Meet the 2008 Presidential Candidates

Read about the race for the Democrat and Republican Presidential nominations. Follow the story to Election Day on November 4, 2008, when the American voters would choose.

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Meet the Democrats

Meet the Republicans

ELECTION 2008
Scholastic Kid Reporters are on the campaign trail. Keep up with the latest election news in this special report.

After months of campaigning the Democrat Party nominated Barack Obama as their candidate for President of the United States. The Republican Party nominated John McCain as their candidate.

On November 4, 2008, these two candidates faced the American voters. It was an exciting night as citizens who had waited in line to vote, sometimes for hours, waited for the results. Would the American people select a young, inexperienced African American senator from Illinois or a much older war hero and senator from Arizona as the 44th President of the United States?

There were several other minor party candidates in the race for the White House, including Ralph Nader, an environmentalist who had run before. But this election was almost certainly going to go to one of those two major party candidates. After the results came in from all the states across the country, the decision was clear: Barack Obama was the President-elect. He would be inaugurated on January 20, 2009.

Almost immediately after the election, President-elect Obama began to put together a team of men and women to help him run the Executive branch of the Federal Government. There would be cabinet posts, ambassadorships, advisors and many staff positions to be filled. Most of the members of the George W. Bush Administration would resign and return to private life.

History had been made and the story continues as a new administration will take up the duties and responsibilities of governing in the name of the people of the United States of America.