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The

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The Democrat

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Senator Barack Obama

The United States presidential election of 2008 will be held on November 4, 2008. The election will determine electors for the United States Electoral College, and whichever presidential candidate receives a majority of votes in the Electoral College (at least 270) will be the 44th president of the United States. If no candidate receives a majority in the Electoral College then the president-elect is selected by a vote of the House of Representatives.

As in the 2004 presidential election, the allocation of electoral votes to each state will be partially based on the 2000 Census. The president-elect will be inaugurated on Tuesday, January 20, 2009.

First election without incumbents in 80 years

When an American President leaves office, more often than not his Vice President is considered the heir apparent to replace him, at least in the eyes of his political party.

In the three most recent presidential administrations featuring an outgoing, two-term president (those of Eisenhower, Reagan, and Clinton), the incumbent vice president has immediately thereafter run for president (Richard Nixon lost the 1960 election, George H. W. Bush won the 1988 election, and Al Gore lost the 2000 election).

In the 1968 election, Lyndon Johnson, at first, decided to seek re-election. He entered the New Hampshire primary and won, but later (in a nationally televised speech) indicated that he would not seek re-election. Incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey then chose to run and was the eventual Democratic nominee.

All other recent vice presidents, such as Dan Quayle and Walter Mondale have also run for president at various times. Mondale succeeded his president, the one-term Jimmy Carter, as his party's candidate but Quayle was unsuccessful.

Yet the current Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, announced in 2001 that he would never run for president, a statement he re-iterated in 2004. While appearing on Fox News Sunday, Cheney stated: "I will say just as hard as I possibly know how to say... If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve. The 2008 race, therefore, will likely be a non-incumbent or "open seat" election in which neither the sitting President nor the sitting Vice President will be a candidate.

The 2008 race will be the first time since 1928 (80 years) that neither the sitting president nor the sitting vice president will enter a state caucus or primary and run for president. This was almost (but not quite) the case in the more recent Presidential contest in 1952. In the general election that year, the race was between Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower and Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson; earlier that year, sitting President Harry S Truman had entered the New Hampshire primary in an attempt to seek re-election. He lost to Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver and abandoned his campaign. Also in 1952, Vice President Alben Barkley sought but failed to win the Democratic nomination.

"The most expensive election in American history"

In January 2007, Federal Election Commission Chairman Michael Toner stated that the 2008 U.S. presidential race will be "the most expensive election in American history. Toner estimated that the 2008 race will be a "$1 billion election," and that to be "taken seriously," a candidate will need to raise at least $100 million by the end of 2007.

"Call it a $100 million entry fee," Toner said.

The reported cost of campaigning for President has risen significantly in recent years. One source reported that if the costs for both Democrats and Republicans campaigns are added together (for the Presidential primary election, general election, and the political conventions) the costs have more than doubled in only eight years ($448.9 million in 1996, $649.5 million in 2000, and $1,016.5 million in 2004).

The Republican

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Senator John McCain