| On October 1, Obama supported the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008", also called the "Polson's Plan" with few corrections, which also had foreseen the allocation of federal loans of 700 billion dollars owing to the bankruptcy of major banks and mortgaging agencies.
Obama met McCain three times on pre-election debates held on September 26, October 7 and 15, 2008. According to public opinion polls, Obama won in all three rounds. Unsuccessful speeches during debates and also scandal with legal investigations on the misuse of powers by Sarah Palin, the candidate for the post of vice-president from the Republican Party brought McCain down in the ratings. The important role in the rise of Obama's ratings was the support, extended by Colin Powell, former US State Secretary from the Republican Party. Some bookies even predicted the victory of Obama in the elections. On October 19, McCain himself stated that he was ready to accept probable defeat.
On October 22, 2008, Obama stopped his presidential campaign for 36 hrs so as to visit his sick grandmother Madelyn Dunham in the Hawaiian Islands. She died from cancer on November 2, and Obama learnt about it only the next day.
On October 28, 2008, it became known that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) had exposed the plan of assassinating Obama: two neo-Nazi activists planned to kill the presidential candidate. They were arrested and booked for keeping illegal weapons and threats to Obama.
On the evening of October 29, the national TV channels of the USA aired Obama's 30-minute pre-election promo. The presidential candidate had to shell 6 million USD for the promo and it was the longest promo for the campaign. Previously, such pre-election promos were used by independent candidate Ross Perot in 1992.
Two days prior to the elections, the Republican Party diverted the attention of the public on a statement made by Obama in an interview to the newspaper the San Francisco Chronicle in January, 2008: in the statement, Obama stated about the inevitable bankruptcy of the coal-mining industry in the USA. Despite this, according to the survey, two days before the elections, Obama lead McCain by 9% of the votes.
During the period of the election campaign, Obama collected donations for a record sum of 650 million dollars.
During the elections on November 4, Obama secured 51% of votes and got more than 300 electoral votes out of mandatory 270, needed for victory. Voting attendance in the elections was around 64%, which was the highest in the USA for the last hundred years. Obama announced his victory after the announcement of the election results in the key states - Ohio and Pennsylvania. In his speech, the black US president, the first in the history of the USA, stated that "Change has come to America".
Soon after Obama's victory, information on who would be included in the Administration of Obama was making the rounds. According to sources in the Democratic party, Rahm Emanuel was supposed to head Obama's administration and Robert Gibbs would be named as the future Press Secretary of the White House. On December 1, Obama announced the name of the future state secretary: his competitor in the election race - Hillary Clinton. This appointment disappointed those who were hoping for radical changes in US foreign policy. On November 13, 2008, Obama resigned from the post of senator. The right to announce his replacement was possessed by Rod Blagojevich, Governor of Illinois, and it was known that Obama was advisor during the Governor elections for him in 2002. Scandal was unearthed in December 2008: Blagojevich was arrested by the FBI on suspicion for attempting to sell the senatorial post, left by Obama. FBI investigating officers emphasized that the case of governor of Illinois will not affect the elected President. Blagojevich was removed after the decision of Senate of Illinois on January 29, 2009. |
