We are days from the presidential election. Days until we decide who will be the next president of our country. We have two choices: John McCain (the Republican nominee) and Barack Obama (the Democratic nominee). I am asking you to vote and take part in this process, because it does matter.
Whether you support McCain or Obama, please vote and let your voice be heard. I am supporting Barack Obama for President, and I will tell you why, but first I want to give you a brief biography of each candidate.
In 2004 at the Democratic National Convention, Illinois State Senator Barack Obama emerged as a person to be reckoned with in American politics. This black first-time U.S. Senator elected in November of 2004 has become a genuine political phenomenon.
Moving to Chicago after law school, Obama was a community organizer, where he helped poor families deal with everyday issues. He then practiced law and taught at the University of Chicago Law School. Chicago’s 13th district of the Southside neighborhood of Hyde Park elected Obama to the Illinois State Senate in 1996. In Springfield, Ill., he served as chairman of the senate’s Health and Human Services Committee and helped write the Illinois Earned Income Tax Credit legislation which provides benefits for the working poor.
Though defeated in the 2001 election for the U.S. House of Representatives, Obama’s speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention thrust him into the national spotlight. Obama sought nothing less than to challenge all Americans regardless of political party to view themselves as members of a common polity. Illinois elected Obama as their junior U.S. Senator in 2004.
John McCain is a third-generation U.S. Navy officer whose father and grandfather both achieved the rank of admiral. In October 1967, the North Vietnamese captured McCain, and he ultimately spent five and a half years as a prisoner of war in the “Hanoi Hilton.”
He was given basic medical care only after his captors learned he was the son of an admiral.
After he was tortured for a week, McCain refused an early release. He refused to be released early because the U.S. Military Code of Conduct requires prisoners to accept release on a first in/first out basis.
Though he advanced professionally and became a Navy captain and served as a liaison to the U.S. Senate, his first marriage ended in divorce in 1980.
After the war, he was elected as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representative after he moved to Arizona in 1982. In 1985, he was elected to the U.S. Senate to replace Sen. Barry Goldwater and has been in the U.S. Senate since.
I have decided to support Barack Obama because he would take our country in a new direction. A declining economy, the war in Iraq and rising health care costs require a leader with a different vision and different policies.
As for health care, he would move to pass universal health care. His plan would make health care available to 47 million Americans.
Lastly, Barack Obama would end the war in Iraq and would bring the troops home in 16 months. We need a change and I believe that Barack Obama represents that change.
Alex Guiden is a music freshman can be reached at [email protected].
