Candidates 2008

These are the most prominent candidates for the presidency of the United States in 2008.

Side note: Incumbent George W. Bush has served two terms and is prevented by law from running for a third term. His vice-president, Dick Cheney, has said that he will not run.

Democrats

Joseph Biden (Announced he would run on 7 January 2007; dropped out of the race on 3 January 2008): Biden has been a U.S. senator from Delaware since 1973, and has developed a reputation as a foreign policy specialist. Biden ran for president once before, in 1988, but withdrew after he was accused of plagiarizing portions of a speech from British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. Biden turns 66 in 2008.

Hillary Clinton (Announced she would run on 20 January 2007): Clinton represents New York in the U.S. Senate, having been elected in 2000 and again in 2006. She has lived in the White House before: she was First Lady from 1993-2001 while her husband, Bill Clinton, was president. Clinton made this announcement on her website in January of 2007: "I'm in. And I'm in to win. Today I am announcing that I will form an exploratory committee to run for president." She would be the first former First Lady ever to run for president. Clinton turns 61 in 2008.

John Edwards (Announced he would run on 28 December 2006; dropped out of the race on 30 January 2008): Youthful, telegenic and Southern, Edwards was the running mate of Democratic nominee John Kerry in 2004. They were defeated by the GOP ticket of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Edwards served one term as a senator from North Carolina from 1999-2005. He ran for president himself in 2004 before accepting the #2 spot behind Kerry. Edwards turns 55 in 2008.

Mike Gravel (Announced he would run on 17 April 2006): Gravel was a U.S. senator from Alaska from 1969-81, and was a controversial figure for helping to make public the full text of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Gravel was the first Democrat to declare for the presidency in 2008, but he is considered a very long shot: Alaska is one of the least populous states, and Gravel has been out of the Senate for a quarter-century. Gravel turns 78 in 2008.

John Kerry (Announced he would not run on 24 January 2007): Kerry was the Democratic nominee in 2004, when he lost narrowly to Republican incumbent George W. Bush. Despite serving in the U.S. Senate since 1984, Kerry is still the junior senator from Massachusetts; the senior senator is Ted Kennedy, who first was elected in 1962 (and who himself ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 and 1980). Kerry was considered a likely candidate for 2008, but announced in 2007 that he would not run in order to focus on his Senate duties and on ending the war in Iraq. Kerry turns 65 in 2008.

Dennis Kucinich (Announced he would run on 12 November 2006; dropped out of the race on 25 January 2008): Also considered a long shot, Kucinich made a second run after campaigning all the way to the 2004 convention. An outspoken liberal, former Cleveland mayor and U.S. Representative from Ohio since 1997, he was banking in part on his consistent opposition to the increasingly unpopular U.S. war in Iraq. His withdrawal from the presidential race came in the context of a primary-electon challenge for his congressional seat. Kucinich turns 62 in 2008.

Barack Obama (Announced he would run on 10 February 2007): Obama's stirring speech to nominate Kerry at the 2004 Democratic convention made him suddenly a major figure in the party. Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate from Illinois that same year. Obama turns 47 in 2008.

Tom Vilsack (Announced he would run on 9 November 2006; dropped out of the race on 23 February 2007): The governor of Iowa, Vilsack announced his run for president two days after the midterm elections of 2006. (He did not run for reelection as governor in 2006; he was elected in 1998 and had promised to serve only two terms.) Vilsack was a long-shot candidate who hoped his reputation in Iowa, the site of early party caucuses, would give him a boost. Upon retiring from the race in 2007 he told reporters, "This process has become to a great extent about money, a lot of money... it is money and only money that is the reason we are leaving today." Vilsack turns 58 in 2008.

Republicans

Sam Brownback (Announced he would run on 20 January 2007; dropped out of the race on 19 October 2007): Brownback has been a U.S. senator from Kansas since 1997. He is a leading Senate conservative on social issues like abortion and gay marriage. In announcing his run for president, he called himself a "full-scale Ronald Reagan conservative" and said "To walk away from the Almighty is to embrace decline for a nation." Brownback turns 52 in 2008.

Rudy Giuliani (Announced he would run on 15 February 2007; dropped out of the race on 30 January 2008): Giuliani was mayor of New York City from 1994-2001. He became internationally famous for his defiant leadership after the World Trade Center attacks in Manhattan on 11 September 2001. He and Democrat John Edwards left the 2008 race on the same day, after doing poorly in the Florida primaries. Giuliani turns 64 in 2008.

Mike Huckabee (Announced he would run on 28 January 2007; dropped out of the race on 4 March 2008): Huckabee is a conservative from Hope, Arkansas, the same small town that produced liberal President Bill Clinton. Huckabee served as governor of Arkansas from 1996-2007. He is also known for his 2005 book Quit Digging Your Grave With A Knife And Fork, in which he described losing over 100 pounds after being diagnosed with diabetes. Huckabee turns 53 in 2008.

John McCain (Announced he would run on 25 April 2007; clinched the GOP nomination on 4 March 2008): McCain flew fighter jets in the Vietnam War and spent five years in a prisoner of war camp after being shot down over Hanoi. He's been a senator from Arizona since 1987. He ran for the GOP nomination for president in 2000, but was defeated by George W. Bush. In the 2008 race he has won enough delegates to become the official nominee at the GOP convention in September. McCain turns 72 in 2008.

Ron Paul (Announced he would run on 12 March 2007): Paul has been a U.S. Representative from Texas since 1997. This is not his first run for president: he was the Libertarian Party candidate in 1988, earning 0.5% of the national vote. Paul is a proponent of limited government: his campaign website notes that he has never voted for an unbalanced budget, voted against the Iraq War and the Patriot Act, and refuses to take part in the Congressional pension program. Paul turns 73 in 2008.

Mitt Romney (Announced he would run on 13 February 2007; dropped out of the race on 7 February 2008): Romney was governor of Massachusetts for one term, from 2003-2007. He decided not to run for a second term, and (as was widely expected) a month after leaving office he announced a run for president. He shut down his campaign in 2008 after falling behind John McCain in the early primaries. Romney's father, George Romney, ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 and was defeated by Richard Nixon. Romney turns 61 in 2008.

Fred Thompson (Announced he would run on 6 September 2007; dropped out of the race on 3 January 2008): A star on TV's Law & Order, Thompson is the Hollywood heir to Ronald Reagan: both used their on-screen fame to nail down political jobs (Reagan as governor of California from 1967-75, Thompson as senator from Tennessee for 1994-2003). Thompson hoped to make the comparison complete by winning the White House in 2008 as Reagan did in 1980. But he dropped from the race after poor showings in the early primaries. Thompson turns 66 in 2008.

Independent

Ralph Nader (Announced he would run on 24 February 2008): The fiery consumer advocate makes his third straight run for president. Nader's run in 2000 earned him nearly 2.9 million votes (about 2.7% of the vote) nationwide and was credited (or blamed) with draining enough liberal votes from Democrat Al Gore to put Republican George W. Bush in the White House. Nader pulled 465,000 votes, or 0.38% of the vote, nationwide in 2004. Nader turns 74 in 2008.

For a look at past presidential races, see our features on Candidates 2004 and Candidates 2000.

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