The 2008 nomination campaign can be divided into four phases: the pre-primary campaign, January, Super Tuesday, and the Spring.

 

Pre-primary campaign

"Front runner" status is dependent on the news agency reporting, but by October 2007, the consensus listed about six candidates as leading the pack. For example, CNN listed Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Rudolph Giuliani, Barack Obama, Fred Thompson, and Mitt Romney as the front runners. The Washington Post listed Clinton, Edwards and Obama as the Democratic frontrunners, "leading in polls and fundraising and well ahead of the other major candidates". MSNBC's Chuck Todd christened Giuliani and John McCain the Republican front runners after the second Republican presidential debate.

Three candidates, Clinton, Obama, and Romney, raised over $20 million in the first three months of 2007, and three others, Edwards, Giuliani, and McCain, raised over $12 million; the next closest candidate was Bill Richardson, who raised over $6 million. In the third quarter of 2007, the top four GOP fund raisers were Romney, Giuliani, Thompson, and Ron Paul. Paul set the GOP record for the largest online single day fund raising on November 5, 2007. Hillary Clinton set the Democratic record for largest single day fund raising on June 30, 2007.

 

Primaries and caucuses

Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2008 and Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2008

Although the nomination process for each of the two major political parties technically continues through June, in previous cycles the candidates have been effectively chosen by the March primaries. While this trend has continued in 2008 on the Republican side, with John McCain locking up the nomination with victories in Texas and Ohio on March 4, on the Democratic side Obama didn't win the nomination until June 3. Obama has a wide lead in states won, but Democratic state delegate contests have been decided by a form of proportional representation since 1976. Clinton claims a lead in the popular vote, but the Associated Press found her numbers accurate only in one very close scenario.

During late 2007, both parties adopted rules against states moving their primaries to an earlier date in the year. The penalty for violating this rule was to be the loss of half of the state party's delegates to the national party's convention. Most significantly, the Democratic Party leadership stripped all Democratic delegates from Florida and Michigan, which had moved their primaries all the way into January. Some Democrats have expressed concern because these are both large swing states that are likely to be crucial in the general election. Also, due to the unusual closeness of the Democratic race, the question of whether or not the delegates from Florida and Michigan (a majority of which were won by Clinton after all major Democratic candidates agreed not to campaign in these states) will be seated at the Democratic National Convention in August, has become a major issue, setting up the possibility of a credentials fight.

Had neither Democratic candidate won the 2,025 elected delegates needed to secure the nomination by the end of the primary cycle, the Democrats may have gone to a brokered convention, at which the selection of the Democratic nominee could have fallen to superdelegates, Democrats who hold high elected offices and others appointed by the national party leadership. Had the superdelegates chosen against the candidate leading in the elected delegate count, some observers speculated that it could cause a schism within the party. Veteran Democratic consultant Tad Devine wrote in The New York Times that a "perception that the votes of ordinary people don't count as much as those of the political insiders, who get to pick the nominee in some mythical back room, could hurt our party for decades to come."

 

January 2008

Around the start of the year, support for Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama began rising in the polls, passing longtime front runners Romney and Clinton for first place in Iowa: the two upstart campaigns were triumphant. Suddenly John McCain displaced Rudy Giuliani and Romney as the front-runner in New Hampshire.

While Huckabee had little money and was hoping for a third place finish, Obama was the new front runner in New Hampshire and the Clinton campaign was struggling. However, in a turning point for her campaign, Clinton's voice wavered with emotion in a public interview broadcast live on TV. By the end of that day, Clinton won the primary by 2 points, contrary to the predictions of pollsters who had her as much as twelve points behind on the day of the primary itself. McCain also staged a turnaround victory, having been written off by the pundits and in single digits less than a month before.

With the Republicans stripping Michigan and Florida of half their delegates, the Republican race was based there, while the Democrats focused on Nevada and South Carolina, which were given special permission to have early contests. In South Carolina Obama got 55% of the vote. Meanwhile, McCain managed a small victory in South Carolina, setting him up for a larger and more important victory in Florida soon after.

 

February 2008

On February 3 on the UCLA campus, celebrities Oprah Winfrey, Caroline Kennedy and Stevie Wonder, among others, made appearances to show support for Barack Obama in a rally led by Michelle Obama. Though Obama's poll numbers increased after this event, putting him only 2% behind Clinton, he ended up losing California by 10%. Analysts cited surprisingly large Latino turnout as the deciding factor. On the Republican side, John McCain was endorsed by California GovernorArnold Schwarzenegger and Rudy Giuliani (who had dropped out of the race following the Florida primary), giving McCain a significant boost in the state. Schwarzenegger's wife, Maria Shriver, endorsed Obama.

By February 4, it was apparent that McCain might be able to wrap up the nomination quickly, while the 22 primaries and caucuses on the Democratic side might lead to a virtual tie in the delegate count, which to some extent is what has happened.

Super Tuesday: On February 5, 2008, the largest-ever simultaneous number of state U.S. presidential primary elections was held. Twenty-four states and American Samoa held either caucuses or primary elections for one or both parties on this date, leaving the Democrats in a virtual tie, and John McCain just short of clinching the Republican nod. A few days later, Mitt Romney suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed McCain, leaving Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul as the only major challengers of McCain in the remaining Republican primaries.

Louisiana and Washington voted for both parties on February 9, while Nebraska and the U.S. Virgin Islands voted for the Democrats and Kansas voted for the Republicans. Obama swept all four Democratic contests, as well as the Maine caucuses the next day, and Huckabee also came out on top in Kansas, winning by an even greater percentage. The District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia voted for both parties on February 12 in the so-called Potomac primary. Obama won all three for the Democrats (giving him eight consecutive victories after Super Tuesday) and McCain took all three for the Republicans.

Obama carried both Hawaii and Wisconsin, the last two states that voted for the Democrats in February, on the 19th. Wisconsin and Washington (primary) voted for the Republicans on February 19; John McCain won these states.The Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico closed February for the Republicans, on the 23rd and 24th.

 

March 2008

For the Republicans, on March 1, American Samoa voted. March 4 was dubbed by some as this year's Mini Tuesday, when the delegate-rich states of Texas and Ohio, along with Rhode Island and Vermont, voted for both parties. Wyoming then voted for the Democrats and Guam voted for the Republicans on March 8. Mississippi voted on March 11.

In what some considered a surprise upset of Barack Obama on March 4, Hillary Clinton carried Ohio and Rhode Island in the Democratic primaries. She also carried the primary in Texas, but Obama won the Texas caucuses held the same day and netted more delegates from the state than Clinton. John McCain clinched the Republican nomination after sweeping all four primaries, Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island, putting him over the top of the 1,191 delegates required to win the GOP nomination. Mike Huckabee finally conceded the race to McCain, leaving Ron Paul, who had just 16 delegates, as his only remaining opponent for the Republican nomination. In the Wyoming Democratic caucuses, Obama edged out Clinton to gain 7 delegates to her 5, and three days later he beat her again, 59%–39%, in Mississippi.

 

April through June 2008

Only one state voted in April: Pennsylvania, which held a primary for both parties on April 22. Hillary Clinton won this Democratic primary, with approximately 55% of the vote. Barack Obama won the Guam caucuses on May 3 by 7 votes out of more than 4,500. On May 6, Hillary Clinton won the Indiana primary with 51% of the vote while Barack Obama won in North Carolina with 56% of the vote. Nebraska's Republican and West Virginia's Democratic primaries were held on May 13. In West Virginia, Clinton won with 67% of the vote and 20 of 28 pledged delegates. On [[May 20], Kentucky and Oregon held primaries for both parties. In Kentucky, Clinton won with 65% of the vote to Obama's 31%. In Oregon, Obama defeated Clinton, leading by 40,000 votes. Idaho voted for Republicans only on May 27. On May 31, Democratic Party officials, after a tense meeting between Clinton supporters and Obama backers, voted to seat all of Florida and Michigan's delegates at the party's convention, with each getting a half-vote.Puerto Rico held a Democratic primary on June 1, which Clinton won with 68% of the vote to Obama's 32%. The primary season ended on June 3, with contests in New Mexico (Republican), Montana (Democratic), and South Dakota (both parties). Clinton won South Dakota's primary, while Obama was victorious in the Montana primary. As expected, John McCain won all the states during this time period handily, though typically 20-25% of the vote in the Republican primaries went to Huckabee and Paul, despite the fact both had already been mathematically eliminated from contention for the nomination.

 

Party conventions

• April 23-26, 2008: 2008 Constitution Party National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri.
• May 23-26, 2008: 2008 Libertarian National Convention, in Denver, Colorado.
• July 10-13, 2008: 2008 Green Party National Convention, to be held in Chicago, Illinois.
• August 25-28, 2008: 2008 Democratic National Convention, to be held in Denver, Colorado.
• September 1-4, 2008: 2008 Republican National Convention, to be held in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

 

Election day through to Inauguration

• November 4, 2008: Election day in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Voters cast votes for listed Presidential candidates but are actually selecting their state's slate of Electoral College members.
• December 15, 2008: Members of the U.S. Electoral College meet in each state to cast their votes for President and Vice President.
• January 6, 2009: Electoral votes officially tallied before both Houses of Congress. If a member of Congress wishes to object to the certification of a state's electoral votes as was originally reported on Election Night, he or she must do so at this point, even if recounts or lawsuits to require a recount are already in progress.
• January 20, 2009: Inauguration Day.

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.