Compiled by Josh Hudson, Jaz Gray, Bracken Mayo and Chalekan Lucas
In this governmental system we live in, affectionately referred to as “democracy,” we are afforded the perceived ability to choose who will lead our nation into the future. The process begins with grandiose announcements from politicians who then begin painstaking campaigns that range from the elaborate to the utterly shameless.
The date you should be looking to next is Feb. 5, 2008, when we cull the weak candidates, leaving them to reassemble whatever lives they left behind while campaigning and watch as the designated representatives of each party go for broke in November.
This election is known as the primary, and both prominent parties hold their own.
“The Democrats and the Republicans do think a little differently [when it comes to primaries],” says Brook Thompson, State Coordinator of Elections. “The Democrats choose to only put the presidential candidates themselves on the ballot. The voter will make their choice as to who they want the nominee to be and that’s it.
“The Republicans, however, do that and more,” Thompson continues. “They put the presidential candidates on the ballot as well as delegates.”
This is where things get complicated. Delegates come in two forms?at-large and congressional. Essentially, a person can vote directly for a candidate as well as delegates (either committed or uncommitted to a candidate, as Thompson explains) who will, in turn, cast their vote at the national convention.
“Let’s say someone votes for Fred Thompson for president, but they also might vote for Mitt Romney delegates at the at-large level and McCain delegates at the congressional level,” Thompson adds. “So it creates something of an unknown as to who is being elected as a delegate to the national convention.”
To help with this convoluted process, we at The Pulse have compiled some information on the most prominent candidates and their positions to help you, the informed public, navigate through the mire known as the Presidential Primaries.
Meet the Democrats:
Joe Biden
Biden, the senior U.S. Senator from Delaware, was first elected to the Senate in 1972. He serves on the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee as Chairman. He immediately began holding high-profile hearings in Iraq after the U.S. invasion. He is opposed to the war, but says he wants to withdraw in a way that does not leave Iraq in shambles.
He is for universal healthcare, has a plan to lower our greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, is pro-choice, but does not support partial-birth abortions or public funding of abortions. He supports gay marriage.
Hilary Clinton
Clinton is currently serving as the junior U.S. Senator from New York. She is the first U.S. First Lady elected to public office.
Clinton supports abortion rights, civil unions, immigration reform and voted for a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexican border. She voted to use military force in Iraq, but now says she would have voted differently “If I knew then what I know now.” She pledges to make health care and college more affordable and to raise the minimum wage.
Her campaign spending, totaling over $90 million, towers above the other candidates’ war chests. Obama is the closest competitor, but still trails her by over $10 million.
Christopher Dodd
Dodd has a long career in the U.S. legislative branch representing Connecticut, dating to his election to the House in 1975. The state elected him to the senate in 1980 and he has become the first Senator from Connecticut to serve five consecutive terms.
Prior to his career in office, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic and proposes growing the program.
Dodd voted for and continues to support NAFTA saying trade agreements promote economic growth and political stability, but has since spoken out against a trade agreement with Peru. That measure is still before the U.S. Senate.
Raised in a Roman Catholic family and schools, he voted for the Iraq war authorization, but has since become an outspoken critic of the conflict and any talk of a troop surge.
John Edwards
Edwards, named in 2000 People magazine’s sexiest politician, narrowly missed becoming the U.S. Vice President on the John Kerry ticket in the 2004 election.
His campaign has an upbeat, idealistic tone proclaiming hope for a new America. Edwards claims to stand for regular American families, repeatedly addressing the huge gap between the haves and the have- nots.
A long-time trial lawyer, Edwards’ career in public office is limited to one six-year term in the U.S. Senate representing North Carolina.
In 2002 he co-sponsored the bill authorizing President Bush to proceed with the Iraq invasion, but he has since apologized for his vote, saying the bill was based on faulty intelligence. While in the Senate, Edwards also supported and voted for the PATRIOT Act and was instrumental in protecting the rights of patients.
He advocates rolling back the Bush tax cuts and ending mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent offenders.
Dennis Kucinich
Kucinich is currently serving in the House of Representatives for Ohio.
He served as Mayor of Cleveland from 1977 to 1979 where he refused to sell the city’s electric utility to private investors, resulting in a hit put on him by the mafia. Although he earned himself a slot in historian Melvin G. Holli’s Best and Worst Big-City Leaders from 1820 to 1993 as one of the top ten worst big city leaders, Kucinich was later hailed as having the “courage and foresight” not to sell the company, saving the city $195 million over a ten year period.
Kucinich never supported the Iraq invasion and is calling for immediate withdrawal, replacing U.S. troops with an international security force. He is against the death penalty, pro-choice, for stiffer gun control, ending the war on drugs, legalizing same-sex marriage, wishes to withdraw from the World Trade Organization and North American Free Trade Agreement, repealing the USA Patriot Act, and for environmental renewal and clean energy.
Barack Obama
Obama currently serves in the U.S. Senate from Illinois and is currently the only black man serving in the Senate.
The Democrat says he wants to “reach out to Republicans to find common ground.”
The first bill the House passed sponsored by Obama was a measure that will allow Americans to go online and see where every dime of their tax money is spent, beginning after fiscal year 2007.
Obama is pro-choice, and has opposed the war in Iraq since it began and says withdrawal should begin immediately.
He speaks of lowering the cost of healthcare for all, cleaning up the environment and moving the nation to renewable and clean fuels. He supports gay marriage.
Bill Richardson
Richardson, currently the governor of New Mexico, has also served as a U.S. Representative for 14 years, Ambassador to the United Nations, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, and Chairman of the 2004 Democratic National Convention and Democratic Governors Association.
Richardson originally supported the Iraq invasion but has recently called for a removal of all troops by the end on this year. He wants to scrap Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” act and set a minimum wage for teachers at $40,000 per year.
As governor of New Mexico, he has added sexual orientation and gender identity to the state’s civil rights categories. The CATO Institute hails Richardson as one of the most fiscally responsible Democratic governors. Recently, he signed a bill that legalized marijuana for medical purposes in New Mexico, saying, “It was the right thing to do.”
He is pro-choice, for the death penalty, gun rights, affirmative action policies, universal healthcare and a path to citizenship for immigrants.
He is also credited with negotiating the release of American Hostages in Iraq, Cuba and North Korea.
Meet the Republicans:
Rudolph Giuliani
Giuliani was named Associate Attorney General by Ronald Reagan and also the first Republican elected mayor of New York City. Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Time named him person of the year.
He was a Democrat and an Independent in the late ’70s, and as a Republican has been on the more socially liberal side of the party. He is pro-choice, but believes in limits on abortion. He wants to cut taxes, supports the war in Iraq and does not support control on weapons, saying he is a “strong supporter of the Second Amendment.”
Though he believes marriage is only between a man and a woman, he supports domestic partnerships.
Mike Huckabee
Huckabee served as the 44th Governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. Prior to serving as governor, Huckabee worked in the advertising field, as a Baptist minister, as president of three media companies and as Arkansas’ lieutenant governor.
As governor, he signed legislation creating ARKids First, a program that provides health insurance coverage for more than 70,000 Arkansas children who might not otherwise have access. Huckabee, who plays bass in the rock band Capitol Offense, graduated from Ouachita Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Huckabee opposes abortion rights and same-sex marriage, supports immigration reform that provides a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants, and supports the war in Iraq saying, “I will fight the war on terror with the intensity and single-mindedness that it deserves.”
More financially conservative Republicans criticize Huckabee as being for big government and label him “Tax Hike Mike.” Chuck Norris, Ric Flair and Ted Nugent have all endorsed Huckabee’s bid.
John McCain
McCain is currently serving as the Senior U.S. Senator from Arizona.
He served in the Navy and is recognized for his service in Vietnam, where he was a POW and tortured extensively from 1967 to 1973. McCain first ventured into politics in the early 1980s, winning a congressional seat in 1982 in Arizona and succeeding Barry Goldwater in 1986.
He ran for president in 2000 losing the Republican primary to George W. Bush. He has publicly supported Bush, praising his handling of 9/11 and the Iraq invasion. However, his recent comments that Iraq was getting safer were met with skepticism since numerous reports and events spoke to the contrary.
McCain was also one of the Keating Five, a group of senators who accepted campaign contributions from the chairman of Lincoln Savings and Loan during the savings and loan scandals of the late 1980s. McCain has since been an outspoken proponent of campaign finance reform.
McCain is pro-life, supported the Iraq War, opposes socialized medicine and is for the death penalty.
Ron Paul
Paul is a Republican U.S. Congressman from Texas, who finished a distant third in the 1988 presidential race as the Libertarian candidate.
He works toward a very limited, Constitutional federal government with no IRS, Department of Homeland Security, CIA, and other large agencies. He is a doctor specializing in obstetrics/gynecology. He is pro-life, says he wants to lower taxes and believes Americans should have the right to choose how they take care of their health (anti-universal healthcare).
Some critics say his isolationist foreign policy stance would not work in today’s world.
He believes we should secure our borders now against illegal immigrants.
“How can we fight terrorists abroad when our own front door is unlocked,” he says.
Paul supports free trade and rejects NATO, NAFTA and other agreements as managed trade.
He wants to eliminate welfare programs, because he feels they are special “racial set-asides.”
Mitt Romney
The former Massachusetts governor is becoming more well-known for his Mormon faith than his political and business success.
A long-time member of the private sector, Romney lead venture capital firm Bain Capital to wild profits, buying and selling companies making billions in profits.
While in the governor’s office he lead a state facing a projected $3 billion deficit to a balanced budget each year in office, without raising taxes.
Romney also presided over the Salt Lake Olympic Committee. The 2002 Olympics also faced a huge projected deficit, but ended up a financial success.
As governor, Romney appeared to hold moderate to liberal positions on issues such as gay marriage and abortion, but is now trying to paint himself as more of a social conservative in line with the majority of Republicans across the nation.
He talks of America defeating the Jihadists, a violent faction of Islam with an “8th Century view of the world.”
He proposes making the Bush tax cuts permanent, eliminating the death tax and reducing corporate taxes.
Fred Thompson
Thompson is currently an actor appearing most recently on TV’s Law & Order as prosecutor Arthur Branch.
He served as a U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1994 to 2002. He was elected to serve the remainder of Al Gore’s Senate term after Gore became Vice President.
Thompson helped enact a law requiring federal agencies to calculate and report the cost of regulations on taxpayers and businesses.
He graduated from Memphis State University and Vanderbilt University Law School and was a practicing attorney, a lobbyist, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle Tennessee district, and played himself in the movie Marie about a woman determined to reveal political corruption.
Thompson opposes abortion rights and same-sex marriage, supports stricter enforcement of existing laws against illegal immigrants, voted for use of military force in Iraq, and supports President Bush’s Iraq policy, but says the U.S. entered the war with too few troops and the wrong strategy.
