The race for the White House is on: Meet the US presidency candidates

The gloves are about to come off in the US presidential election as candidates begin the crucial first round of live television debates on August 6 that will separate the wheat from the chaff in the unforgiving medium that is US prime time.

What happens in the debates over the next six months and the polls that follow will set the stage for dozens of primaries across the country in which Republicans and Democrats will choose their candidate to be nominated at the summer conventions for the November race.

For the Republican candidates, just making it to the crucial first debate this month is a victory in itself because the field is so crowded that only the top 10 in the polls will be on the stage. The others will have to wait until a later debate.

For Democrats, it’s more straightforward because there are only five contenders for that party’s nomination – a perfect fit for a TV stage.

Essentially, it will be Hillary Clinton against four others – Senators Bernie Sanders and Jim Webb and former governors Lincoln Chafee and Martin O’Malley – and right now Clinton, with her political experience, poll numbers and burgeoning coffers, is way ahead in polls.

Thus, the Republicans, while swiping at each other in the debates, will also be taking aim at Clinton and seeking to show who might be best able to defeat her.

THE REPUBLICANS

At least 15 (more could join the fray later) are vying to become the party’s standard-bearer. They include two doctors, one woman who is a former business executive, a mega property developer, two Cuban-Americans, one Indian-American who has taken part in an exorcism ritual, and one who is the son and brother of previous presidents.

JEB BUSH

That contender, former Florida governor Jeb Bush (62) would make history if he were to become the third member of the political dynasty to win the White House.

He is generally seen as the strongest candidate, but while the Republican establishment favours him, he may have trouble with its conservative wing because of his stance on immigration and other issues. His strong point is his appeal to the crucial Hispanic vote. He is married to a Mexican, has worked and travelled widely in Latin America and speaks fluent Spanish.

His poll numbers have been strong but have suffered because of stumbles in his response to issues like the Iraq war and other policies championed by his brother, former President George W Bush.

Jeb was elected governor of Florida in 1988. Shortly before the election, his daughter Noelle was arrested for drug possession. Bush said he loved his daughter unconditionally, but he did not want her to receive special treatment.

She was sentenced to serve 10 days in jail. Noelle stood by her father’s side when he was sworn in for his second term in January 2003.

Bush was involved in the Terri Schiavo case, involving a woman with massive brain damage, who was on a feeding tube for over 15 years.

Bush signed “Terri’s Law”, that authorised him to keep Schiavo on life support, a law that was subsequently declared unconstitutional.

In October 2013, Bush called for passage of immigration reform, putting him at odds with most Republicans, and in April 2014, he went a step further, saying of illegal immigration: “It’s an act of love. It’s an act of commitment to your family. I honestly think that that is a different kind of crime.”

DONALD TRUMP

Which brings us to Donald Trump (69), whose incendiary remarks about Mexican immigrants being “rapists” and “criminals” sparked a firestorm of controversy.

Yet Trump is riding high in the polls because his remarks, while embarrassing to some, seem to appeal to many other Republicans and are boosting him to second place behind Bush in a number of polls.

Responding to his second placing behind Bush, Trump said: “I can’t believe Bush is in first place. This guy can’t negotiate his way out of a paper bag. So I’m in second place to Bush? I hate it!” Over 5,000 people crammed into a hall in Phoenix, Arizona, on July 12, to hear him speak and thousands of others were turned away because of fire regulations.

One political observer, James Cavanaugh, recently described Trump to me as a “vanity candidate” who in time will lose his attraction for Republicans. By then, however, he may have seriously sullied its image at a time when it badly needs to woo Hispanic voters.

One rival in the race, Lindsey Graham, has called Trump “a wrecking ball for the future of the Republican Party”. In between building a real estate empire and acquiring a golf course in Ireland (Doonbeg, Co Clare), Trump has owned an eponymous airline, a luxury vodka brand and a clothing line. His worth is estimated at over $4 billion (€3.69bn), enough to self finance his presidential bid. He declares on his website that he is “the very definition of the American success story”.

MARCO RUBIO

Another candidate who portrays himself as “the essence of the American dream” is Florida Senator Marco Rubio (44), the son of Cuban immigrants.

He is married and the father of four children and likes to emphasise his youth, talking about a “generational choice” in 2016, A rising star in the Republican Party, Marco Rubio scored an impressive victory, with Tea Party support, when he won a US Senate seat in 2009. He pushed a senate deal on immigration reform in 2013, a move unpopular with many leading Republicans, but when it died in the House of Representatives, it was major political blow to Rubio and he has subsequently rowed back on his support for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

TED CRUZ

Texas Senator Ted Cruz (44) is also a Cuban-American and another darling of the Tea Party. He supports Trump’s anti-immigrant remarks, saying: “I like Donald Trump. I think he’s terrific, I think he’s brash, I think he speaks the truth.” Cruz doesn’t mind in the least embarrassing his fellow Republicans. His grandstanding and likeness for self-promotion irritate them and prompted fellow Republican Senator John McCain to dub him a “wacko bird”.

When he’s not seeking to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, he spends much of his time trying to think up ways to defund President Obama’s healthcare act. If anyone should be able to come up with a blocking strategy, it’s Cruz since he’s a Harvard-educated constitutional lawyer and is also a graduate of Princeton. But, so far, he hasn’t managed to derail the law, which recently won a Supreme Court victory.

He has fought against Obama’s effort to introduce gun control laws and immigration reform. He suggested a constitutional amendment barring same- sex marriage in the wake of the Supreme Court decision backing marriage equality.

Cruz has joked: “I’m Cuban, Irish, and Italian, and yet somehow I ended up Southern Baptist.”

In August 2013, after the Dallas Morning News pointed out that he had dual Canadian-American citizenship, he applied to formally renounce his Canadian citizenship and last year he ceased being a citizen of Canada.

CHRIS CHRISTIE

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (63) has said of his partly Irish father and his Sicilian mother: “Dad was just a passenger; Mom was the driver.” As a Republican at the head of a relatively liberal state and working with a Democratic legislature, Christie has won praise for his ability to move legislation forward.

He was seen at one time as the strongest contender for the Republican nomination. That was until a scandal engulfed him, involving the George Washington Bridge, which spans New York’s Hudson River, linking New Jersey with New York and is a gateway for millions of commuters.

A staff member and political appointees of the governor were accused of creating huge traffic jams by closing access lanes in Fort Lee, New Jersey, to the bridge in 2013 in a bid to destroy the town’s mayor after he declined to endorse Christie’s re-election.

It was revealed that Christie’s deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, helped to incite the traffic jam, having sent an email to New York-New Jersey Port Authority official David Wildstein stating: “Time for some traffic problems.” Wildstein replied with, “Got it.” Christie called Kelly “stupid” and “deceitful” before firing her.

In May this year, Kelly pleaded not guilty to charges in connection with the case, while Wildstein pleaded guilty. The case is expected to continue over the summer. Christie appears to have been cleared of allegations that he participated in the scheme. Whether the scandal will affect his campaign remains to be seen but it has certainly tarnished his image.

SCOTT WALKER

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (48), a conservative firebrand, is doing well in polls. One in North Carolina on July 8 put him in third position, behind Jeb Bush and Donald Trump.

He will likely become a rallying figure for the more conservative Republican base. Social issues played a part in his 2010 campaign for governor. Walker has stated that he is “100 per cent pro-life” and that he believes life should be protected from conception to natural death.

He supports abstinence-only sex education in the public schools and opposes state-supported clinical services that provide birth control and testing and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases to teens under age 18 without parental consent. He supports the right of pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for contraceptives on religious or moral grounds.

He shot to national prominence after successful showdowns over limiting collective bargaining with public sector unions in his state. Moves to recall him followed but he emerged the winner. He won re-election as governor in 2014.

He is now finalising the state’s budget and looks set to eliminate the minimum wage and freeze spending on schools.

RAND PAUL

Then there are the doctors: Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (52) is an ophthalmologist and son of the former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. He is seen a strong candidate. He is a Tea Party supporter and his 2010 Senate bid was backed by, among others, Tea Party chief Sarah Palin.

As a libertarian, he opposes what he calls “big government” and favours an isolationist foreign policy.

He wants to end spying by the National security Agency. On immigration he believes there should be a “populist revolution” against America’s unsecured border.

Rand has focused on a range of issues since beginning his term in 2010, including reducing federal debt, cutting Social Security benefits and lifting restrictions on businesses created by the Environmental Protection Agency. His independent stances on issues tend to make him popular among younger voters.

BEN CARSON

Ben Carson (63) is a retired paediatric surgeon. This is his first time running for political office.

He was born into a poor black family in inner city Detroit and raised by a single mother. There were occasions when Ben and his brother wouldn’t see her for days at a time because she would go to work at5am and come home around 11pm, going from one job to the next. But she made sure he got a solid education and it helped that he was a bright student.

As a doctor, he became the Director of Paediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital at the age of 33. He became famous for his groundbreaking work separating conjoined twins, Iranian girls Ladan and Laleh Bijani, who were joined at the head for 29 years. He was devastated when the girls died soon after the surgery but he also felt they had made a major contribution to neurosurgery.

He became a conservative star after delivering a fiery speech at a prayer meeting in February 2013 against President Obama’s health reforms.

He retired from his career as a surgeon the following month. That October, he was hired by Fox News to work as a contributor.

Launching his bid for the presidential nomination, he declared: “I’m not a politician. I don’t want to be a politician because politicians do what is politically expedient. I want to do what’s right.”

LINDSEY GRAHAM

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (59) says he is running for president “because the world is falling apart”. He is probably the most prominent foreign policy hawk among the Republican candidates. He has proposed sending additional US troops into Syria as part of a “regional army” whose goal would be regime change.

He is seen as sympathetic on immigration issues and former Democratic Congressman Bruce Morrison told me recently that, unlike many other prominent Republicans, Graham has been supportive of reform. He has also pushed campaign finance reform and earlier this year, he warned that too much money would “destroy American politics”.

CARLY FIORINA

Carly Fiorina is the only female candidate in the Republican field but unlike her Democratic counterpart, Hillary Clinton, she is seen as having little chance of making her mark. But if she does become president, she’d earn peanuts ($400,000 salary per year) compared to the $10.7 million in salary, bonus and stock options she got during 2002 as Hewlett-Packard CEO.

But her record at Hewlett-Packard could also provide ammunition for her opponents. Fiorina was forced by HP to resign in 2005 as the company struggled to digest Compaq after a $19 billion merger. The company’s share price rose after she was ousted.

Back in 1998, Forbes declared Fiorina the most powerful woman in business — edging Oprah Winfrey— and she topped the annual list until 2004.

She has become a best-selling author and television personality. She’s also beaten breast cancer.

BOBBY JINDAL

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal (44) is a rising star in the Republican Party.

He became the first Indian-American to be elected governor in the United States in 2007.

The son of Indian Hindu parents, he is a convert to Catholicism and has written an essay about taking part in an exorcism ritual that involved a close female friend.

This was in 1994 when he’d just finished studying at Oxford University. He wrote about the event in the New Oxford Review in a apiece entitled ‘Beating a Demon: Physical Dimensions of Spiritual Warfare’.

He was born Piyush Jindal but when he was 4 he asked to be called “Bobby” after a character on the TV show The Brady Bunch.

He is an outspoken social conservative and champion of evangelical Christians. He has repeatedly criticized President Obama for not doing more to counter what he calls “radical Islamic terrorism”.

THE DEMOCRATS

There are five Democrats fighting for their party’s nomination but all know it will be an uphill battle to dent Hillary’s Clinton’s momentum.

HILLARY CLINTON

As a former senator for New York and US secretary of state, she comes with impressive credentials and experience and also has considerable financial backing, all of which will likely help to win her the nomination unless missteps or fresh scandals derail her along the way.

Like Barack Obama, who edged her out of the 2008 nomination, she is also chasing history as she seeks to become the first female to win the White House. But four other Democratic candidates are hoping to deny her that prize.

BERNIE SANDERS

The candidate getting most exposure at present is Vermont Senator and self- described democratic socialist Bernie Sanders (74). Democrats like his rhetoric against power and privilege.

Sanders’s campaign stop in Madison, Wisconsin, on July 1 drew the largest crowd of any 2016 presidential candidate to that date, with an estimated turnout of 10,000.

His father was a Jewish immigrant from Poland whose family was killed in the Holocaust. He is married to an Irish American, Jane O’Meara Driscoll.

Sanders supports background checks for gun owners, banning automatic weapons, and the elimination of loopholes that allow buyers at gun shows to evade some regulations. But he has come under attack for voting against a 2005 law to allow gun violence victims the right to sue gun manufacturers.

He is likely to do very well in the Democratic debates but he will find it tough to win any key primaries.

JIM WEBB

Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb (69) is a military man and an accomplished writer. He is a former US Marine and US Secretary of the Navy. He was awarded the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts for service in Vietnam.

He’s written 10 books. The 2000 movie Rules of Engagement was based on one of his stories. His successful first novel, Fields of Fire in 1978, was drawn from personal experience and tells the story of a platoon of US Marines in Vietnam.

Webb is descended from Irish immigrants from Ulster. His 2004 book Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America details his family history, noting that his ancestors fought in every major American war.

Of Clinton’s four opponents, Webb could emerge as the strongest and is likely to come out fighting in debates. He has aggressively opposed US foreign military incursions and championed efforts to rein in Wall Street.

At the same time, he is not exactly the ideal champion of the left. He’s staked out conservative positions on gun control, immigration and environmental issues.

MARTIN O’MALLEY

Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley (44) is the only Irish-American running for the white House. In fact, he is as Irish as President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was since both their great grandfathers left Ireland in Famine times. He loves Irish music and still plays with his Irish rock group O’Malley’s March. He frequently visits Ireland, especially his cousins in Connemara, and has helped to further the peace process over the years.

He has strong credentials as a two-term governor of Maryland, where he ended the death penalty, increased spending on education and pushed immigration reform.

But he remains stuck in low single digits in polls, running a distant third behind Clinton and Sanders. It had been assumed O’Malley would appeal to voters as the progressive alternative to Clinton but Sanders has successfully wrapped himself in that mantle. If Sanders stumbles, however, O’Malley could make inroads in the progressive side of the campaign and see his numbers rise. But it’s going to be very much an uphill battle for him.

LINCOLN CHAFEE

It will also be tough going for former Rhode Island Governor and Senator Lincoln Chafee (62). He began political life as a Republican, then became an Independent and finally joined the Democratic Party in 2013. He was the only Republican in the Senate to vote against the 2002 resolution that authorised the US war against Iraq.

He comes from a prominent New England political family and is known to dip into his family wealth in his campaigns. He was was one of the country’s wealthiest senators while in office, with an estimated net worth of about $43 million.

He also has an interesting turn of phrase. He described Sarah Palin, then- governor of Alaska and the Republican vice-presidential nominee in the 2008 presidential election, as a “cocky wacko”.