Chris Dodd was born May 27, 1944, in Willimantic, Connecticut, the fifth of six children to the late Senator Thomas J. Dodd and Grace Murphy Dodd. From the outset, public service was in his blood; Chris’s father was one of the lead prosecutors during the Nuremberg Nazi war crimes tribunals that set the standard for America’s moral authority before he was elected to the United States Senate, while three of his aunts were well-known public school teachers in small communities.

Forty-six years ago, Chris stood on the East Front of the Capitol and heard John Kennedy’s famous inaugural address calling all Americans to be a part of something greater than themselves. After graduating from Providence College, Chris joined the United States Peace Corps in 1966 and moved to the Dominican Republic where he built a school and a maternity clinic in rural communities, became fluent in Spanish, and saw what the world could achieve when America leads. Upon returning home once he fulfilled his two-year commitment, Chris enlisted in the Army National Guard and later served in the U.S. Army Reserves.

In 1972, Chris earned a law degree from the University of Louisville School of Law and practiced in New London before he was called to public service like his father. Elected to Congress in 1974, Chris served three terms in the House of Representatives on behalf of Connecticut’s Second District. He was elected to the US Senate in 1980.

Today in his fifth term, Chris is Connecticut’s senior United States Senator – a respected leader who brings people together to make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous. A onetime General Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, today Chris is the trusted chair of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which oversees America’s financial institutions.

The Congress’s premiere advocate for children and families, known as the “Children’s Senator,” Chris formed the first Children’s Caucus in the Senate and spent seven years working to enact the Family and Medical Leave Act that has helped 50 million working Americans never have to choose between the job they need and the family they love. A longtime supporter of early childhood education, he also authored and enacted landmark child care legislation, was named “Senator of the Decade” by the National Head Start Association and has secured funding for federal research into autism and outreach efforts aimed at mothers who give birth prematurely.

Chris Dodd’s reputation for independence, vision, and effectiveness extends to even the toughest issues. Even before the tragedy of September 11th, Chris recognized the importance of America’s first responders, authoring and passing landmark legislation that has provided more than $3 billion to help towns and cities hire, equip, and train firefighters. In the aftermath of the disputed 2000 Presidential election, Chris authored the Help America Vote Act which has been called the most important voting rights legislation since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And he has long championed bringing fiscal discipline into the federal budget-making process, introducing a “pay-as-you-go” budget proposal early in his Senate career and co-sponsored the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction legislation.

As a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Chris has played a central role in nearly every foreign policy debate over the past 25 years, working with six Presidents and fostering relationships with many of today’s most important world figures. A recipient of the Edmund S. Muskie Distinguished Public Service Award and recognized expert on Latin and South America, he has worked to foster peace, prosperity and democracy abroad. In addition, Chris has fought to ensure our troops in Iraq have the essential equipment that they need and deserve.

Chris lives in East Haddam, Connecticut with his wife Jackie and their young daughters Grace and Christina.

Dennis Kucinich’s courageous and visionary presidential campaign excited a new generation of young Americans to involvement in the 2004 Democratic Primary elections. His speech to the 2004 Democratic Convention will long be remembered as a clarion call to purpose in the Democratic Party.

Kucinich’s Presidential candidacy was a continuation of his challenge to the war in Iraq. He led 125 Democratic Members of Congress in opposition to the war. His “Prayer for America” speech in Los Angeles in February of 2002 inspired tens of thousands of emails, many urging him to run for President. He insisted early on there was no proof of any “weapons of mass destruction”. He toured the country, warning America about the dangers of attacking a nation which did not attack us. Today he is seen as the prophet who predicted hundreds of billions of dollars wasted, countless lives lost, America’s credibility in the world severely undermined. Today he insists that the United States must withdraw from Iraq.

Kucinich has advocated the creation of a cabinet-level Department of Peace, to make non-violence an organizing principle within our society. He believes that peace, not war, is inevitable, if we are willing to work for peace. He sees the world as being interconnected and interdependent. This vision always strives to find the commonalities, the points where unity can be formed. He believes the United States can best lead the way through full support of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, the Kyoto Climate Change Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention; joining the International Criminal Court, signing the Landmine Treaty and the Small Arms Treaty. As we rejoin the world in full support of principles of international law, we help build the cause of human unity, he believes. In his fifth term in the United States House, Kucinich has been a leader for Universal Health Care, a full employment economy, fully-paid tuition at public colleges and universities, repeal of the Patriot Act, the development of bio-fuels as alternative energy and restoration of America’s basic manufacturing and infrastructure. He is currently leading an effort to support the role of NASA in the development of basic research for civil aeronautics.

Kucinich first came to national prominence in 1977 when he was elected mayor of Cleveland at age 31; the youngest person ever elected to lead a major American city. In 1978, Cleveland’s banks demanded that he sell the city’s 70 year-old municipally-owned electric system to its private competitor (in which the banks had a financial interest) as a precondition of extending credit to city government. Kucinich refused to sell Muny Light. In an incident unprecedented in modern American politics, the Cleveland banks plunged the city into default for a mere $15 million. Kucinich lost his re-election bid in 1979. Fifteen years later, Kucinich made his first step toward a political comeback, winning election to the Ohio Senate on the strength of the expansion of the city’s light system which provides low-cost power to almost half the residents of Cleveland. In 1998 the Cleveland City Council honored him for, “having the courage and foresight to refuse to sell the city’s municipal electric system.” (More on battle over Cleveland power)

Kucinich was born in Cleveland, Ohio on October 8, 1946. He is the eldest of 7 children of Frank and Virginia Kucinich. He and his family lived in twenty-one places, including a couple of cars, by the time Kucinich was 17 years old. “I live each day with a grateful heart and a desire to be of service to humanity,” he says.

Kucinich has promoted a national health care system, preservation of Social Security, increased Unemployment Insurance benefits, and the establishment of wholesales cost-based rates for electricity, natural gas and home heating oil. When the Supreme Court ruled that mandatory arbitration could be a condition of employment, Kucinich introduced a bill to reverse the Court’s decision.

In his Cleveland, Ohio district, Kucinich has been recognized by the Greater Cleveland AFL-CIO as a tireless advocate for the social and economic interests of his community. He is currently leading a civic crusade to save Cleveland’s 90 year-old steel industry and the thousands of jobs and retiree benefits it provides. While hundreds of community hospitals have been closed throughout the country, Kucinich led a powerful citizens’ movement which reopened two Cleveland neighborhood hospitals. He was prepared to block a railroad merger at the Surface Transportation Board until he gained an agreement from the nation’s largest railroads which improved rail safety while diverting a heavy volume of train traffic away from heavily populated residential areas. His promotion of rail safety improvements gained him the top award from the Ohio PTA in 2000. His efforts on behalf of Cleveland’s poor gained the recognition of the National Association of Social Workers. He continues to be a local and national advocate for the homeless.

Congressman Kucinich acts upon his belief that protection of the global environment is fundamental to preserving the life of all species. He has been honored by Public Citizen, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and the League of Conservation Voters as a champion of clean air, clean water and an unspoiled earth. He was an early critic of nuclear power as being risky economically, and environmentally, raising questions about nuclear waste byproducts. As a state senator he raised so many questions about a planned siting of a nuclear waste dump in Ohio that the idea was eventually scrapped. Early in his first term in Congress he thwarted an effort to repeal a provision of the Clean Air Act. As a congressional representative to the global climate treaty talks, Congressman Kucinich encouraged America to lead the way toward a sustainable, shared stewardship of the planet through carbon reduction, and investment in alternative energy technologies.

He not only believes in sustainability, he practices it. Congressman Kucinich is one of the few vegans in Congress, a dietary decision he credits not only with improving his health, but in deepening his belief in the sacredness of all species. In the 106th Congress, his call for labeling and safety testing of all genetically engineered foods provoked a $50 million advertising campaign by the biotech industry. Kucinich hosted an international parliamentary session, attended by officials of 18 countries, on the social, economic, political and health impact of genetic food technologies. More recently he was one of the principal speakers at an international conference on water rights, where he called for governments to reserve public ownership of water resources. Kucinich is a dynamic, visionary leader who combines a powerful activism with a spiritual sense of the essential interconnectedness of all living things. His holistic worldview carries with it a passionate commitment to public service, peace, human rights, workers rights, and the environment. His advocacy of a Department of Peace seeks not only to make nonviolence an organizing principle in our society, but to make war archaic. His is a powerful, ethical voice for nuclear disarmament, preservation of the ABM treaty, banning weapons in outer space, and a halt to the development of a ‘Star Wars’ - type missile defense technology.

He has been recognized for his advocacy of human rights in Burma, Nigeria and East Timor. Together with the late Rep. Joe Moakley (D-Mass), he has led a concerted effort to close the School of the Americas, which has been an incubator of human rights violations in Central America. On the eve of the World Trade Organization’s Seattle conference, Rep. Kucinich organized 114 Democrats to help convince President Clinton to seek human rights, workers rights and environmental quality principles as preconditions in all US trade agreements. Kucinich marched with workers through the streets of Seattle protesting the WTO’s policies and with students through the streets of Washington, DC, challenging the structural readjustment policies of the IMF.

Dennis Kucinich is the 2003 recipient of the Gandhi Peace Award (see US Presidential Candidate Receives Gandhi Peace Award).

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has been widely recognized for his leadership and accomplishments as a public servant and in private enterprise.

Elected in 2002, Governor Romney presided over a dramatic reversal of state fortunes and a period of sustained economic expansion. Without raising taxes or increasing debt, Governor Romney balanced the budget every year of his administration, closing a nearly $3 billion budget gap inherited when he took office. By eliminating waste, streamlining the government, and enacting comprehensive economic reforms to stimulate growth in Massachusetts, Romney got the economy moving again and transformed deficits into surpluses.

At the beginning of Governor Romney’s term, Massachusetts was losing thousands of jobs every month. By the time he left office, the unemployment rate was lower, hundreds of companies had expanded or moved to Massachusetts and the state had added approximately 60,000 jobs from the low point of the recession.

One of Governor Romney’s top priorities was reforming the education system so that young people could compete for good paying jobs in the global economy of the future. In 2004, Governor Romney established the John and Abigail Adams Scholarship Program to reward the top 25 percent of Massachusetts high school students with a four-year, tuition-free scholarship to any Massachusetts public university or college. He has also championed a package of education reforms, including merit pay, an emphasis on math and science instruction, important new intervention programs for failing schools and English immersion for foreign-speaking students.

In 2006, Governor Romney proposed and signed into law a private, market-based reform that ensures every Massachusetts citizen will have health insurance, without a government takeover and without raising taxes.

Governor Romney was elected to the Chairmanship of the Republican Governors Association by his fellow Governors for the 2006 election cycle, and raised a record $27 million for candidates running in State House contests around the country.

Romney first gained national recognition for his role in turning around the 2002 Winter Olympics. With the 2002 Games mired in controversy and facing a financial crisis, Romney left behind a successful career as an entrepreneur to take over as President and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee.

Governor Romney has said he felt compelled to assume the seemingly impossible task of rescuing the Games by both the urgings of his wife, Ann, and by the memory of his father, George Romney, who had been a successful businessman, three-term Governor of Michigan, and a tireless advocate of volunteerism in America.

In his three years at the helm in Salt Lake, Romney erased a $379 million operating deficit, organized 23,000 volunteers, galvanized community spirit and oversaw an unprecedented security mobilization just months after the September 11th attacks, leading to one of the most successful Olympics in our country’s history.

Prior to his Olympic service, Mitt Romney enjoyed a successful career helping businesses grow and improve their operations. From 1978 to 1984, Mr. Romney was a Vice President at Bain & Company, Inc., a leading management consulting firm. In 1984, Romney founded Bain Capital, one of the nation’s most successful venture capital and investment companies. Bain Capital helped launch hundreds of companies on a successful course, including Staples, Bright Horizons Family Solutions, Domino’s Pizza, Sealy, Brookstone, and The Sports Authority. He was asked to return to Bain & Company as CEO several years later in order to lead a financial restructuring of the organization. Today, Bain & Company employs more than 2,000 people in 25 offices worldwide.

Governor Romney has been deeply involved in community and civic affairs, serving extensively in his church and numerous charities including City Year, the Boy Scouts, and the Points of Light Foundation. He was also the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in 1994.

Governor Romney received his B.A., with Highest Honors, from Brigham Young University in 1971. In 1975, he was awarded an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was named a Baker Scholar, and a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School.

Governor

New Mexico is a beautiful state and home to some of the friendliest people (and some of the best food) you’ll find anywhere in the world.

But when Bill and Barbara Richardson returned to New Mexico, the state was struggling: unemployment was high, the economy was stagnant, schools were underperforming, and the government was stuck in gridlock.

In 2002 Bill Richardson decided to run for Governor to help improve the state that had been his home for decades.

Bill ran as the guy who was going to make a difference. He covered every inch of the state and talked to people in every corner of New Mexico; Bill even broke the world record for handshakes at the New Mexico State Fair. People began to realize that this was the guy who could make a difference — and he was elected in a landslide in a three-way race.

With an aggressive, hands-on approach, Bill has focused on results — and leading New Mexico in a new, positive direction. Over 80,000 new jobs have been created, and unemployment is the lowest it has been in 30 years. Personal income is rising at near record levels. Teacher pay and standards have risen, and the overall quality of the schools has gone up accordingly. Tax cuts have sparked economic growth. Bill balanced the budget for five years in a row and our rainy day funds have grown by over $4 billion.

Furthermore the state has seen these improvements while at the same time making sure that working families are protected. New Mexico now offers health insurance to every child under five years old. The minimum wage was increased. Tax relief has been passed that focuses on putting people to work and investing in renewable energy development.

And every tax cut and fiscal initiative has been achieved while standing with labor unions and by working families. One of Governor Richardson’s first acts was to reinstate collective bargaining. The prevailing wage is a union wage and New Mexico now has the first public works labor agreement in the state’s history.

Under Bill Richardson’s leadership New Mexico has also become the Clean Energy State. Just this year, Bill signed a law requiring state utilities to quadruple their use of renewable energy. The state’s wind, solar and biofuels industries are booming — creating hundreds of new jobs. And New Mexico has some of the country’s toughest greenhouse gas reduction goals.

George Bush might not want the United States to follow the Kyoto Treaty, but that hasn’t kept New Mexico from being on track to exceed Kyoto in the coming years.

But Bill hasn’t been content to just focus on domestic issues — he has continued his diplomatic missions when called upon.

Just before his first inauguration Governor Richardson received a call from one of the North Korean ambassadors to the United Nations. A delegation of North Korean leaders wanted to come to Santa Fe to meet with Bill Richardson — they wanted to know how they were supposed to work with a President who thought that “Axis of Evil” was a bargaining position. Bill and the North Koreans tried to reach an agreement on nuclear disarmament, but were ultimately frustrated by the lack of diplomatic willingness on the part of the Bush administration.

In September of 2006, Governor Richardson travelled to Sudan to negotiate the release of Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Paul Salopek. Governor Richardson had first travelled to Sudan in 1996 when he met with Sudanese President al-Bashir, and Sudanese rebels, to secure the release of Red Cross workers who had been taken hostage. When Bill heard that Salopek, a fellow New Mexican, had been arrested and falsely charged with spying, he knew he had to do something. After meeting with the Sudanese ambassador in Washington, D.C., Bill flew to Sudan and met with al-Bashir. Governor Richardson successfully negotiated Salopek’s safe return to New Mexico — an act which Salopek and his wife say saved his life.

Bill’s experiences in Sudan led the Save Darfur coalition to ask him to travel to Sudan in January of 2007. Governor Richardson toured refugee camps and met with President al-Bashir and Darfuri rebels; at the end of his visit he brokered a fragile cease fire. The world has failed to stop the Darfur genocide. When Bill Richardson is President he will make Darfur a top priority and bring peace to that troubled country.

In April of 2007, Bill traveled to North Korea to retrieve the bodies of American servicemen who had died during the Korean War. While in North Korea he brought up the issue of nuclear disarmament, and is confident that there is a diplomatic solution to the North Korean confrontation.

The people of New Mexico have responded to Bill Richardson’s commitment to improving their lives and fighting for what’s right. In 2006 Bill was reelected with almost 70% of the vote — and with almost 40% of the Republican vote!

Bill is running for President because he wants to makes a difference, and because he has the experience and record of accomplishment necessary to bring this country together. America needs leadership that can bridge the divides in this country and get to work focusing on the issues that are really important. Bill has experience dealing with health care, creating jobs, improving schools and fighting global warming.

The next few years are going to be a turning point for America and the world. It’s time for a President who has the ability and the experience to lead us through the coming trials — and to unite us so we can face the challenges that lie ahead.

Growing Up

Bill Richardson’s early childhood was characterized by an atypical biculturalism, strong family bonds, and a consistent commitment to giving back to the community.

Bill Richardson was born on November 15, 1947 in Pasadena, California to William Richardson and Maria Luisa Lopez-Collada. William Richardson was a banker who had been working in Mexico City for decades and he settled his family there shortly after Bill’s birth.

Growing up in Mexico City, Bill Richardson experienced a unique blend of American and Mexican cultures. His parents wanted to make sure their children were proud of both their countries and felt comfortable in both cultures and languages. Hamburgers and hotdogs were served on the Fourth of July, and parties were held on September 16th, Mexican Independence Day.

William and Maria expected great things from Bill and his younger sister Vesta. Governor Richardson attributes his work ethic and striving nature to the lessons his parents taught him. “My father made it very simple, he used to say, ‘If you’re going to do something, be the best at it, that usually means you have to work harder than everyone else.’”

Vesta and Bill also learned that giving something back to your community was part of what it meant to be successful. These lessons have driven Vesta’s career as a successful pediatrician in Mexico, and have been a constant stream in Bill’s life of public service as Congressman, Energy Secretary, UN Ambassador and Governor of New Mexico.

In 1961 a young Bill Richardson left his family in Mexico City to attend high school in Massachusetts. It was tough for teenage Bill to be the new different looking kid at his school�he was the only Hispanic student there. But with the help of a coveted slot on the Varsity baseball team, and a few good friends, he began to bridge the divide between these two worlds.

Barbara Flavin and her family lived across the street from the school, and they had heard about the new student from Mexico with a vicious breaking ball. One afternoon Barbara saw Bill walking out of town. She offered him a ride back to school. The next January, Bill left a sombrero and a love note on her porch. They were married in 1972.

Bill followed in his father’s footsteps and entered Tufts University in Boston in 1966. His interest in politics was sparked while on a school trip to Washington, D.C. during which Senator Hubert Humphrey stopped to talk to Bill and his classmates about American values and the power of public service. Governor Richardson calls this a turning point in his political awareness: “Senator Humphrey was a proud Democrat and presented his convictions with such strength, that I began to realize how a progressive vision could change the world.”

Congress

The newlyweds Bill and Barbara Richardson headed to Washington, D.C. after college. Bill worked on Capitol Hill and began to understand how politics could create positive change. After a few years in D.C., the Richardsons decided it was time to move west � to New Mexico.

Once he arrived in New Mexico, Bill worked as a staffer for the local Democratic Party and taught Government at a Santa Fe Community College. In 1980, Bill entered his first campaign to challenge Republican Manuel Lujan in New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District. That first campaign taught Bill the basics of campaigning: he worked for months, and shook practically every hand in Northern New Mexico, he pulled together a grassroots organization that had the support of many local leaders and motivated the Hispanic electorate like never before. And he lost by less than one percent.

But he tried again, and two years later 35 year old Bill Richardson became one of the youngest freshman Congressmen of the class of 1982. He represented the newly created 3rd Congressional District, one of the nation’s most diverse.

Congressman Richardson got straight to work for the people of New Mexico, and was known for holding more town-hall meetings with his constituents than any other Congressman�over 2,500 eventually. Reflecting the values his parents had instilled decades before, Bill wanted to make a difference, not just for the people in New Mexico, but for the whole country.

From his position on the Energy and Commerce committee he proposed an amendment to the Clean Air Act that mandated cleaner gasoline�a law that has made a significant contribution in the fight against pollution and global warming.

Bill Richardson has always fought for environmental protections, and when he was in Congress he also led the fight to protect and preserve thousands of acres of New Mexico’s wilderness. After the Exxon Valdez spill, Congressman Richardson also encouraged research into preventing oil spills with his contributions to the Oil Pollution Prevention Act.

Bill spent fourteen years in Congress and also sat on the Interior Committee and the House Select Committee on Intelligence; he was also Chair of the Hispanic Caucus and was later picked as Chief Deputy Whip.

Congressman Richardson’s position on the Interior Committee allowed him to fight for one of New Mexico’s, and one of the country’s, most underserved populations�Native Americans.

New Mexico has a substantial population of Native Americans and is home to dozens of tribes, pueblos and reservations. For too long, politicians had been breaking promises made to Native Americans, and Bill was determined to change this. The Interior Committee focuses on the environment, land use, water, and Indian affairs�all issues of great importance to New Mexicans, and the entire Mountain West. As Congressman and Governor, Bill Richardson has been committed to working with Native Americans to protect their land and improve their quality of life. Bill returned important tribal land to local control, sponsored or cosponsored legislation that improved tribal health care and schools and sparked economic development. Bill was also the first chairman of the newly created Subcommittee on Native American Affairs. As Congressman Richardson so colorfully put it, �the Indians had been getting screwed by the United States Government for two centuries. I couldn’t even the score, but I could try to do what was right.�

Chief Deputy Whip Richardson worked tirelessly to pass legislation, and always kept an open door policy. He worked with members of both parties to build support for bills and keep Congress moving forward. During the 103rd Congress (1993-1994) he introduced 56 bills and 17 of them became law, accounting for 7% of all legislation that became law that year.

Diplomacy

Bill has gone toe-to-toe with some of the world’s toughest characters — Saddam Hussein, North Korean generals, Burmese military leaders, Sudanese President al-Bashir and Fidel Castro — to name a few. Presidents, Secretaries of State, and Prime Ministers soon came to know Bill as the go-to guy for tough hostage negotiations.

In 1994, Bill was on a fact-finding mission in North Korea when he learned that the North Koreans shot down a U.S. Army helicopter that had strayed into their airspace. President Clinton asked Bill to stay in North Korea until he got the soldiers out, and he went right to work. After days of tense discussions and stonewalling by the North Koreans, the world learned that pilot David Hilemon died when the helicopter went down, but that Bobby Hall, his co-pilot, was fine. Richardson refused to leave North Korea until he secured Hilemon’s remains, and Bobby Hall was released a few weeks later.

The next year, two American contractors got lost in the Iraqi desert by mistakenly crossing the border and were arrested as spies by Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard. The negotiations weren’t going well and Bill was sent to see what he could do. Bill met with Iraq’s Ambassador to the United Nations, and Tariq Aziz, Iraq’s foreign minister — but the discussions kept stalling. Saddam would make the final decision, so a resolution depended on Bill’s ability to negotiate a meeting and convince Saddam himself to release the hostages.

Bill traveled to Baghdad and met with Saddam and Aziz in one of the Royal Palaces. Saddam kept stalling for concessions and refused to consider release at first, but Bill eventually convinced Saddam to do the right thing. The two Americans were released to Bill and were home days later.

Governor Richardson knows the Middle East, and he knows diplomacy can work there — he has done it before. Bill’s understanding of the Middle East, and his belief in international diplomacy, have come together to form Bill’s plan for Iraq. He knows that the only way to begin to stabilize Iraq, and the entire region, is for all American troops to be withdrawn. Once we are completely out of Iraq, then the hard diplomatic work must begin. (Click here to read more about Bill’s 7 Point Plan for Iraq.)

Every time Bill would go on one of his diplomatic international adventures his mother would ask him, “Why do you have to go Billy? Can’t they find someone else?” Bill Richardson has never been content to leave the hard work to someone else. It surprised some outside observers that a relatively young Congressman from New Mexico would be the one to travel around the world, put his life on the line and negotiate with dictators. But those who know Bill Richardson know that he’s always trying to focus on how to make the biggest difference — not just for his constituents at home, but for people around the world.

Governor Richardson’s diplomatic missions have given him valuable first-hand experiences in some of the world’s most dangerous places — and in areas that America must focus on as we move deeper into the 21st century.

Hillary was raised in a middle-class family in the middle of America. From that classic suburban childhood in Park Ridge, Illinois, Hillary went on to become one of America’s foremost advocates for children and families; an attorney twice voted one of the most influential in America; a First Lady of Arkansas who helped transform the schools; a bestselling author; a First Lady for America who helped transform that role, becoming a champion for health care and families at home and a champion of women’s rights and human rights around the world.

Since her path-breaking election to the United States Senate, Hillary has been a steadfast advocate for middle-class families, working to help create jobs, expand children’s health care and protect Social Security from privatization. As the Senator representing New York after 9/11, Hillary has fought to strengthen our approach to homeland security and to improve our communications and intelligence operations. As the first New Yorker ever named to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Hillary has been a tough critic of the administration’s bungling of Iraq and a fierce advocate for proper equipment, health benefits, and treatment for military families.

The promise of America was very real as Hillary was growing up. She learned that no matter who you are or where you’re from, if you worked hard and played by the rules, you could provide a good life for your family.

Hillary’s father, Hugh Rodham, was the son of a factory worker from Scranton, Pennsylvania. He trained sailors in the Navy during World War II and then returned to Illinois to start a small business selling draperies. He taught Hillary both a deep sense of patriotism and a strong belief in fiscal responsibility. He never took a dime of credit and was so frugal that he used to turn the heat off overnight during the winter to save money, waking up early to turn it back on so the house would be warm when everyone woke up.

Hillary’s mother, Dorothy, the daughter of a firefighter, had a tough childhood. Her parents were young and felt unable to care for their children. So when Dorothy was just eight, she and her three-year-old sister traveled alone on a four-day train ride to Los Angeles. There they were raised by a strict grandmother. It was not until Dorothy was a teenager and worked as a helper to another family that she finally knew what a loving family could be. The stories of her mother’s difficult childhood imbued in Hillary a fierce sense of justice and a belief that no child should be mistreated and that every child deserves to be loved.

The life that Hugh and Dorothy created for Hillary and her two brothers was a classic 1950s middle-class suburban childhood. Park Ridge in those days was the kind of place where everyone left their doors unlocked and the neighborhood kids all played on the block together. Hillary was a Brownie and then a Girl Scout. She started her political life as a Republican, like her father. She even volunteered as a Goldwater girl!

Faith was central to her family. Her mother taught Sunday school, and Hillary was a regular in her church youth group. She was deeply influenced by her youth minister who taught her about “faith in action.” There were trips to the inner city, babysitting for the children of migrant farm workers, and an extraordinary night when Hillary was fourteen and her youth group went to hear a speech by Martin Luther King Jr.

Hillary went to Wellesley College, where she was chosen by her classmates to be the first-ever student commencement speaker. She talked about the tumultuous times that her generation was living through and said, “The challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible.”

Next came Yale Law School, where Hillary focused on questions about how the law affected children and began her decades of work as an advocate for children and families. As a law student, Hillary represented foster children and parents in family court and worked on some of the earliest studies creating legal standards for identifying and protecting abused children. Following graduation, she became a staff attorney for the Children’s Defense Fund.

After serving as only one of two women lawyers on the staff of the House Judiciary Committee considering the impeachment of Richard Nixon, Hillary chose not to pursue offers from major law firms. Instead she followed her heart and a man named Bill Clinton to Arkansas. They married in 1975 and their daughter Chelsea was born in 1980.

Hillary ran a legal aid clinic for the poor when she first got to Arkansas and handled cases of foster care and child abuse. Years later, she organized a group called Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. When she was just 30, President Carter appointed her to the board of the United States Legal Services Corporation, a federal nonprofit program that funds legal assistance for the poor.

When Bill was elected Governor of Arkansas, Hillary continued to advocate for children, leading a task force to improve education in Arkansas through higher standards for schools and serving on the board of the Arkansas Children’s Hospital, helping them expand and improve their services. She also served on national boards for the Children’s Defense Fund, the Child Care Action Campaign, and the Children’s Television Workshop.

She also continued her legal career as a partner in a law firm. She led the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession, which played a pioneering role in raising awareness of issues like sexual harassment and equal pay. Hillary was twice named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America.

When her husband was elected President in 1992, Hillary’s work as a champion for women was recognized and admired around the world. She traveled the globe speaking out against the degradation and abuse of women and standing up for the powerful idea that women’s rights are human rights.

In the White House, Hillary led efforts to make adoption easier, to expand early learning and child care, to increase funding for breast cancer research, and to help veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome who had too often been ignored in the past. She helped launch a national campaign to prevent teen pregnancy and helped create the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, which moved children from foster care to adoption more quickly. Thanks in part to her efforts, the number of children who have moved out of foster care into adoption has increased dramatically.

As everyone knows, Hillary’s fight for universal health coverage did not succeed. But her commitment to health care for every American has never wavered. She was instrumental in designing and championing the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which has provided millions of children with health insurance. She battled the big drug companies to force them to test their drugs for children and to make sure all kids get the immunizations they need through the Vaccines for Children Program. Immunization rates dramatically improved after the program launched.

Hillary’s 1995 book It Takes A Village, about the responsibility we all have to help children succeed, became an international best seller. Hillary has donated the proceeds — more than a million dollars — to children’s causes across the country.

Hillary’s autobiography, Living History, was also a best seller. It has been translated into 12 languages and sold over 1.3 million copies.

In 2000, Hillary was elected to the United States Senate from New York. As Senator, Hillary has continued her advocacy for children and families and has been a national leader on homeland security and national security issues.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Hillary worked with her colleagues to secure the funds New York needed to recover and rebuild. She fought to provide compensation to the families of the victims, grants for hard-hit small businesses, and health care for front line workers at Ground Zero. And she continues to work for resources that enable New York to grow, to improve homeland security for New York and other communities, and to protect all Americans from future attacks.

She is the first New Yorker ever to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee, working to see that America’s military has the necessary resources to protect our national security. She has visited troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and at Fort Drum in New York, home of the 10th Mountain Division and other New York bases, as well as at Walter Reed Military Hospital. She has learned first-hand the challenges facing American combat forces. Hillary passed legislation to track the health status of our troops so that conditions like Gulf War Syndrome would no longer be misdiagnosed. She is an original sponsor of legislation that expanded health benefits to members of the National Guard and Reserves and has been a strong critic of the Administration’s handling of Iraq.

But Hillary has recognized that we can’t ignore our problems at home while we face challenges overseas. She has introduced legislation to tie Congressional salary increases to an increase in the minimum wage, because she believes if America’s working people don’t deserve a raise, neither does Congress. She has supported a variety of middle-class tax cuts, including marriage penalty relief, property tax relief, and reduction in the Alternative Minimum Tax, and supports fiscally responsible pay-as-you-go budget rules. She helped pass legislation that encouraged investment to create jobs in struggling communities through the Renewal Communities program. She has championed legislation to bring broadband Internet access, which is so important in today’s information economy, to rural America.

In the Senate, Hillary has not wavered in her work to expand quality affordable health care to more Americans. She worked to strengthen the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which increased coverage for children in low income and working families. She authored legislation that has been enacted to improve quality and lower the cost of prescription drugs and to protect our food supply from bioterrorism. She sponsored legislation to increase America’s commitment to fighting the global HIV/AIDS crisis, and is now leading the fight for expanded use of information technology in the health care system to decrease administrative costs, lower premiums, and reduce medical errors.

Her strong advocacy for children continues in the Senate. Some of Hillary’s proudest achievements have been her work to ensure the safety of prescription drugs for children, with legislation now included in the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act, and her legislation to help schools address environmental hazards. She has also proposed expanding access to child care. She has passed legislation that will bring more qualified teachers into classrooms and more outstanding principals to lead our schools.

Hillary has been a powerful advocate for women in the Senate. Her commitment to supporting the rights guaranteed in Roe v. Wade and to reducing the number of abortions by reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies was hailed by the New York Times as “frank talk…(and) a promising path.” Hillary is one of the original cosponsors of the Prevention First Act to increase access to family planning. Her fight with the Bush Administration ensured that Plan B, an emergency contraceptive, will be available to millions of American women and will reduce the need for abortions.

Hillary is strongly committed to making sure that every American has the right to vote in fair, accessible, and credible elections. She introduced the Count Every Vote Act of 2005 to ensure better protection of votes and to ensure that every vote is counted.

In 2006, New Yorkers reelected Hillary to the Senate with 67 percent of the vote.

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4th, 1961. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was born and raised in a small village in Kenya, where he grew up herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic servant to the British.

Barack’s mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in small-town Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs during the Depression, and then signed up for World War II after Pearl Harbor, where he marched across Europe in Patton’s army. Her mother went to work on a bomber assembly line, and after the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved west to Hawaii.

It was there, at the University of Hawaii, where Barack’s parents met. His mother was a student there, and his father had won a scholarship that allowed him to leave Kenya and pursue his dreams in America.

Barack’s father eventually returned to Kenya, and Barack grew up with his mother in Hawaii, and for a few years in Indonesia. Later, he moved to New York, where he graduated from Columbia University in 1983.

Remembering the values of empathy and service that his mother taught him, Barack put law school and corporate life on hold after college and moved to Chicago in 1985, where he became a community organizer with a church-based group seeking to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued with crime and high unemployment.

The group had some success, but Barack had come to realize that in order to truly improve the lives of people in that community and other communities, it would take not just a change at the local level, but a change in our laws and in our politics.

He went on to earn his law degree from Harvard in 1991, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. Soon after, he returned to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer and teach constitutional law. Finally, his advocacy work led him to run for the Illinois State Senate, where he served for eight years. In 2004, he became the third African American since Reconstruction to be elected to the U.S. Senate.

It has been the rich and varied experiences of Barack Obama’s life - growing up in different places with people who had differing ideas - that have animated his political journey. Amid the partisanship and bickering of today’s public debate, he still believes in the ability to unite people around a politics of purpose - a politics that puts solving the challenges of everyday Americans ahead of partisan calculation and political gain.

In the Illinois State Senate, this meant working with both Democrats and Republicans to help working families get ahead by creating programs like the state Earned Income Tax Credit, which in three years provided over $100 million in tax cuts to families across the state. He also pushed through an expansion of early childhood education, and after a number of inmates on death row were found innocent, Senator Obama worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.

In the U.S. Senate, he has focused on tackling the challenges of a globalized, 21st century world with fresh thinking and a politics that no longer settles for the lowest common denominator. His first law was passed with Republican Tom Coburn, a measure to rebuild trust in government by allowing every American to go online and see how and where every dime of their tax dollars is spent. He has also been the lead voice in championing ethics reform that would root out Jack Abramoff-style corruption in Congress.

As a member of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Senator Obama has fought to help Illinois veterans get the disability pay they were promised, while working to prepare the VA for the return of the thousands of veterans who will need care after Iraq and Afghanistan. Recognizing the terrorist threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, he traveled to Russia with Republican Dick Lugar to begin a new generation of non-proliferation efforts designed to find and secure deadly weapons around the world. And knowing the threat we face to our economy and our security from America’s addiction to oil, he’s working to bring auto companies, unions, farmers, businesses and politicians of both parties together to promote the greater use of alternative fuels and higher fuel standards in our cars.

Whether it’s the poverty exposed by Katrina, the genocide in Darfur, or the role of faith in our politics, Barack Obama continues to speak out on the issues that will define America in the 21st century. But above all his accomplishments and experiences, he is most proud and grateful for his family. His wife, Michelle, and his two daughters, Malia, 8, and Sasha, 6, live on Chicago’s South Side where they attend Trinity United Church of Christ.

John McCain has a remarkable record of leadership and experience that embodies his unwavering lifetime commitment to service. First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona in 1982, John has led the fight for reforming Washington, eliminating wasteful government spending, and strengthening our nation’s armed forces.

John McCain’s reform agenda to reduce federal spending and lower taxes quickly elevated him to statewide office and he was elected to the United States Senate in 1986, after serving two terms in the U.S. House.

In the Senate, John continued to demand that Congress put an end to loopholes for special interests and fix the broken system in Washington that too often allows lobbyists to write legislation and members of Congress to waste taxpayer money. In November 2004, Senator McCain was overwhelmingly reelected with nearly 77 percent of the vote.

As the son and grandson of distinguished Navy admirals, John McCain deeply values duty, honor and service of country. John attended college at the United States Naval Academy, and launched a 22-year career as a naval aviator upon his graduation. He continued the McCain tradition of service to country passed down to him from his father and grandfather when he asked to serve in the Vietnam War.

On July 29 1967, John narrowly survived the first of many near-death experiences during his lifetime while preparing to take off on a bombing mission over North Vietnam from his ship, the USS Forrestal. A missile accidentally fired from a nearby plane struck the fuel tanks on John’s plane and created a deadly inferno aboard the ship. John barely escaped the fiery disaster that killed 134 men, injured hundreds more and destroyed 20 planes.

Instead of taking the option to return home after the Forrestal disaster, Senator McCain volunteered for more combat duty - a fateful decision that stopped the clock on his life and separated him from his family, and country, for five and a half years.

During his 23rd bombing mission on October 26, 1967, a missile struck John’s plane and forced him to eject, knocking him unconscious and breaking both his arms and his leg. John was then taken as a prisoner of war into the now infamous “Hanoi Hilton,” where he was denied necessary medical treatment and often beaten by the North Vietnamese.

John spent much of his time as a prisoner of war in solitary confinement, aided by his faith and the friendships of his fellow POWs. When he was finally released and able to return home years later, John continued his service by regaining his naval flight status.

Senator McCain’s last Navy duty assignment was to serve as the naval liaison to the United States Senate. John retired from the Navy in 1981. His naval honors include the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart, and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Senator McCain has seven children and four grandchildren, and currently lives in Phoenix, Arizona with his wife Cindy.