Election 2008: It’s not too early to start educating yourself

By Whitney Burdette
Riverside High School

Although the next presidential election is still more than a year away, candidates are getting an early start. Every day, a new presidential hopeful announces his or her intentions, making it difficult to keep names and campaign promises straight, especially for young voters.

The upcoming presidential election will be the first in which the classes of 2007 and 2008 will be eligible to vote. It is important that young voters know for whom they are voting and the consequences that may follow. But keeping up with dozens of candidates on both sides can be confusing for everyone, so FlipSide hopes to help by making teens more aware of the presidential candidates and issues as the 2008 election approaches.

Two of the early candidates for the Democratic nomination are Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Though many teens recognize their names, most know little else about these candidates. Below are brief backgrounds on the two.

Barack Obama

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is perhaps the freshest face in this year’s political field. At 46, he is currently the youngest contender. He has served in the U.S. Senate for only two years, a meager number compared to most of his colleagues — particularly West Virginia’s own Robert C. Byrd.

Many voters wonder if the time is right for such an inexperienced candidate to win the White House. Add in his foreign-sounding name and biracial background (his mother was a white Kansan, his father Kenyan) and many conservative Americans start to squirm.

Since Obama informally announced his candidacy on Jan. 17, controversy has followed. In late January, critics learned that he received his early education in Jakarta, Indonesia. Many were worried that an Islamic extremist was running for President. However, since then, news stations have reported that the school was simply a normal public elementary school.

After returning from Jakarta with his mother and Indonesian stepfather, Obama attended Occidental College and Columbia University, where he majored in political science. After that, he attended Harvard Law School and became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, an independent legal publication by Harvard students.

In 1997, Obama began his eight-year term as an Illinois Senator. He was elected to the U.S. senate in 2004.

In his short career, Obama has done a lot for both his home state and America. In the state senate, he authored the Illinois Earned Income Tax Credit, and in the U.S. senate, he was named chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee and helped pass bills to increase funding for AIDS research and prevention.

Since announcing his candidacy, he has called for universal health care, in which all Americans would have health insurance. He also introduced a bill to force American troops to pull out of Iraq by spring 2008.

Obama is also a best-selling author. His first book, “Dreams from My Father,” was published in 1995, followed by “The Audacity of Hope” in 2006.

The senator and his wife, Michelle, have two daughters and live in Chicago. They attend Trinity United Church of Christ.

To learn more about Barack Obama, visit his website at barackobama.com.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton is the most well-known candidate for the 2008 election. She served as First Lady from 1993 to 2001 and has been a New York senator since leaving the White House.

Clinton sometimes gets a bad reputation for being on the far left, so it’s hard to imagine her as a young Republican growing up in a middle-class, Methodist family in Illinois. She graduated from Wellesley College and Yale Law School.

After graduating from Yale, she became an advocate for women and children. She was also one of two women who served on the House Judiciary Committee considering Richard Nixon’s impeachment. In 1975, she married William J. “Bill” Clinton, a politician from Arkansas. Five years later, their daughter Chelsea was born.

Clinton spent her years as First Lady continuing her work for women and children, and once her husband’s second presidential term was up, she entered politics as a New York senator.

She has been very vocal about her opposition to the war in Iraq and has also announced her intentions for universal health care. Like Obama, she has also sponsored legislation to increase America’s commitment to fight HIV/AIDS.

To learn more about Hillary Clinton, visit her website at hillaryclinton.com.