IOWA
PRESIDENTIAL WATCH
Iowa...
Where Presidents Begin
click
on each candidate to see today's news stories
(caricatures by
Linda Eddy)
Monday, Oct. 20, 2008
GENERAL NEWS HEADLINES with excerpts
Zogby: "McCain slowly gains on Obama"
Obama 47.8%, McCain 45.1%
McCain now trails Obama by 2.7 points, down from the 3.9 point deficit he faced 24 hours earlier.
Seven-point-one percent of the likely voters surveyed said they remain undecided.
see also:
Obama's lead slips to 3 points
Limbaugh: Where are the inexperienced,
white liberals Powell has endorsed?
Rush
Limbaugh said Colin Powell's decision to get behind Barack
Obama appeared to be very much tied to Obama's status as the first
African-American with a chance to become president.
"Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race," Limbaugh wrote in an e-mail. "OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with."
As for Powell's statement of concern about the sort of Supreme Court justices a President McCain might appoint, Limbaugh wrote: "I was also unaware of his dislike for John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia. I guess he also regrets Reagan and Bush making him a four-star [general] and secretary of state and appointing his son to head the FCC. Yes, let's hear it for transformational figures."
Colin Powell endorses Obama
"it's not about race"
Former
Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.,
for president on Sunday, criticizing his own Republican Party for what
he called its narrow focus on irrelevant personal attacks over a
serious approach to challenges he called unprecedented.
Powell, who for many years was considered the most likely candidate to become the first African-American president, said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was not supporting Obama because of his race. He said he had watched both Obama and his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, for many months and thought “either one of them would be a good president.”
But he said McCain’s choices in the last few weeks — especially his selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his vice presidential running mate — had raised questions in his mind about McCain’s judgment.
Powell said: "I would have difficult with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that's what we'd be looking at in a McCain administration."
see also:
Powell endorses Obama as 'transformational'
McCain accuses Obama of socialism
John
McCain on Saturday accused Democratic rival
Barack Obama of
favoring a socialistic economic approach by supporting tax cuts and
tax credits
McCain says would merely shuffle wealth rather than creating it.
"At least in Europe, the Socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives," McCain said in a radio address. "They use real numbers and honest language. And we should demand equal candor from Sen. Obama. Raising taxes on some in order to give checks to others is not a tax cut; it's just another government giveaway."
Obama/Biden:
newspaper endorsements
Palm Beach Post
Miami Herald
Orlando Sentinel
Kansas City Star
Denver Post
Salt Lake Tribune
Portland Oregonian
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Detroit Free Press
Raleigh News & Observer
Houston Chronicle
Asbury Park Press
Herald Dispatch (WV)
McCain/Palin:
newspaper endorsements
Los Vegas Review-Journal
San Antonio Express-News
Columbus Dispatch
Dallas Morning News
Tampa Tribune
"Will a President Obama, with his party in absolute control of both Houses, revert to the politics and policies of the left that brought him the nomination, or resist his ex-comrades' demands that he seize the hour and impose the agenda ACORN, Ayers, Jesse and Wright have long dreamed of?
Whichever way he decides, he will be at war with them, or at war with us. If Barack wins, a backlash is coming."
Joe The Plumber appears on FOX Huckabee program
Samuel
"Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher last night strode onto the set of Fox
News Channel's Huckabee program to thunderous applause.
... Mr. Huckabee asked how Mr. Wurzelbacher felt about the scrutiny he'd received.
"It actually upsets me," Mr. Wurzelbacher said. "I am a plumber, and just a plumber, and here Barack Obama or John McCain, I mean these guys are going to deal with some serious issues coming up shortly. The media's worried about whether I paid my taxes, they're worried about any number of silly things that have nothing to do with America. They really don't. I asked a question. When you can't ask a question to your leaders anymore, that gets scary. That bothers me."
Mr. Wurzelbacher confronted Mr. Obama over his tax proposals, asserting that the Democratic nominee's plan would tax him more if Mr. Wurzelbacher bought a plumbing business.
In the course of their conversation, Mr. Obama said, "It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody that is behind you, that they have a chance for success, too. I think that when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
Mr. Wurzelbacher said some friends advised him to lie low and let everything blow over. But then he got calls of support from friends in the military who told him he asked a good question and didn't back down.
That's why he accepted the invitation to appear on Mr. Huckabee's show, he said.
John McCain & Sarah Palin... today's headlines with excerpts
Sarah Palin drops in on Saturday Night Live
from FOX News Sunday, with Chris Wallace:
WALLACE: And you said the following: "I promise you I have never and will never have anything to do with that kind of political tactic." Now you've hired the same guy who did the robo calls against you to, reportedly, to do the robo calls against Obama and the Republican Senator Susan Collins, the co-chair of your campaign in Maine, has asked you to stop the robo calls. Will you do that?
MCCAIN: Of course not. These are legitimate and truthful and they are far different than the phone calls that were made about my family and about certain aspects that -- things that this is -- this is dramatically different and either you haven't -- didn't see those things in 2000.
WALLACE: No, I saw them.
MCCAIN: Or you don't know the difference between that and what is a legitimate issue, and that is Senator Obama being truthful with the American people. But let me tell you what else I think you should be talking about and the American people should be talking about. In the debate the other night, I asked Senator Obama to repudiate a statement made by John Lewis, a man I admire and respect and have written about that connected me and Sarah Palin --
WALLACE: This is the congressman, civil rights leader.
MCCAIN: Civil rights leader, American hero. That
connected me and Sarah Palin to segregationists, to the
campaign of George Wallace, and even alluded to the
bombing of a church where four children, four children
were killed, and I asked him to repudiate that
statement. I have repudiated every statement made by any
fringe person in the Republican Party. And it has come
up from time to time, and it probably will. The fact
that Senator Obama would not repudiate that statement I
think is something the American people will make a
judgment about. That robo call is accurate. It’s totally
accurate. And there is no comparison between it and the
things that were done and said in South Carolina.
Barack Obama & Joe Biden... today's headlines with excerpts'
Obama lines up a cabinet of stars
Obama is considering appointing a cabinet of stars to steer America through potentially its worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s if he wins the presidency on November 4.
... From Senator John Kerry, the 2004 presidential candidate with hopes of becoming secretary of state, to Larry Summers, a former US Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, and Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator who has been tipped as defence secretary, there are plenty who have signalled their availability.
Obama vows to 'change the world'
...much
of Mr Obama's speech in Londonderry - punctuated by cries of "We all
love you Obama", "I love you" and "We will work with you" - was
devoted to the kind of quasi-religious sentiments and
motivational-coach style exhortations, the kind of pride that set him
up for a big fall in January.
"I want you to believe," said the candidate, clad in an open-necked shirt and barn jacket. "Not so much believe just in me but believe in yourselves. Believe in the future. Believe in the future we can build together. I'm confident together we can't fail."
There was a carnival atmosphere among the crowd of some 4,000, who almost drowned Mr Obama out as he reached his crescendo and said: "I promise you. We won't just win New Hampshire. We will win this election and, you and I together, we're going to change the country and change the world."
... His supreme self-belief has also been the target of late-night comedians. "With just 19 days left until the election, Barack Obama warned supporters today to guard against overconfidence," Tina fey of Saturday Night Live reported.
"Then he boarded Air Force One, blasted 'We Are The Champions' and shouted 'I'm King of the World'."
Obama nears record for spending
Barack Obama is days away from breaking the $188 million advertising spending record set by President George W. Bush in his re-election campaign in 2004, having unleashed an advertising campaign of a scale and complexity unrivaled in the television era...
Obama raises $150 million in September
Obama's money is fueling a vast campaign operation in an expanding field of competitive states. It also has underwritten a wave of both national and targeted video advertising unseen before in a presidential contest.
Campaign manager David Plouffe, in an e-mail to supporters Sunday morning, said the campaign had added 632,000 new donors in September, for a total of 3.1 million contributors to the campaign. He said the average donation was $86.
Archbishop criticizes Obama, Catholic allies
Denver Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput labeled Barack Obama the "most committed" abortion-rights candidate from a major party in 35 years while accusing a Catholic Obama ally and other Democratic-friendly Catholic groups of doing a "disservice to the church."
Chaput, one of the nation's most politically outspoken Catholic prelates, delivered the remarks Friday night at a dinner of a Catholic women's group.
His comments were among the sharpest in a debate over abortion and Catholic political responsibility in a campaign in which Catholics represent a key swing vote.
paid for by the Iowa Presidential Watch PAC
P.O. Box 171, Webster City, IA 50595