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PRESIDENTIAL WATCH
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Wednesday, September 10, 2008
GENERAL NEWS HEADLINES with excerpts
LIPSTICK WARS
Obama attacks press: 'made up controversy'
Speaking
at a high school in Norfolk, Obama took a few moments to
address what he calls "the made-up controversy" of the
day, Amie Parnes reports.
Obama said the McCain campaign moved to "seize an innocent remark and take it out of context because they knew it's catnip for the news media."
"See, it would be funny, but the news media decided that would be the lead story yesterday. This happens every election cycle. Every four years, this is what we do. This is what they want to spend two of the last 55 days talking about...Enough!" he said.
Obama called the attacks "lies, outrage and swift boat politics."
"These are serious times and they call for a serious debate...spare me all the phony outrage. Spare me all the phony talk about change," he said.
UPDATE:
McCain spokesman Brian Rogers responds: “Barack Obama can’t campaign with schoolyard insults and then try to claim outrage at the tone of the campaign. His talk of new politics is as empty as his campaign trail promises, and his record of bucking his party and reaching across the aisle simply doesn’t exist.”
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Obama: "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig"...
The crowd rose and applauded, some of them no doubt thinking he may have been alluding to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's ad lib during her vice presidential nomination acceptance speech last week, "What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick."
"You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called 'change,'" Obama continued, "it's still gonna stink after eight years.
Speaking on behalf of the McCain campaign, former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift tonight flatly stated that Obama had called Palin a pig.
"[T]he formation of the Palin Truth Squad couldn't have happened too soon, as we saw when Sen. Obama in Lebanon, Va., this evening uttered what I can only deem to be disgraceful comments comparing our vice presidential nominee Gov. Palin to a pig," Swift said. [Swift is the head of the newly formed Palin Truth Squad, which includes 55 members.]
"Sen. Obama owes Gov. Palin an apology," she said.
see also:
Obama 'lipstick' comment offends GOP women
BBC world poll:
Obama preferred over McCain
More than half of those surveyed in the United Kingdom (54 per cent) thought an Obama presidency would improve America's relations with the world.
... On average, 49 per cent of those surveyed preferred Mr Obama, compared with 12 per cent for Mr McCain, in the race to the White House.
Big shift to McCain among white women voters
John McCain has gained huge support among white women since naming Sarah Palin as his running mate and now leads Democrat Barack Obama among those voters, according to a survey published on Tuesday.
The Washington Post/ABC News poll found that much of McCain's surge in the polls since the Republican National Convention is attributable to the shift in support among white women.
see also:
Obama doesn't believe polls showing women voters flocking to McCain-Palin
Vatican
official:
Palin 'dream candidate' for pro-lifers
Sarah Palin’s firm opposition to abortion and her status as a mother of five prompted a Vatican official to describe the Republican vice president nominee as a “dream candidate.”
“I couldn't be more happy,” a U.S. c
hurch
official at the Vatican told Newsmax on the condition of anonymity.
“She is, in many ways, a dream candidate, at least among Americans
here.”
Arch Bishop corrects Biden on abortion:
"Abortion is a foundational issue; it is not an issue like housing policy or the price of foreign oil. It always involves the intentional killing of an innocent life, and it is always, grievously wrong."...
THE CANDIDATES:
John McCain & Sarah Palin... today's headlines with excerpts
McCain's
campaign says it created the 55-member so-called "Palin Truth Squad"
to deal with attacks against vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
... McCain's campaign says the "Truth Squad" will issue alerts and statements to voters and the media when it feels a false attack, rumor or smear has been made against Palin...
Palin energizing women from all walks of life
Susie Baron is a Republican, a mother of two and a home-schooler. She voted for Mike Huckabee in the Ohio primary, but now -- because of Sarah Palin -- she thinks she is part of something much bigger.
"I wouldn't even call it a Palin movement, I'd call it a sleeping
giant that has been
awakened,"
Baron, 56, said at a rally here Tuesday. She described its members as
a silent majority of women in Middle America who "are raising our
families, who work if we have to, but love our country and our
families first."
"And until now, we haven't had anyone to identify with," Baron said, adding that traditional feminist groups such as the National Organization for Women do "not represent me."
... The crowd that came to see her in Ohio on Tuesday showed that Palin's support is rooted in conservative women such as Baron, with the addition of some independents and even Democrats -- women who are "fed up with a man's world," as one rally attendee said, and in some cases dispirited by the treatment of Palin and of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primary race.
The new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll also shows that a majority of voters say they are comfortable with the idea of the first-term Alaska governor as vice president, despite a national debate over whether she is experienced enough for the job...
Conservative women 'so excited' about Palin
Carol Hoovler drove about 150 miles from her home in Virginia, with her family in tow, to watch the Republican Party's historic presidential ticket in action on Tuesday.
... "She believes in the same things I believe in — pro-life, low taxes, less spending," said Hoovler, 38, a homemaker and mother from Fredericksburg, Va. "I like the woman thing, too. But conservative first."
Hoovler wasn't the only woman to bring her family to Franklin & Marshall College for the GOP campaign rally. Laura Burkhead, 49, a nurse from here, wanted her 14-year-old daughter, Taylor, to see Palin up close. "She has lit a fire under the Republican base," Burkhead said. "It's incredible. I'm so excited."
In interviews with about two dozen women attending a rally here and by phone, female voters said they were excited by Palin because of her opposition to abortion rights and for her ability to juggle a career with five children.
Barack Obama & Joe Biden... today's headlines with excerpts'
Shaken Dems fear Obama on downslide
Democrats
in Congress are rattled over the momentum Alaska Gov.
Sarah Palin (R) has brought to John McCain’s
presidential campaign and disagree about how their
candidate should respond.
Some Democrats say that Democratic nominee Barack Obama’s campaign must take a tougher approach and challenge Palin directly on her lack of experience and stance on abortion, creationism and federal earmarks.
Other Democrats say they must tread carefully or risk alienating many voters who relate to Palin, a self-described hockey mom from a middle-class background, by appearing to bully her.
...Palin was the talk of the Hill as lawmakers returning to Washington woke up Tuesday morning to headlines declaring that Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.), the GOP nominee, has pulled even with Sen. Obama (D-Ill.) in national polls. The jump is due to a 20-point swing among white women, who now favor the McCain-Palin ticket by 12 points, according to a Washington Post–ABC News poll.
Hoping to counter the 'Palin Effect', Obama focuses on education
With recent polls showing a 20-point swing among white women voters to John McCain, Barack Obama is looking to regain the advantage and win over some of those women who may have switched their support because of the so-called "Palin Effect."
...He said his concrete proposals for issues such as education will help him attract women voters, so he spoke of his education reform plans in the battleground state of Ohio.
Obama aide questions McCain's honor
"Honor" is a touchy issue to invoke with the former prisoner of war, but Democrats have expressed increasing exasperation — and worry — about what they see as constant distortions in McCain ads.
In an interview the magazine described as "prickly," McCain repeatedly refused to define "honor": "Read it in my books. ... I'm not going to define it. ... I defined it in five books. Read my books."
"What
I'm going to try to do, what I'm going to try to do very hard is to
focus on the issues," Biden said.
"Folks look, I know what she's going to try to do. She's going to try to make it as personal as she can. She's going to take a lot of straight lefts and jabs at me, she's going to try to get me to respond, she's going to try to get me to respond in a personal way. That's not my style. I'm not going to do it."
He added that Gov. Granholm of Michigan has agreed to spend four days with him to help prepare for the Oct. 8 VP debate.
see also:
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