Jan 10, · Barack Obama campaigned for the U.S. presidency on a platform of change. As he prepares to leave office, the country he led for eight years is undeniably different. Profound social, demographic and technological changes have swept across the United States during Obama’s tenure, as have important shifts in government policy and public opinion Barack Obama By Michael Nelson Obama’s election to the Senate instantly made him the highest-ranking African American officeholder in the country and, along with the excitement generated by his convention speech and his books (Dreams from my Father, brought back into print, joined The Audacity of Hope on the bestseller list), placed him Nov 21, · Essay dad elon musk leadership style essay four seasons hotel essay is organic farming the future of agriculture essay essay affected @ about life obama barack how on Biography covid19 has essay my, essay on joining the military, write a narrative essay about your first day of college linking words for essays!
Barack Obama: Campaigns and Elections | Miller Center
After spending a low-profile first year in office focusing on solidifying his base in Illinois and traveling abroad to buttress his foreign policy credentials as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama spent much of speaking to audiences around the country and mulling whether to run for president. According to annual National Journal evaluations of senators' legislative voting records, Obama ranked as the first, tenth, or sixteenth most liberal member of the Senate, depending on the year.
Relying heavily on the Internet, the Obama campaign mobilized Obama for America OFAa massive grassroots organization of volunteers and donors. With Axelrod again at the helm, the campaign developed a strategy for winning the Democratic nomination that relied on assembling the same coalition of blacks and white liberals barack obama essay had enabled him to barack obama essay in Illinois, with an additional focus on young voters.
Initially, however, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton opened a strong lead in the polls, barack obama essay, even among African American voters and leaders who admired her and barack obama essay husband, former President Bill Clinton, and did not think Obama had much of a chance to win.
Drawing on his online base of supporters, Obama initially surprised political pundits by matching Clinton and besting Edwards in campaign fundraising throughout He became the co-frontrunner in the race by winning the crucial Iowa caucuses on January 3,defeating both Edwards and Clinton by an 8-percentage point margin.
Clinton rebounded to win the New Hampshire primary five days later, edging out Obama by 3 points and crushing Edwards by 22 points. In the next important test, Obama opened up a narrow lead in the nomination contest by defeating Clinton handily in the Barack obama essay Carolina primary, 55 percent to 27 percent, on January Black voters, convinced by the Iowa results that whites would vote for an African American candidate for president, gave him overwhelming support in South Carolina and in subsequent primaries.
Edwards finished a distant third in the state where he was born and dropped out of the race on January Other contenders for the nomination, including Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, and Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, barack obama essay, had already dropped out because of their poor showings in the initial round of primaries and caucuses.
From February through early June, Obama and Clinton battled fiercely through the remaining primaries and caucuses. But Obama had three crucial advantages that enabled him to eke out a narrow victory for the Democratic nomination. Second, although there was little difference between Clinton and Obama on the issues, Obama ran on a theme of change and Clinton on a theme of experience. In a year when the economy was steadily deteriorating, change was the more appealing theme, barack obama essay, especially among Democratic voters.
Third, while fighting Clinton in the thirty-nine primaries, Obama did not overlook the seventeen states and territories that, like Iowa, choose their national convention delegates through caucuses, barack obama essay. He strongly out-organized Clinton barack obama essay those contests, winning fourteen of seventeen caucuses.
The delegates Obama won in the caucuses put him over the top. Clinton withdrew from the nominating contest on June 7, As hard-fought as his victory was, Obama faced only one serious crisis during the entire nomination campaign.
But he faced continuing difficulties winning white working class votes against Clinton barack obama essay the primaries, and some doubted that he could win their support in the general election against the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona. Partly to expand his appeal to working-class whites, and partly to offset his own modest foreign policy credentials, Obama named Senator Joe Biden of Delaware as his vice presidential running mate on August 22, two days before the opening of the Democratic National Convention in Denver, barack obama essay, Colorado.
Biden had grown up in blue-collar Scranton, Pennsylvania, and during his thirty-six years as a senator from Delaware, had risen up the seniority ladder to become chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. In his acceptance speech on the last night of the convention, Obama outlined the issues of his general election campaign, barack obama essay.
Obama left Denver on August 29 enjoying a small lead over McCain in the polls. But on that same day, McCain stole Obama's thunder by selecting Governor Sarah T. Palin of Alaska as his running mate. Palin balanced the Republican ticket in some obvious ways: young rather than old Palin was forty-four, McCain was seventy-twoa woman rather than a man, a governor rather than a senator, and a social conservative rather than a national security conservative.
Her rousing acceptance speech at the convention helped to propel the Republican ticket into a small lead over Obama and Biden in early September.
McCain maintained his narrow advantage in the polls until mid-September, barack obama essay, when the nation's financial sector, heavily invested in risky mortgage-backed securities, went into a sudden tailspin, barack obama essay.
In the barack obama essay nationally televised debates between the presidential candidates that took place from September 26 to October 15, Obama's calm, confident, and competent demeanor impressed voters who were looking for both reassurance that all would be well and a change in the nation's direction, barack obama essay.
By eschewing federal campaign funds, Obama was also able to outspend McCain substantially on media advertising and grassroots organizing. In addition, Biden impressed most voters as a much more qualified choice for vice president than Palin, whose unfamiliarity with national and international issues was revealed in a series of television interviews.
And, much to his credit, McCain refused to revive concerns about Obama's long association with Reverend Wright for fear of inflaming racial tensions.
Obama was elected handily on November 4, He defeated McCain by 53 percent to 46 percent in the national popular vote. Exit polls revealed that the two candidates broke even among voters who had participated in the election. But Obama built his majority among first-time voters who surged to the polls inmany of them young or African American, barack obama essay.
In the Electoral College, Obama prevailed by a margin of to Election night inspired gracious oratory by both candidates. We both realize that we have come a long way barack obama essay the injustices that once barack obama essay our nation's reputation. Politically, the strategy bore fruit in the midterm elections. And it says: 'Continued on the next bumper sticker.
Looking at the stubbornly high unemployment rate Obama inherited on taking office, many voters refused to accept the president's argument that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act had kept joblessness from rising even higher. The new grassroots conservative Tea Party movement fueled a surge in turnout among Republican voters in even as participation among Obama's core constituencies in —young and African American voters—declined.
On election day, the Republicans gained 6 seats in the Senate, reducing the Democrats' majority in that chamber from 18 59 to 41 to 6 53 to The GOP added 63 seats in the House of Representatives, enough to gain control of the House by a to majority in the th Congress. With George W.
In return, the GOP accepted President Obama's proposal to extend unemployment benefits for jobless workers for a longer period, and both parties embraced a one-year reduction in social security taxes for everyone who pays them. Republicans feared that federal courts were about to order immediate integration of homosexuals into the armed services.
General Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, persuaded them that the military was prepared to accept the change if allowed to implement it gradually. The lame duck session also saw the Senate ratify the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia by a 71 to 26 vote. President Obama entered the election year with job approval ratings that were dangerously low roughly 40 percent and an unemployment rate that was dangerously high more than 8 percent for an incumbent seeking reelection, barack obama essay.
But, like Bill Clinton in and George W. Bush inObama benefited enormously from not having to fight for his party's nomination. Gerald Ford inJimmy Carter inbarack obama essay, and George Bush in had to wage such battles, and each of them was defeated by his general election opponent in November. In contrast, barack obama essay, Obama was able to use the first eight months of to raise money, rebuild his campaign organization, develop lines of attack on his likely Republican opponents, and launch his general election campaign from a united, enthusiastic Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Caroline, in September Following the pattern of reelection-seeking presidents since the s, Obama chose Vice President Biden to run with him for a second term.
While Obama was uniting his party for the fall, the Republicans were waging a fierce intraparty battle to choose their nominee. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney won the nomination, but was subjected to severe attacks by his Republican rivals.
Romney won the nomination and placated conservatives by choosing the chair of the House Budget Committee, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, as barack obama essay vice presidential running mate in advance of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, barack obama essay, Florida. But only then was he able to focus on raising money for the general election, move toward the more popular political center, and direct his campaign toward defeating Obama.
The Supreme Court's decision in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission opened the floodgates to corporations, unions, and wealthy individuals to spend massive amounts of money in an effort to elect either Barack obama essay or Romney, as well as in the congressional elections, barack obama essay.
Obama, like many incumbents, turned in a rusty and therefore ineffective performance. But, chastened by his weak showing, Obama came back strongly in the second and third debates and regained his lead over Romney.
Toward the end of the campaign, the unemployment rate finally dipped below 8 percent, reinforcing Obama's claim that his economic policies had placed the nation on the road to prosperity.
Obama defeated Romney by 51 percent to 47 percent in the national popular vote and by to in the electoral vote. His margin of victory was down slightly frommaking him the first president since Woodrow Wilson to be reelected by a smaller majority than in his first election.
Also disappointing to Obama, the House barack obama essay Representatives remained in Republican control, by a margin to to Even though twenty-three of their seats were on the ballot in compared with only ten for the Republicans, the Democrats actually gained two seats in the election, raising their majority in the upper chamber to 55 to Still more important for the long term, Obama ran best among those groups in the electorate that were growing most rapidly: young people, single people, barack obama essay, nonreligious people, Latinos, and Asian Americans.
Despite his victories, Obama began his second term with a very limited mandate. His campaign's one-word theme was content-free—Forward! The one specific issue Obama did stress on the campaign trail—his continuing desire to raise taxes on wealthy Americans—bore fruit one month after the election, when Congress voted to raise the marginal income tax rate from But during the campaign, he deemphasized other issues that were important barack obama essay him but politically risky, including immigration reform, climate change, and gun control.
As invoter turnout was considerably lower in than it had been two years previously: 34 percent in the lowest in a national election since compared with 58 percent in Because midterm electorates tend to have a higher concentration of the older and more conservative white voters who tend to favor Republican candidates, the Democrats were likely to suffer, barack obama essay.
Adding to their disadvantage in the Senate elections was that Democrats held 21 barack obama essay 36 seats on the ballot inseven of them in states that Obama had lost to Romney.
Republicans gained nine seats in the Senate elections, the largest gain for any party sinceand took away control of the chamber from the Democrats with a majority. They added two to their ranks of governors, leaving them in control of the executive in 31 states.
They also won majorities in ten additional state legislative chambers, giving them control of 67 of The midterm election guaranteed that Obama spent the last two years of his presidency with a Republican Congress.
Although the 22nd Amendment barred Obama from seeking a third term as president inhe was intensely interested in seeing a Democrat succeed him, especially because all of the contenders for the Republican presidential nomination promised to seek the repeal of major parts of his legislative legacy if one of them was elected.
Obama did not endorse either of the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination, barack obama essay, Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, but he clearly favored Clinton as the most electable and privately discouraged Vice President Biden from entering the contest for fear of dividing his supporters between Barack obama essay and Clinton.
In the fall campaign, Obama campaigned ardently in multiple battleground states for Clinton and against the Republican nominee, Donald J. Presidents George Washington John Adams Thomas Jefferson James Madison James Monroe John Quincy Barack obama essay Andrew Jackson Martin Van Buren William Harrison John Tyler James K. Polk Zachary Taylor Millard Fillmore Franklin Pierce James Buchanan Abraham Lincoln Andrew Johnson Ulysses S, barack obama essay. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes James A.
Garfield Chester A, barack obama essay. Arthur Grover Cleveland Benjamin Harrison William McKinley Theodore Roosevelt William Taft Woodrow Wilson Warren G. Harding Calvin Coolidge Herbert Hoover Franklin D. Roosevelt Harry S. Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson Richard Nixon Gerald Ford Jimmy Carter Ronald Reagan George H, barack obama essay.
Glamour editor on President Obama's feminism essay
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Aug 14, · Barack Obama, Biden solemnly declared in his campaign announcement in Philadelphia, is “an extraordinary man, an extraordinary president.” Nov 21, · Essay dad elon musk leadership style essay four seasons hotel essay is organic farming the future of agriculture essay essay affected @ about life obama barack how on Biography covid19 has essay my, essay on joining the military, write a narrative essay about your first day of college linking words for essays! Barack Obama’s watershed election and the presidency that followed profoundly altered the aesthetics of American democracy, transforming the Founding Fathers’ narrow vision of politics
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