JOHN MCCAIN:

Republican Presidential candidate John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone on Aug. 29, 1936, and is 72 years old. McCain attended college at the United States Naval Academy. After his education was complete, he started a 22-year career as a naval aviator. In 1967, he began to serve in Vietnam. During October of that year, McCain’s plane was hit with a missile, causing him to eject from the plane. He became unconscious, broke his arms and legs, then was taken as a POW by the Northern Vietnamese for nearly six years. After he was released, McCain came back to the United States. Shortly after his return, he divorced his first wife. Since then, he has married Cindy McCain. McCain has seven children, four of them with his second wife Cindy. They have four grandchildren togehter.



BARACK OBAMA:

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961, and is 47 years old. He grew up with his mother in Hawaii and for a few years in Indonesia. In his later years, Obama moved to New York, where he graduated from Columbia University in 1983. After graduating from Columbia, Obama moved to Chicago and became a community organizer in a church group to help improve living conditions in the city. He went on to earn a degree in law from Harvard in 1991 and became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. After completing Harvard, Obama returned to Chicago. Once he returned he began to practice civil law and taught constitutional law. In 2004, Obama became a U.S. Senator. He is married to Michelle Obama. They have two daughters, Malia and Sasha.

SARAH PALIN:

Republican Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Heath Palin was born in Sandpoint, Idaho, on Feb. 11, 1964, and is 44 years old. Shortly after she was born, her family moved to Skagway, Alaska. She graduated from the University of Idaho with a Bachelor of Science Degree in communications-journalism. In December of 2006, she became the first woman governor of Alaska. Gov. Palin is the chair of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission and was recently named chair of the NGA Natural Resource Committee. Gov. Palin has five children: Track, Bristol, Piper, Willow, and Trig and is married to Todd Palin.

JOSEPH BIDEN:

Democratic Vice-presidential candidate Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., was born in Scranton, PA, on Nov. 20, 1942, and is 65 years old. He moved with his family to Claymont, Delaware, in 1953. He graduated from the University of Delaware in 1965, and graduated from law school at Syracuse University in 1968. Biden then practiced law in his own firm until 1972, when he became U.S. senator. He has been an adjunct professor, teaching a seminar on constitutional law at the Widener University School of Law since 1991. Senator Biden is married to Jill Biden and has three children: Beau, Hunter and Ashley, and has five grandchildren.