Barack Obama

U.S. Presidential Candidate (Incumbent)
Vice Presidential Candidate: Joe Biden

Born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961, President Obama is a Columbia University and Harvard Law School graduate. At Harvard, he was editor and president of the Harvard Law Review. The long-time Chicagoan first began work as a community organizer on the South Side of the Chicago. He also taught at the University of Chicago Law School.

He was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996, a position he held through 2004. He served as a U.S. Senator from 2005-2008. In 2008, he was elected President of the United States of America.

Obama has geared his messages around the topic of the economy. He believes investing in education, research and technology is the key to growing American jobs. He wants to double American exports over the next five years by promoting goods made in the U.S. and lessening trade barriers.

Reformation of the tax code is a means through which Obama plans to reduce the national deficit. He believes his plan that combines spending cuts and revenue increase will reduce the deficit by $4 trillion during the next decade.

A focus of the Obama plan will be ending the War in Afghanistan and using monies of war to instead help rebuild American infrastructure, like roads and bridges, and also help reduce the deficit.

In terms of energy, Obama wants to develop natural gas production to reduce dependency on foreign oil. In addition, the President wants to end government subsidies for oil companies and instead invest in clean energy sources.

Obama wants to invest in education by cutting the growth of college tuition, continuing to invest in Pell Grants and recruit and prepare 100,000 math and science teachers to make the U.S. a leader in those fields.