News politics 2008-08-02 Andanh.com

Democratic platform writers reach out to Clinton Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:31 EDT
Supporters of Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton drafting the Democratic platform displayed a get-along, unified front Friday as the party looks to put the bruising presidential primary campaign behind it.

The drafting committee heard from policy experts Friday after soliciting ideas at 1,600 gatherings throughout the country over the past month.

As the Ohio hearings neared, Clinton supporters said backers of presumptive presidential nominee Obama were reaching out on a daily basis to give her voice to part of the platform, particularly on health care and working families, two mainstays of her campaign.

The platform draft will be written Saturday and Sunday and goes before the full platform committee next week in Pittsburgh.

"The most encouraging thing is she has been listened to," said Chris Jennings, a member of the platform drafting committee and a Clinton backer.

McCain defends Web ad mocking Obama Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:36 EDT
Republican John McCain on Friday defended his campaign's new Web ad mocking Barack Obama as a presumptuous messianic figure, saying it was important to "display a sense of humor" in the presidential contest.

The new ad, with a voiceover calling Obama "The One," features clips of the Democratic contender appearing to describe himself and his presidential quest in grandiose terms - saying such things as, "This was the moment when the rise in the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal." The ad ends with Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea in the movie, "The Ten Commandments."

The ad was not set to air on any television stations, so the campaign was counting on it to attract viewers by circulating broadly on the Web. Still, it was McCain's latest attempt to caricature his rival as an overweening but empty media phenomenon, coming on the heels of the campaign's new television ad juxtaposing Obama with lightweight celebrities Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan slammed the Web ad, saying the Arizona senator was "spending all of his time and the powerful platform he has on these sorts of juvenile antics."

McCain insisted he was running a "respectful" campaign and brushed off complaints from critics and even some supporters that his tone had taken a sharply negative turn in recent days.

Analysis: Race remains the political wild card Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:46 EDT
By accusing Barack Obama of playing the race card, John McCain hopes to shuffle the deck in a White House campaign that is scarcely begun, much less settled.

In so doing, the Republican made at least two political calculations.

He risked at least temporarily overshadowing a tough ad his campaign had unleashed depicting Obama as a celebrity in the Paris Hilton mold.

And by challenging Obama directly, he chose a course that Hillary Rodham Clinton shied away from in her losing campaign for the Democratic nomination, presenting the most serious black presidential candidate in history with a charge he could not let go unanswered.

"I think his comments were clearly the race card," McCain said Friday.

Today on the presidential campaign trail Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:51 EDT
IN THE HEADLINES

Obama calls for $1,000 energy rebates to be paid with windfall profits tax on the oil industry ... McCain depicts Obama as too close to teachers unions ... Obama's fundraisers helping finance Democratic convention ... McCain and Obama campaigns trade barbs on who brought race, negative tone to campaign

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Obama proposes $1,000 energy rebates for consumers

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) - Democrat Barack Obama on Friday pushed for a windfall profits tax to fund $1,000 emergency rebate checks for consumers besieged by high energy costs, a counter to Republican rival John McCain's call for more offshore drilling in coastal states like Florida.

Obama risks voter ire by opposing new oil drilling Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:11 EDT
Barack Obama is once again betting that his eloquence can persuade price-weary consumers - read that as voters - to take the long view and not jump at a short-term fix when it comes to soaring energy prices.

It worked in his presidential primary contest against New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton when she proposed a "gas tax holiday" for the summer, a pitch he opposed despite its popularity with many voters. But that was in April before gasoline shot past $4 a gallon.

Virtually all polls now show dealing with energy prices high atop the agenda of voters.

At issue for Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, is opening up offshore drilling to boost production, a move McCain and others GOP lawmakers say would increase supply and help control soaring gasoline prices. Opponents, including Obama and many other Democrats, say new offshore oil would be years away from reaching consumers and even then would make little difference in prices and the ongoing U.S. need for foreign oil.

Republicans clearly have targeted energy prices, looking to boost their standing with consumers. President Bush has pushed Congress to permit the offshore drilling and warned that "the American people are rightly frustrated" because Democrats won't allow a vote on opening up offshore drilling.

Who started it? McCain, Obama camps trade barbs Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:11 EDT
Trading charges anew over who was guilty of injecting race into the presidential debate, a subject unlikely to fade away, the campaigns of John McCain and Barack Obama also blamed each other Friday for its increasingly negative tone.

McCain has accused Obama of playing politics with race for predicting that the likely Republican nominee and others in the GOP would try to scare voters by saying the Democrat "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." Obama's spokesmen denied he was referring to being black, although all the presidents on U.S. currency are white.

Obama senior strategist David Axelrod said Friday that race became an issue only when the McCain campaign cast a racial slant on Obama's remarks, which were made at a campaign swing Wednesday in rural Missouri.

The next day, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis issued a statement claiming that Obama had played "the race card" and calling the remarks "divisive, negative, shameful and wrong."

"We are not going to let anybody paint John McCain, who has fought his entire life for equal rights for everyone, to be able to be painted as racist," Davis said Friday on "Today" on NBC. "We've seen this happen before and we're not going to let it happen to us."

McCain confronts Obama over education policies Sat, 02 Aug 2008 01:54 EDT

ORLANDO, Fla. . John McCain, the father of private school students, criticized Democratic rival Barack Obama on Friday for choosing private over public school for his kids.

The difference, according to the Arizona Republican, is that he . but not Obama . favors vouchers that give parents more school choices.

.Everybody should have the same choice Cindy and I and Senator Obama did,. McCain told the National Urban League, an influential black organization that Obama will address on Saturday.

McCain listed a variety of changes in education policies that he contended would improve a flawed system . from school choice to more local control and direct public support to parents for tutoring. In each case, he said, Obama came up short.

Obama shifts position on offshore oil drilling Sat, 02 Aug 2008 01:51 EDT
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that's what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources.

Shifting from his previous opposition to expanded offshore drilling, the Illinois senator told a Florida newspaper he could get behind a compromise with Republicans and oil companies to prevent gridlock over energy.

Republican rival John McCain, who earlier dropped his opposition to offshore drilling, has been criticizing Obama on the stump and in broadcast ads for clinging to his opposition as gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon. Polls indicate these attacks have helped McCain gain ground on Obama.

"My interest is in making sure we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices," Obama said in an interview with The Palm Beach Post.

"If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage - I don't want to be so rigid that we can't get something done."

Obama says he'd compromise on drilling Sat, 02 Aug 2008 01:54 EDT

WASHINGTON . Sen. Barack Obama on Friday dropped his opposition to offshore oil drilling, saying he could go along with the idea if it was part of a broader energy package.

Obama made his comments in St. Petersburg, Fla., during an interview with the Palm Beach Post. .My interest is in making sure we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices,. he said.

.If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage . I don't want to be so rigid that we can't get something done,. the paper quoted Obama as saying.

The change is dramatic because Obama often pointed to his opposition to drilling as a key difference between himself and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain.

McConnell sure to be the center of attention Sat, 02 Aug 2008 01:54 EDT

GILBERTSVILLE . If Friday's partisan rallies are any indication, this year's election season in Kentucky will be all about Mitch McConnell.

Democrats, in their warm-ups for Saturday's Fancy Farm picnic, took turns taking verbal whacks at McConnell as if the senior senator were a political pi.ata. And on the other side of Kentucky Lake, Republicans touted McConnell . the GOP leader in the Senate . for bringing Kentucky resources and for serving as a conservative pillar in the Democratic congress.

.We owe it to America to return Mitch McConnell to the U.S. Senate,. Republican Secretary of State Trey Grayson told about 100 GOP faithful who gathered at Kenlake Resort Park. Grayson said McConnell has repeatedly .delivered for Kentucky. by bringing back university funding and money for other projects, such as a Veterans Affairs hospital in Louisville.

McConnell didn't attend the rally but will be the main draw in the speaking lineup at the Fancy Farm picnic Saturday.

Chinese Dir