In the race for who will become the forty-fourth president of
the United States, John McCain is the Republican nominee and Barack Obama
is the Democratic nominee. McCain's running mate is Sarah Palin. Obama's running
mate is Joseph Biden.
Three other candidates for president appear on the Idaho ballot.
Bob Barr is the Libertarian candidate. Ralf Nader is an independent candidate.
Chuck Baldwin is the Constitution Party candidate.
Candidates |
Background |
Website |
| John McCain
Republican
|
- U.S. Senator from Arizona, 1987- present
- U.S. Representative, 1983 -1986
- Naval aviator, shot down in Vietnam War, he was a POW for more than
5 years
-Graduate of the Naval Academy
|
|
| |
- U.S. Senator from Illinois, 2005 - present
- State Senator in Illinois, 1997 - 2004
- Law professor, University of Chicago, 1992 - 2004
- Graduate of Harvard Law School, president of the Harvard Law Review
|
|
Bob Barr
Libertarian |
- U.S. Representative from Georgia, 1995 - 2003
- U.S. Attorney, 1986 - 1990 |
|
Ralf Nader
Independent |
- Consumer advocate
- Lawyer |
|
Chuck Baldwin
Constitution Party |
- Baptist minister
- Radio talk show host |
|
OTHER RESOURCES
In this season of charges and counter-charges, a useful and
credible resource is www.FactCheck.org.
Here are two useful resources for tracking who is contributing
how much money to the presidential candidates:
www.opensecrets.org
www.fec.gov
Although they're not useful for educating yourself on which
presidential candidate to vote for, there are a couple of interesting resources
for tracking the candidates' chances of winning. The University of Iowa Business
School hosts an electronic futures market on U.S. elections. For a number
of years, they have been a more accurate predictor of election results than
scientific poll results. Here is the homepage that explains this unique take
on elections: www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem To
see how Obama and McCain's prospects have moved up and down over time, go
to: www.iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/graphs/graph_Pres08_WTA.cfm
To see what Obama and McCain futures contracts are currently trading
at, go to: www.iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/quotes/Pres08_quotes.html
The website www.Intrade.com
has also gotten into this approach, including futures contracts for who will
win each of the fifty states and the electoral college implications of those
fifty markets.
RealClearPolitics.com
provides interesting "polls of polls" as well as breakdowns of state
polls and their electoral college implications..