Experience

Obama –

Community Organizer 1985 – 1988 (Excerpted from Malkin Sept. 5 2008) Obama's community organizing days involved training grievance-mongers from the far-left ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). The ACORN mob is infamous for its bully tactics (which they dub "direct actions"); Obama supporters have recounted his role in organizing an ambush on a government planning meeting about a landfill project opposed by Chicago's minority lobbies. ACORN has milked nearly four decades of government subsidies to prop up chapters that promote the welfare state and undermine the free market, as well as some that have been implicated in perpetuating illegal immigration and voter fraud.

Last week, Milwaukee's top election official announced plans to seek criminal investigations of 37 ACORN employees accused of offering gifts to sign up voters (including prepaid gas cards and restaurant cards) or falsifying driver's license numbers, Social Security numbers or other information on voter registration cards.

Last month, a New Mexico TV station reported on the child rapists, drug offenders and forgery convicts on ACORN's payroll. In July, Pennsylvania investigators asked the public for help in locating a fugitive named Luis R. Torres-Serrano, who is accused "of submitting more than 100 fraudulent voter registration forms he collected on behalf of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now to county election officials." Also in July, a massive, nearly $1 million embezzlement scheme by top ACORN officials was exposed.

ACORN's political arm endorsed Obama in February and has ramped up efforts to register voters across the country. In the meantime, completely ignored by the mainstream commentariat and clean-election crusaders, the Obama campaign admitted failing to report $800,000 in campaign payments to ACORN. They were disguised as payments to a front group called "Citizen Services, Inc." for "advance work."

Jim Terry, an official from the Consumer Rights League, a watchdog group that monitors ACORN, noted: "ACORN has a long and sordid history of employing convoluted Enron-style accounting to illegally use taxpayer funds for their own political gain. Now it looks like ACORN is using the same type of convoluted accounting scheme for Obama's political gain." With a wave of his magic wand, Obama amended his FEC forms to change the "advance work" to "get-out-the-vote" work.

Harvard Law Review 1988 - 1991

At the end of his first year Obama was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review based on his grades and a writing competition. In his second year he was elected president of the Law Review, a full-time volunteer position functioning as editor-in-chief and supervising the law review's staff of 80 editors. Obama's election in February 1990 as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review was widely reported and followed by several long, detailed profiles. He graduated with a Juris Doctor (J.D.) magna cm laude from Harvard in 1991 and returned to Chicago where he had worked as a summer associate at the law firms of Sidley & Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990.

 Project Vote 1993 – 1994

Obama directed Illinois Project Vote from April to October 1992, a voter registration drive with a staff of 10 and 700 volunteers that achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans in the state, leading Crain's Chicago Business to name Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers to be.

Project Vote often coordinates voter registration campaigns with local chapters of the community organization ACORN and has worked with organizations such as Demos, National Voting Rights Institute, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, Fair Elections Legal Network regarding election administration policy and voting rights, including enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act through research, litigation and technical assistance.

Writes Memoirs 1995 age 34

The publicity from his election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review led to a contract and advance to write a book about race relations. The manuscript was finally published as Dreams from My Father in mid-1995

Teacher / University Chicago School of Law 1996 – 2004 (2002 Law License expires)

Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years, as a Lecturer for four years (1992–1996), and as a Senior Lecturer for eight years (1996–2004).

In 1993 Obama joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a 12-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004, with his law license becoming inactive in 2002.

Illinois State Legislature 1997 – 2004

Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996. Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation reforming ethics and health care laws. He sponsored a law increasing tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased subsidies for childcare. In 2001, as co-chairman of the bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, Obama supported Republican Governor Ryan's payday loan regulations and predatory mortgage lending regulations aimed at averting home foreclosures, and in 2003, Obama sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of legislation to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained and legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations. Obama was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, and again in 2002.

US Senator (Junior) 2005 – Present

Obama was sworn in as a senator on January 4, 2005. Obama was the fifth African American Senator in U.S. history, and the third to have been popularly elected. He is the only Senate member of the Congressional Black Caucus. CQ Weekly, a nonpartisan publication, characterized him as a "loyal Democrat" based on analysis of all Senate votes in 2005–2007, and the National Journal ranked him as the "most liberal" senator based on an assessment of selected votes during 2007. Barack Obama has voted with a majority of his Democratic colleagues 96.0% of the time during the current Congress.

Voting records are too long to add here but you can check them for yourself at: http://obama.senate.gov/votes/

Experience

Biden –

US Senator 1973 - Present

Biden trained as a lawyer and became a senator in 1973 at the Constitutional minimum age of 30, making him the fifth-youngest senator in U.S. history. He is a long-time member and current chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and has worked on resolutions concerning the Yugoslav wars and Iraq War. Biden unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. 

In 1961, Biden graduated from Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware. He attended the University of Delaware in Newark, where he graduated with a double major in history and political science in 1965. He went on to receive his J.D. from Syracuse University College of Law in 1968, and was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1969. Biden received five student draft deferments during this period, with the first coming in late 1963 and the last in early 1968, at the peak of the Vietnam War.

Biden took office on January 3, 1973. Biden has since won additional terms easily, usually with about 60 percent of the vote. In 2007, Biden reported that he "garnered $67 million worth of projects" for his constituents through congressional earmarks.

Biden serves on the following committees in the 110th U.S. Congress

Committee on Foreign Relations (chairman)

Committee on the Judiciary

Biden has a lifetime average "liberal" score of 77.5 percent, according to a National Journal analysis that places him ideologically among the center of Senate Democrats. The ACLU gives him an 86 percent lifetime score, with a 91 percent score for the current session of Congress.

Experience

McCain –

Military Service 1958 – 1981

McCain graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958. He retired from the Navy as a captain in 1981. McCain attended the National War College at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. during 1973–1974. Having been rehabilitated, by late 1974, McCain had his flight status reinstated, and in 1976 he became commanding officer of a training squadron stationed in Florida. He improved the unit's flight readiness and safety records, and won the squadron its first-ever Meritorious Unit Commendation.

US Congress 1982 – 1986

Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, he served two terms representing Arizona's 1st congressional district. He was elected the president of the 1983 Republican freshman class of representatives. McCain was assigned to the Committee on Interior Affairs building up his expertise on issues important to Arizonans such as water rights and other natural resources, public land management, and Native American affairs. 

US Senator 1987 – Present

Upon entering the Senate in 1987, he became a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, with whom he had formerly done his Navy liaison work; he also joined the Commerce Committee and the Indian Affairs Committee. McCain was a key member of the 1991–1993 Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. In 1997, McCain became chairman of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee.

Experience

Sarah Palin completed her Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho, graduating in 1987. In 1988, she worked as a sports reporter for KTUU-TV in Anchorage, Alaska. She also helped in her husband’s family commercial fishing business.

City Council 1992 – 1995

Palin began her political career in 1992, when she ran for a three-year term on the Wasilla city council, supporting a controversial new sales tax and advocating "a safer, more progressive Wasilla." She won, and was re-elected to a second three-year term in 1995.

Mayor 1996 – 2005

In 1996, Palin challenged and defeated incumbent John Stein for the office of mayor. During her first term, the state Republican Party began grooming her for higher office. As mayor of Wasilla, Palin was in charge of the city Police Department, consisting of 25 officers, and Public Works. She was praised for cutting property taxes by 40% while improving roads and sewers and strengthening the Police Department. She also reduced the mayoral salary, reduced spending on the town museum, and opposed a bigger library. Palin ran for re-election against Stein in 1999 and was returned to office by a margin of 909 to 292 votes. Palin was also elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors. During her second term as mayor, Palin hired the Anchorage-based lobbying firm of Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh to lobby for earmarks for Wasilla. The effort was led by Steven Silver, a former chief of staff for Senator Ted Stevens, and it secured nearly $27 million in earmarked funds. The earmarks included $500,000 for a youth shelter, $1.9 million for a transportation hub, $900,000 for sewer repairs, and $15 million for a rail project linking Wasilla and the ski resort community of Girdwood. Some of the earmarks were criticized by Senator McCain. In 2002, Governor Murkowski appointed Palin to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, where she chaired the Commission from 2003 to 2004, and also served as Ethics Supervisor.  Palin resigned in January 2004 in protest over what she called the "lack of ethics" of fellow Republican members. After resigning, Palin filed formal complaints against the state Republican Party's chairman, Randy Ruedrich, and former Alaska Attorney General Gregg Renkes. She accused Ruedrich, one of her fellow commissioners, of doing work for the party on public time and working closely with a company he was supposed to be regulating. Ruedrich and Renkes both resigned and Ruedrich paid a record $12,000 fine. From 2003 to June 2005, Palin served as one of three directors of "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.," a 527 group that was designed to serve as a political boot camp for Republican women in Alaska.

Governor 2005 - Present

In 2006, running on a clean-government platform, Palin defeated then-Governor Murkowski in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Her running mate was State Senator Sean Parnell. Senator Stevens made a last-moment endorsement and filmed a TV commercial together with Palin for the gubernatorial campaign. In August, she declared that education, public safety, and transportation would be the three cornerstones of her administration. Despite spending less than her Democratic opponent, she won the gubernatorial election in November, defeating former Governor Tony Knowles 48.3% to 40.9%.

Palin became Alaska's first female governor and, at 42, the youngest in Alaskan history. She is the first Alaskan governor born after Alaska achieved U.S. statehood and the first governor not inaugurated in Juneau; she chose to have the ceremony in Fairbanks instead. She took office on December 4, 2006, and has maintained a high approval rating throughout her term. She sometimes broke with the state Republican establishment. For example, she endorsed Parnell's bid to unseat the state's longtime at-large U.S. Representative, Don Young. Palin also publicly challenged Senator Ted Stevens to come clean about the ongoing federal investigation into his financial dealings. Shortly before his July 2008 indictment, she held a joint news conference with Stevens, described by The Washington Post as being "to make clear she had not abandoned him politically."

(Taken in parts from Wikipedia and Articles by Michelle Malkin)