IOWA
PRESIDENTIAL WATCH
Iowa...
Where Presidents Begin
click
on each candidate to see today's news stories
(caricatures by
Linda Eddy)
Friday, March 28, 2008
GENERAL NEWS HEADLINES with excerpts
Dean wants superdelegates to decide by July 1
Barack Obama, 49 percent
Hillary Rodham Clinton, 39 percent
MoveOn.org joins Pelosi to deplore
Clinton-backers' letter
Dear MoveOn member,
This is pretty outrageous: A group of
Clinton-supporting big Democratic donors are threatening to stop
supporting Democrats in Congress because Nancy Pelosi said that the
people, not the superdelegates, should decide the presidential
nomination.
It's the worst kind of insider politics — billionaires
bullying our elected leaders into ignoring the will of the voters...
Dodd calls on party leaders to bring
race to end
Condoleezza would mull VP job
One source told Newsmax that she expressed interest in
the possibility when Rudy Giuliani was running for president. Another
source said she has more recently let her interest be known discreetly
within top Republican circles, presumably including John McCain’s
camp.
THE CANDIDATES:
John McCain... today's headlines
with excerpts
McCain targets Obama in new general election ad
... McCain appears to be banking on enough voters not buying Obama's
concept about "we are the change." Rather, his campaign is saying
presidential elections are about the proven leadership of the person
offering himself as the nation's ultimate leader.
... The still gripping footage of a physically broken but mentally
unbowed McCain in Vietnam all those years ago are the senator from
Arizona's way of saying that he, and he alone, has walked the walk.
watch it
McCain launching 'biographical' tour
Each stop will represent a chapter in McCain's life and military
career and be used to emphasize a "service to America" theme and to
highlight issues and aspects of his character...
McCain leads by 10 over Obama, Clinton
McCain, Romney on their
differences: that was then
The animosity had vanished -- spurring speculation that
they might be able to stomach being running mates after
all. McCain, with Romney standing beside him, said the
two would be spending lots of time together on the
campaign trail.
see also:
McCain-Romney?
Novak: McCain could score with
payroll tax cut
...As part of Democratic obsession with making a
progressive tax system still more progressive and
redistributing income, Obama actually would raise the
$97,500 cap on the payroll tax, and his $500 tax credit
would not change payroll tax withholding for employee or
employer. There is an open field for John McCain, if he
has the wit and will to enter it.
Hillary Clinton... today's
headlines with excerpts
Sen. Leahy to Sen. Clinton: give up
... “Senator Clinton has every right, but not a very good reason, to
remain a candidate for as long as she wants to. As far as the delegate
count and the interests of a Democratic victory in November go, there
is not a very good reason for drawing this out. But as I have said
before, that is a decision that only she can make,” Leahy said in the
statement.
Ralph Nader defends Hillary
A startling ally is calling on Senator Clinton to resist suggestions
that she consider abandoning the presidential race - Ralph Nader, the
independent presidential candidate who arguably cost Al Gore the
presidency in 2000.
Nader has released a statement reacting to comments by Sen. Patrick
Leahy (D-Vt.) suggesting an apparently insurmountable lead by Sen.
Barack Obama (D-Ill.)...
Hillary Clinton: fibber in chief
Hillary Clinton's Belfast role draws criticism
Her critics point to an empty, wind-swept Belfast park - which Clinton
a decade ago proclaimed would become Northern Ireland's first
Catholic-Protestant playground - as evidence that her contribution as
peacemaker was more symbolic than substantive.
...
Critics say the playground-that-never-was illustrates the wider lack
of accomplishment from Clinton's half-dozen visits to Northern Ireland
- that they emphasized speechmaking, chiefly to women's groups,
leaving no lasting mark...
Hillary details premium cap in health plan
The average cost of a family policy bought by an individual in 2006
and 2007 was $5,799, or 10 percent of the median family income of
$58,526, according to America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group.
Some policies cost up to $9,201, or 16 percent of median income.
The average out-of-pocket cost for workers who buy family policies
through their employers is lower, $3,281, or 6 percent of median
income, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health research
group.
A cap on premiums has been part of Mrs. Clinton’s universal coverage
proposal since she announced it in September.
Chelsea misspeaks on Bush Mideast travel
Chelsea Clinton mistakenly
said President Bush had not
toured the Middle East as president before arriving there earlier this
year.
“President
Bush was in the Middle East last month, and its great that he was
there, but that was his first trip there as president,” she said at
the Wood River Village Assisted Living Center. “He’d visited our men
in northern Iraq before but he’d never been to Israel; he’d never been
to Jordan, he’d never been to Saudi Arabia or Egypt; he just hadn’t
been.”
Bush in fact traveled to Egypt, Jordan and Qatar in 2003, and was in
Jordan again in 2006. His trip in January 2008 was his first to
Israel.
Poll: Hillary hits lowest
Barack Obama... today's headlines with excerpts
Gallup poll: Barack is back in the lead
PA Sen. Bob Casey to endorse Obama, join bus
tour
Dan Pfeiffer, deputy communications director for the Obama campaign,
confirmed that Casey would announce his support during a rally at the
Soldiers and Sailors Military Museum and Memorial and that he would
then set out with the Illinois senator on part of a six-day bus trip
across the state.
Obama appears on 'The View', talks about Rev.
Wright
see also:
Obama now says he might have left church
Church newsletters fuel controversy over Obama's
former pastor
Even as fresh polls suggested that Barack Obama emerged mostly
unscathed from the controversy over his former pastor, new potentially
troublesome remarks came to light yesterday.
This time it's church newsletters from the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
NBC News reported that newsletters at Trinity United Church of Christ
in Chicago, while Wright was in charge, reprinted anti-Israel
writings.
Obama Muslim lie lingers on
White Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama are much more
likely than those who have favorable opinions of him to express less
tolerant views on race. In addition, nearly a quarter of
Democrats (23 percent) who hold a negative view of Obama believe he is
a Muslim.
Obama blames 'ethic of greed' for economy
Barack Obama went to New York Thursday and blamed lobbyists, greedy
businessmen and complacent Washington politicians for creating “an
ethic of greed” that led to today’s foreclosure crisis.
Not long after he left the stage, the Democratic presidential hopeful
attended a fundraiser held by his campaign in a room in the Manhattan
headquarters of Credit Suisse, one of the major investment companies
caught up in the subprime lending mess...
Obama begins push in Pennsylvania
Mr. Obama will travel from the gritty western part of the state to the
more prosperous east, at times riding straight into unfriendly
territory, like that in Johnstown, the hardscrabble, blue-collar base
of John P. Murtha, the powerful congressman, who is one of Mrs.
Clinton’s staunchest allies.
see also:
Obama plays catch-up in Pennsylvania
Obama's unprecedented online fundraising success is often depicted as
a spontaneous reaction to a charismatic candidate, particularly by
young, Internet-savvy supporters. But it is the result of an elaborate
marketing effort that has left Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his rival
for the Democratic nomination, and Sen. John McCain, the presumed
Republican nominee, struggling to catch up.
Ralph Nader... today's headlines with excerpts
DNC
chairman Howard Dean: “Well, I think the
superdelegates have already been weighing in. I think
that there's 800 of them and 450 of them have already
said who they're for. I'd like the other 350 to say who
they're at some point between now and the first of July
so we don't have to take this into the convention.”
Poll:
Obama has 10-point lead over Hillary
MoveOn
responds to the letter Clinton donors sent yesterday to Nancy Pelosi
by sending out a letter of their own:
...
we’ve got a contest coming up in Pennsylvania and one in North
Carolina and Indiana very quickly afterwards. In my view, the outcome
of those three races will determine — I think the race has been
determined, anyway, at this point. I think it’s very difficult to
imagine how anyone can believe that Barack Obama can’t be the nominee
of the party. I think that’s a foregone conclusion, in my view, at
this juncture given where things are. But certainly over the next
couple of weeks, as we get into April, it seems to me then, that the
national leadership of this party has to stand up and reach a
conclusion. And in the absence of doing that — and that’s not easy and
I realize it’s painful — but the alternative, allowing this sort of to
fester over the months of June, and July and August, I think are
irresponsible.
Despite
saying she wants to return to Stanford University, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice has let it be known in Republican circles that she
would consider running for vice president if asked. 
The
ad, is called "624787." That's not some weird new zip code; that was
McCain's Navy serial number which you see him rattle off from his
hospital bed as a North Vietnamese prisoner of war.
Reintroducing
himself to voters as the Republicans' presumptive presidential
nominee, Senator John McCain will visit several states next week in
what his campaign is billing as a biographical tour.
John
McCain continues to lead both potential Democratic opponents. McCain
leads Barack Obama 51% to 41% and Hillary Clinton 51% to 41%. McCain
is now viewed favorably by 56% of voters nationwide and unfavorably by
41%. Obama’s reviews are 46% favorable and 52% unfavorable. For
Clinton, those numbers are 44% favorable, 54% unfavorable.
...no
one would have guessed Thursday that the men were
anything but pals as they strode from a black SUV,
framed by Salt Lake City's snowy mountains, to face the
cameras during a fundraising swing through the West.
Sen.
Patrick Leahy is suggesting that Democratic presidential candidate
Hillary Rodham Clinton abandon her White House run.
The
Bosnia misspeak, unnecessary as it was, revealed much, however. It
helped to expose a much bigger untruth Mrs Clinton has been peddling
throughout the Democratic primary campaign - that her time in the
White House means she has the necessary foreign policy experience to
be president. 
Hillary
Clinton cites her role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland as one of
the top foreign policy credentials of her presidential bid. 
In
an extensive interview on health policy, Mrs. Clinton said she would
like to cap health insurance premiums at 5 percent to 10 percent of
income.
As
expected, one of the two major Democratic candidates saw a downturn in
the latest NBC/WSJ poll, but it's not the candidate that you think.
Hillary Clinton is sporting the lowest personal ratings of the
campaign. Moreover, her 37 percent positive rating is the lowest the
NBC/WSJ poll has recorded since March 2001, two months after she was
elected to the U.S. Senate from New York.
Today's
Gallup Poll Daily tracking update finds Barack Obama with an eight
percentage point advantage over Hillary Clinton (50% to 42%), this
gives him a statistically significant advantage for the first time
since before the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy.
Pennsylvania
Sen. Bob Casey plans to endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president today
in Pittsburgh, sending a message both to the state's primary voters
and to undecided superdelegates who might decide the close race for
the Democratic presidential nomination. 
"Had
the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had
said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and
mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for
all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the
church," Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show,
"The View."
A
new Pew poll out today reports that the Wright affair hasn't
really hurt Obama among Democrats, but he's still having trouble with
the older, white, working-class members of his party:
When
he steps aboard a campaign bus in Pittsburgh on today, Senator Barack
Obama begins a six-day journey across Pennsylvania and its complex
political landscape, one that is largely favorable to his rival,
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. 
Obama
rewriting rules for online fundraising
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