IOWA
PRESIDENTIAL WATCH
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Where Presidents Begin
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on each candidate to see today's news stories
(caricatures by
Linda Eddy)
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
GENERAL NEWS HEADLINES with excerpts
Dr. James Dobson:
"[Obama]
is dragging biblical understanding
through the gutter."
Karl Rove:
"He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.'
Obama
drops faux Great Seal
Last week, Barack Obama unveiled a new campaign seal -- and not the kind that swims, barks and balances balls on the end of its nose.
Rather, it was the kind that has a big old eagle on it and some Latin (Vero possumus, which translates very loosely to "Yes we can"). It's also a seal that combined elements of Richard Nixon's White House police uniforms and George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished."
And it went over about as well. Andrew Malcolm at the L.A. Times had some fun with it. And Mickey Kaus predicted it would be disappeared over the weekend. His exact words were: "But unless David Axelrod is insane, the thing will never be seen again." Kaus was right. While we don't have full details, someone at Obama's press center, when asked if the seal would be used going forward said simply, "No."
Hillary Clinton returns to the Senate today
Hillary
Rodham Clinton is returning to Congress Tuesday for the first time
since suspending her presidential campaign.
The New York Democrat will attend the Senate Democrats' caucus lunch Tuesday, and she has also been invited to Wednesday's meeting of House Democrats, her spokesman, Philippe Reines, said.
On Friday, Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama will appear together in New Hampshire—their first such joint appearance since he bested her in the quest for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Gitmo trial looms in election homestretch
On May 9, five men currently incarcerated at the Guantanamo Bay detention center were charged in connection with the 9/11 terror attacks. Under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which authorizes that detainee trials begin within 120 days, they could end up in a courtroom in September – almost to the day of the seventh anniversary of the attacks and right as voters start to tune in for the presidential election homestretch...
THE CANDIDATES:
John McCain... today's headlines with excerpts
McCain's broad range of energy policies defies categories
Sen.
John McCain is putting energy policy at the center of his presidential
campaign, embracing a diverse array of positions that defies easy
categorization.
He is for more oil drilling and also for alternatives to oil. He wants to drill off the coasts but not in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He supports subsidies for nuclear power and clean-coal technology, but has opposed them for ethanol, solar and wind power.
He wants to lower gasoline prices by temporarily suspending the federal gas tax. But he wants to raise the price of gas with a cap-and-trade system that punishes polluting industries...
Will pro-choice women back McCain?
Eight years ago, it was George W. Bush who convinced pro-choice Republican and independent women that he was a safe bet, asserting that "America is not ready to ban abortions." This time, according to a poll released last week by NARAL Pro-Choice America, voters have a fuzzy sense of John McCain's views on abortion — which is just the way the McCain campaign wants it...
McCain disavows aide's comment about terrorist attack
John
McCain distanced himself Monday from a top adviser who said another
terrorist attack on U.S. soil this election year would benefit the
Republican presidential candidate. Barack Obama's campaign called the
comment a "complete disgrace."
Charlie Black, an adviser already in the spotlight for his past lobbying work, is quoted in the upcoming July 7 edition of Fortune magazine as saying such an attack "certainly would be a big advantage to him." Black said Monday he regretted the comment...
McCain offers $300 million for new auto battery
Sen.
John McCain hopes to solve the country's energy crisis with cold hard
cash.
The Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting thinks the government should offer a $300 million prize to the person who can develop an automobile battery that leapfrogs existing technology.
The prize would equate to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country...
Barack Obama... today's headlines with excerpts
Evangelical leader Dobson accuses Obama of distorting Bible
As
Barack Obama broadens his outreach to evangelical voters, one of the
movement's biggest names, James Dobson, accuses the likely Democratic
presidential nominee of distorting the Bible and pushing a "fruitcake
interpretation" of the Constitution.
The criticism, to be aired Tuesday on Dobson's Focus on the Family radio program, comes shortly after an Obama aide suggested a meeting at the organization's headquarters here, said Tom Minnery, senior vice president for government and public policy at Focus on the Family...
Obama tacks away from his left-wing base
Sen.
Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is shifting to the center after months of
battling Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) for the hearts of the
Democratic Party’s liberal base.
His recent strategy of political triangulation has already sparked a fight with MoveOn.org, a powerful liberal advocacy group.
... More evidence of Obama’s ideological trajectory is a television advertisement emphasizing patriotism, personal accountability and tax cuts in Republican strongholds such as Alaska and Montana.
Obama’s campaign is fighting Republican efforts to portray him as an out-of-touch liberal...
Obama holds $2300-per-person tinseltown fundraiser today
This afternoon at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Los Angeles Music Center, the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, will hold a $2,300-per-person reception that looks to attract many fancy celebrities.
Before the event the campaign will hold a VIP dinner for donors giving $28,500 per couple to the DNC Victory fund.
Seal is scheduled to perform. And why not? Many in Hollywood compare Obama to a kiss from a rose on a grave. (He remains their power, their pleasure, their pain.)
Some of the stars anticipated: Samuel L. Jackson, Seal and Heidi Klum, Sidney Poitier, Will.i.am, Cedric the Entertainer, Dennis Quaid, Kal "Kumar" Penn, Sugar Ray Leonard and Jennifer Beals...
Obama woos white women with pay promise
Seeking to draw female voters to his campaign, Sen. Barack Obama on Monday pledged to deliver equal pay to women, increase the child care tax credit and expand paid leave for new mothers.
Courting white women - the strongest constituency of his former party rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton - the presumptive Democratic candidate toured a baking facility in Albuquerque, N.M., and told personal stories about being raised by his single, white mother.
Obama on wrong side of Elian Gonzalez saga
Eight
years after the furor over the repatriation of Elian
Gonzalez to Cuba possibly cost Al Gore the state of
Florida in his 537-vote loss to George W. Bush, the
international custody saga has returned to haunt another
Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama.
With two top advisers who played key roles in the episode— Greg Craig, who represented Elian’s father in Cuba, and Eric Holder, then a Clinton administration deputy attorney general when federal agents stormed the Miami home of Gonzalez’ relatives to remove the then-six-year-old and return him to his father in Cuba—Obama now finds himself on the wrong side of an emotional issue in a battleground state.
The wound reopened again last week after Gonzalez returned to the headlines in South Florida following a report in a Cuban communist youth newspaper that he has joined Cuba’s Young Communist Union.
Miami-based Republican political consultant Ana Navarro said the stature of Holder and Craig in the Obama campaign “shows a tone deafness to the Cuban American community concerns.”
“Elian Gonzalez cost Al Gore Florida and the presidency,” she added.
Muslim voters detect a snub from Obama
While the senator has visited churches and synagogues, he has yet to appear at a single mosque. Muslim and Arab-American organizations have tried repeatedly to arrange meetings with Mr. Obama, but officials with those groups say their invitations — unlike those of their Jewish and Christian counterparts — have been ignored. Last week, two Muslim women wearing head scarves were barred by campaign volunteers from appearing behind Mr. Obama at a rally in Detroit...
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