2008 Democratic National Convention

The United States 2008 Democratic National Convention was a quadrennial presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party where it adopted its national platform and officially nominated its candidates for President and Vice President. The convention was held in Denver, Colorado, from August 25 to August 28, 2008, at Pepsi Center. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, gave his acceptance speech on August 28 at Invesco Field in what the party called an "Open Convention". Denver last hosted the Democratic National Convention in 1908. Obama became the party's first African-American nominee for President. Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, was nominated for Vice President.

Obama officially received the nomination for President on August 27, when his former opponent, U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, interrupted the official roll call to move that Obama be selected by acclamation. U.S. Senator Joe Biden of Delaware accepted the nomination for Vice President on the same night. Obama accepted his nomination the following night in a speech at INVESCO Field before a record-setting crowd of 84,000 people in attendance.

Democratic National Convention

The Democratic National Convention (DNC) is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 1852 national convention. The primary goal of the Democratic National Convention is to nominate and confirm a candidate for president and vice president, adopt a comprehensive party platform and unify the party.

Delegates from all fifty U.S. states and from American dependencies and territories such as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands attend the convention and cast their votes to choose the Party's presidential candidate. Like the Republican National Convention, the Democratic National Convention marks the formal end of the primary election period and the start of the general election season.

Candidate nomination

The party's presidential nominee is chosen in a series of individual state caucuses and primary elections. Superdelegates, delegates whose votes are not bound to the outcome of a state's caucus or primary, may also influence the nomination. Due to the scheduling of caucuses and primary elections early in the election year, the party's presidential nominee is usually known months before the Democratic National Convention.

National Convention

The National Convention (French: Convention nationale) was a single-chamber assembly in France from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 (4 Brumaire IV under the Convention's adopted calendar) during the French Revolution. It succeeded the Legislative Assembly and founded the First Republic after the insurrection of 10 August 1792. The Legislative Assembly decreed the provisional suspension of King Louis XVI and the convocation of a National Convention which was to draw up a constitution. At the same time it was decided that deputies to that convention should be elected by all Frenchmen twenty-five years old or more, domiciled for a year and living by the product of their labor. The National Convention was therefore the first French assembly elected by universal male suffrage, without distinctions of class.

Elections

The election took place from 2 to 6 September 1792 after the election of the electoral colleges by primary assemblies on 26 August. Owing to the abstention of aristocrats and anti-republicans and the fear of victimization the voter turnout in the departments was low – 11.9% of the electorate, compared to 10.2% in the 1791 elections, in spite of the fact that that the number of eligible to vote had doubled. Therefore, universal suffrage had very little impact. On the whole, the electorate returned the same sort of men that the active citizens had chosen in 1791.

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II (US ⁱ/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician serving as the 44th President of the United States, the first African American to hold the office. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney and taught constitutional law at University of Chicago Law School between 1992 and 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, and ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for the United States House of Representatives in 2000 against incumbent Bobby Rush.

In 2004, Obama received national attention during his campaign to represent Illinois in the United States Senate with his victory in the March Democratic Party primary, his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July, and his election to the Senate in November. He began his presidential campaign in 2007 and, after a close primary campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008, he won sufficient delegates in the Democratic Party primaries to receive the presidential nomination. He then defeated Republican nominee John McCain in the general election, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months after his inauguration, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Roll Call

Roll Call is a newspaper published in Washington, D.C., United States, from Monday to Friday when the United States Congress is in session and on Mondays only during recess. Roll Call reports news of legislative and political maneuverings on Capitol Hill, as well as political coverage of congressional elections across the country. In addition to breaking news, the paper features analysts such as Morton M. Kondracke, Stuart Rothenberg and David Hawkings. RollCall.com, the online version of the newspaper, features breaking news stories and daily e-mail alerts and award winning photojournalism.

Roll Call was founded in 1955 by Sid Yudain, who was working as a press secretary to Congressman Al Morano (R-Conn.) at the time. Yudain published the inaugural issue on June 16, 1955, with an initial printing of 10,000 copies. In 1986, Yudain sold Roll Call to Arthur Levitt, who was the chairman of the American Stock Exchange at the time of the sale. Yudain continued to work as a columnist at Roll Call after the sale.The Economist Group acquired Roll Call in 1993.