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By Katy Preston, Zhang & Associates, P.C.
Barack Obama and John McCain are the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees for the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Both are unique in a variety of ways. For example, neither was born in the contiguous United States—Obama was born in Hawaii, and McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone while it was occupied by the United States. Furthermore, both are historic candidates in and of themselves: Obama will be the first African American presidential nominee, and McCain, if elected, will be the oldest president elect.
Both candidates have had exceptionally interesting lives that are inspirational to immigrants and all Americans. Here, we will explore the backgrounds of these two fascinating men.
Barack Obama
Barack Obama’s parents first met at the University of Hawaii, where they were both students. Obama’s father, Barack Obama Sr., was a citizen of Kenya who had come to Hawaii for his education. Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, was a U.S. citizen who was born in Kansas. They married in 1961, and young Barack was born later that year.
In 1963, Obama Sr. left the family to attend Harvard University. He and Ann divorced the following year. In 1965, finished with his graduate studies, Obama Sr. returned to Kenya to work for the government. A few years later, Dunham met her second husband, Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian student. After they married, the family moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, where Dunham and Soetoro had a daughter, Barack Obama’s half-sister.
Obama remained in Indonesia until he was 10 years old, when he asked his mother if he could return to Hawaii for the rest of his education. His mother agreed, and Obama returned to his maternal grandparents’ home, where he remained until he graduated from the prestigious Punahou School.
For his undergraduate education, Obama studied for two years at Occidental College in Los Angeles before transferring to Columbia University. He graduated from Columbia with a B.A. in political science and a specialization in international relations.
After working in New York for a couple of years, Obama moved to Chicago, where he worked for three years as the director of a church-based community organization called the Developing Communities Project (DCP). Under his leadership, the group grew considerably.
Obama left the DCP in 1988 and visited some of his Kenyan relatives for the first time before matriculating at Harvard Law School in 1988. While at Harvard, he became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review, an accomplishment that eventually led to the contract for his first book, Dreams from My Father, which was published in 1995.
During law school, Obama worked as a summer associate for Sidley Austin, a large Chicago law firm. It was there that he met his future wife, Michelle Robinson, who was his adviser at the time. Later that summer, they began dating, and they were married in 1992. Barack and Michelle later had two daughters, Sasha and Malia, who are now 7 and 10 years old.
Obama graduated from Harvard magna cum laude in 1991 and returned to Chicago, where he worked as a lecturer for the University of Chicago Law School while working on his book. Over the next few years, Obama continued to teach constitutional law at the University of Chicago while working as an associate at a small civil-rights firm and becoming involved with various local social and political organizations.
Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996. In 2000, he was unsuccessful in his run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, losing the Democratic primary election to incumbent Bobby Rush. In 2004, he successfully ran for a position in the U.S. Senate: he defeated his closest opponent in the Democratic primary by 29%, and in the general election by more than 40%, making him the third African American elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction.
Obama truly became a national political figure when he gave the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Emphasizing the need for unity in the American electorate, he famously stated, “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America.”
Unity and change have been recurring themes in Obama’s presidential campaign as well. He announced his candidacy for the 2008 election February 2007. After a record-breaking fundraising campaign, he eventually gained enough delegates to defeat former frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
Obama’s unique origins and life accomplishments have made him an inspiration to many people. He is a racial minority, the son of a non-citizen, and was raised by a single mother. On top of his political and academic accomplishments, he is a two-time best-selling author (his second book, The Audacity of Hope, was published in 2006) whose books have been well received by critics. No matter what happens in the upcoming presidential election, Obama’s story will continue to provide inspiration to people from all walks of life.
John McCain
John McCain comes from a family with a history of military service: his father and grandfather were both four-star admirals in the U.S. Navy. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, where his father was stationed, in 1936 (at that time, the Panama Canal was under American control). Throughout his childhood, McCain moved around with his father to various naval postings, attending about 20 schools before the age of 15. His family eventually settled in Virginia, where McCain graduated from Episcopal High School in 1954.
Like his father and grandfather, McCain received his undergraduate education from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. He completed his schooling there and then graduated from flight school in 1960. During his early career as a naval pilot of ground-attack aircraft, he survived two plane crashes with no major injuries.
He was not so lucky in his combat assignment aboard the USS Forrestal. In 1967, an accidentally fired missile struck the fuel tanks of McCain’s plane before it took off, resulting in a deadly fire that killed 134 men and destroyed 20 planes. While McCain was trying to help another pilot escape, his legs and chest were injured by fragments from a bomb that exploded nearby.
However, this incident would not dissuade McCain from continuing to fight for his country. McCain volunteered for more combat duty and was assigned to the USS Oriskany. In October 1967, while he was flying his 23rd combat mission, his plane was shot down. After breaking both arms and a leg, and almost drowning, McCain was captured by the North Vietnamese, becoming a prisoner of war.
McCain remained a prisoner of war for the next five and a half years. At first, his captors refused to treat his injuries, and even after he was hospitalized for six weeks, his fellow prisoners did not expect him to survive. Even though McCain was offered early release when the North Vietnamese discovered his father was a powerful admiral, McCain refused their offer, saying he would only accept if every other man who had been captured before him was also released.
In 1968, he was tortured severely for several days and given routine beatings for weeks afterward. Although conditions improved beginning in late 1969, McCain’s injuries would have permanent effects on his mobility—to this day, he is unable to raise his arms above his head.
McCain was finally released in 1973. After undergoing physical therapy, he had his flight status reinstated and remained in the Navy until 1981. His political career began the following year, when he ran for an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for the state of Arizona. McCain was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986 and remains an Arizona senator to this day; like Obama, he received over 70% of the vote in the 2004 election.
McCain’s political career has had its failures, however. In 2000, he ran for president and succeeded in the New Hampshire primary, gaining 49% of the vote over George W. Bush’s 30%. A vicious contest in South Carolina, however, ended up undoing much of McCain’s progress; even though he managed to win a few more primaries, his campaign never recovered from his South Carolina defeat. and he withdrew from the race after Super Tuesday, endorsing now-President Bush two months later.
Even McCain’s current presidential campaign has not been entirely smooth sailing. Fundraising problems have plagued him throughout his campaign, but especially toward the beginning—partly due to his failed immigration-reform bill, which was unpopular with many Republicans. Still, McCain persevered, famously carrying his own luggage through the airport and asking two of his supporters for a ride (rather than hiring a car) in 2007. He ended up winning the New Hampshire primary once again, along with endorsements from many major newspapers, in 2008. His campaign continued to build momentum as his opponents began to drop out, and he soon became the presumptive Republican nominee.
McCain’s personal life has also had its obstacles. After marrying his first wife, Carol Shepp, in 1965, he adopted both of her children, and the couple had another daughter. After returning home from Vietnam, however, the marriage began to falter. Soon after the couple divorced in 1980, McCain married Cindy Lou Hensley, the wealthy daughter of the founder of Hensley & Co., one of the largest Anheuser-Busch beer distributors in the nation. John and Cindy have three children together and adopted a fourth.
Like Obama, McCain is also a multi-published author. With his longtime aide Mark Salter, he has written four books: two family memoirs/autobiographies, Faith of My Fathers and Worth the Fighting For, and two other nonfiction books, Character Is Destiny and Hard Call. His impressive accomplishments and amazing experiences, including his refusal to give up even in the most adverse circumstances, make him an equally inspirational figure for Americans and other people around the world.
The Candidates’ Support for Immigrants and Representation of the American Dream
In our previous article on McCain and Obama’s stances on immigration (please refer to the link at the end of this article), we found that both held positions that were generally favorable to immigrants. Although there was some ambiguity in each candidate’s position—for McCain, because he has recently indicated that he may have changed his stance on immigration, and for Obama, because he has a much less extensive voting record—we believe that both candidates will support immigrants’ interests.
McCain and Obama also represent two different versions of the American dream. For McCain, it has involved serving in the military and overcoming intense, sometimes violent adversity to achieve a successful political career. Obama has also overcome adversity in his own way, getting an elite education and setting landmarks for other racial minorities despite humble beginnings.
We hope that no matter who wins the election this November, both of these candidates inspire our clients who are currently pursuing their own versions of the American dream.
Reference:
“The Presidential Candidates and Their Views on Immigration”
http://www.hooyou.com/news/news061008candidates.html–
Founded in 1996, Zhang & Associates, P.C. offers legal services to clients nationwide in all aspects of U.S immigration law. We have successfully handled thousands of immigration cases.
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