Just so you know

CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENT

Robert "Bob" Laurence Barr Jr(LB)

Robert "Bob" Laurence Barr Jr. was born in Iowa City, Iowa, and now resides in Smyrna, Ga. His father was an Army officer and civil engineer, and Barr grew up largely overseas, living in countries such as Malaysia and Pakistan before graduating from high school in Iran.

Returning to the United States to attend the University of Southern California, he joined the Young Democrats and protested against the Vietnam War before having a political change of heart and becoming a Republican. He graduated in 1970, moving to Washington to study international affairs at George Washington University. While there, he was hired as an intern at the CIA and later worked as an intelligence analyst at the agency until 1978. While at the CIA, he earned a law degree at Georgetown University.

After law school, he moved to the Atlanta area, working as a lawyer and becoming active in local politics. In 1984, he ran unsuccessfully for the state House.

Two years later, President Ronald Reagan appointed him U.S. attorney for the northern district of Georgia, a position he held until 1990.

He lost a bid for U.S. Senate in 1992 before winning a seat in Congress in 1994. He held the seat until 2003.

Barr now works as an attorney and runs a public affairs and lobbying firm, Liberty Strategies LLC, headquartered in Atlanta.

He is married to his third wife, Jeri. Between them, the couple has four children.
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John S. McCain III(R)

John McCain III was born in the Panama Canal Zone where his father, Naval Admiral John McCain Jr., was stationed. He now resides in Phoenix, Ariz.

The son and grandson of Navy admirals, McCain spent more than 20 years in the Navy, a quarter of it in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp.

On Oct. 26, 1967, McCain's jet was shot down over Hanoi during a bombing mission. He broke both arms and shattered a shoulder and a knee while ejecting from the aircraft. When he landed, he was pulled from a lake by a North Vietnamese mob and stabbed with bayonets.

McCain was beaten repeatedly over the next 5 1/2 years. When his captors learned he was the son of a prominent Navy admiral, they offered to release him early. McCain refused to go along with what he saw as a propaganda ploy, and he insisted that soldiers captured before him leave first.

After retiring from the Navy, McCain moved to Arizona and in 1982 was elected to Congress, succeeding Republican Rep. John Rhodes, who retired after serving 30 years. McCain served two terms in the U.S. House before he ran successfully for the Senate in 1986.

He and his wife, Cindy, have four children together. McCain also has three children from his first marriage.
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Ralph Nader(I)

Ralph Nader was born in Winsted, Conn., the son of Lebanese immigrants.

He graduated from Princeton University in 1955 and Harvard Law School in 1958.

In 1963, then 29, Nader hitchhiked to Washington, D.C., and got a job working for then-Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He was a freelance writer for The Nation and The Christian Science Monitor and advised a Senate subcommittee on automobile safety.

In 1965 he released "Unsafe at Any Speed," a study showing many American automobiles, especially those of General Motors, to be structurally flawed.

Since then, Nader has founded several prominent consumer advocacy groups, including Public Citizen, Public Interest Research Group, Center for Auto Safety, Clean Water Action Project, Disability Rights Center, Project for Corporate Responsibility and the Center for the Study of Responsive Law.

He ran for president on the Green Party ticket in 1996 and 2000, but never drew more than 3 percent of the vote. He won just 0.3 percent as an independent in 2004. He is running for president in 2008 again as an independent.

Nader has never married.

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Barack Obama(D)

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, where his American mother and Kenyan father met while students at the University of Hawaii. His father returned to Kenya, where he became an official in the economics ministry, when Obama was 2.

He graduated from Columbia University and earned his law degree from Harvard Law School. He became the first black president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.

Obama worked as a community organizer in Chicago and he led a voter registration drive to help then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton. Obama was a senior instructor in constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. He represented a South Side district in the Illinois Senate.

He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004.

He and his wife, Michelle, who is also a Harvard Law graduate, have two daughters.

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