Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign nominated on a major party ticket. On November 4, 2008, Obama defeated the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, making him the President-elect and the first African American elected President. He was the third sitting U.S. Senator, after Warren G. Harding and John F. Kennedy, to be elected president. Upon the vote of the Electoral College on December 15, 2008, and the subsequent certification thereof by a Joint Session of the United States Congress on January 8, 2009, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States and Joe Biden Vice President of the United States, with 365 of
Foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration Putin was a resurgent and perilous adversary; and this dismissiveness on Russia ″filter[ed] its way down″. During his campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama advocated a phased redeployment of troops out of Iraq within 16 months of being sworn in as president. In order to accomplish this Obama stated that he would, based on the conditions on the ground, redeploy between one and two battalions a month. Some of the forces returned to the U.S., while others were redeployed as part of a focus on the broader region including Afghanistan and Pakistan to confront terrorism. Obama was in office for