCain, the Vietnam War hero, convinced Republican voters that he would not back down in the War on Terror and has wrapped up the nomination with 1,260 delegates in tow. However, Republicans who are skeptical about McCain’s conservatism have vowed to stay home on election day.

On the Democratic side, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Rep. Dennis Kucinich from Ohio, former Sen. Bill Gravel from Alaska, former Sen. John Edwards from North Carolina, Sen. Hillary Clinton from New York, and Sen. Barack Obama from Illinois were the leading candidates. Only Edwards, Clinton and Obama were able to receive any delegates. Richardson and Kucinich, both of whom pledged to leave no troops in Iraq, dropped out of the race in January 2008 without winning any delegates. Edwards dropped out in late January with only 18 pledged delegates. Gravel has not dropped out, although he has no delegates. At this point, the battle for the Democratic nomination has come down to a historic race between Clinton, who could become the country’s first female president and Obama, who could become the nation’s first African-American commander-in-chief.

The race between the two candidates has been close and captivating to say the least. Clinton, the former First Lady, claims that she is more ready to become president and has tried to paint Obama as inexperienced. Obama, on the other hand, has tried to convince voters that a vote for Clinton is a vote for more of the same. Obama believes that the people want change and he believes that he is just the candidate who can deliver it. As of mid-March, the hot topics on the campaign trail have become the potential re-votes of Michigan and Florida, the superdelegates, and the controversial remarks of Obama’s preacher, Jaramiah Wright. Because of the extremely tight race between Obama who has acquired 1,627 delegates and Clinton with 1,494, the battle for the nomination is likely to continue until late August, when the Democratic National Convention is held in Denver, Colo.

The general election will be held on Nov. 4, 2008, and the winner will be sworn into office on Jan. 20, 2009. With the balance of power in the House of Representatives and the Senate also in question, and many pressing issues on the minds of Americans, the 2008 presidential race is shaping up to be a real nail-bitter.

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