John McCain (born 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona and presidential nominee of the Republican Party in the 2008 United States presidential election. During the Vietnam War, he nearly lost his life in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. In October 1967, he was shot down and held as a prisoner of war until 1973, experiencing episodes of torture; his war wounds have left him with lifelong physical limitations. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, he served two terms, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, and was re-elected in 1992, 1998, and 2004.
Barack Obama (born 1961) is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2008 United States presidential election. Obama is the first African American to be nominated for president by a major political party. Obama graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, serving as the president of the Harvard Law Review. He served three terms in the Illinois Senate and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and was elected to the Senate in November 2004.