IOWA
PRESIDENTIAL WATCH
Iowa...
Where Presidents Begin
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on each candidate to see today's news stories
(caricatures by
Linda Eddy)
Tuesday, April
15, 2008
GENERAL NEWS HEADLINES with excerpts
Clinton, Obama battle for
Catholic vote
Some Pennsylvania voters say
Obama's 'bitter' comments turned them to Hillary
... a sense of local pride is why Barry "Scoop" Ford, editor of the
weekly Columbia Ledger, says many in the town resent Obama's
description.
"I think it sounded like he was up here and everybody else -- the
working class, the lower class people -- were down here," Ford says.
see also:
Pa. voters divided over Obama remark
Pruden: the high price of
a holy sneer
Bill Kristol: the mask
slips
... He’s disdainful of small-town America
— one might say, of bourgeois America. He’s usually good
at disguising this. But in San Francisco the mask
slipped. And it’s not so easy to get elected by a
citizenry you patronize...
Carter request to enter Gaza
turned down
Carter said he had sought to visit the Gaza Strip, which Hamas seized
in June after routing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's secular
Fatah faction. He said the request was turned down, but he did not
point the finger at Israel.
THE CANDIDATES:
John McCain... today's headlines
with excerpts
Senator John McCain threw himself into the culture war
between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton
on Monday. He said at a gathering of news executives
that comments by Mr. Obama about working-class voters
were “elitist” and a “fundamental contradiction of what
I believe America’s all about.”
Mr. McCain’s remarks were his first public comments on
the issue
see also:
McCain echoes Clinton's attacks
McCain proposes break in gas taxes
At the same time, the certain Republican presidential nominee says
Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton would impose
the single largest tax increase since World War II by allowing tax
cuts pushed to passage by President Bush to expire.
McCain to propose changes in Medicare drug
program
Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, plans to
outline his proposal to change the Medicare drug benefit as part of a
broad speech on the economy that he plans to deliver here on Tuesday.
In the speech he will also say that as president he would try to
impose a one-year freeze on all discretionary government spending –
except in the military and for veterans’ benefits – while the
government can conduct what his aides called a “top to bottom review”
of federal spending.
McCain, military oppose expanding GI Bill
... Officials in charge of Pentagon personnel worry that a more
generous and expansive GI Bill would create an incentive for troops to
get out of the military and go to college.
Rice rules out spot on McCain ticket
She said she would return to academic pursuits at Stanford University
at the end of the Bush administration.
Hillary Clinton... today's
headlines with excerpts
New ad: Clinton airs 'out-of-touch' TV spot
Then another woman says, "I'm not clinging to my faith out of
frustration and bitterness. I find that my faith is very uplifting." A
second man follows with this comment: "The good people of Pennsylvania
deserve a lot better than what Barack Obama said."
watch video
Hillary takes 20-point lead in Pennsylvania
Clinton 52, Obama 41...
Hillary: Dad taught me how to shoot
"You know, some people now continue to teach their children and their
grandchildren. It’s part of culture. It’s part of a way of life.
People enjoy hunting and shooting because it’s an important part of
who they are. Not because they are bitter. ... As I told you, my dad
taught me how to shoot behind our cottage. I have gone hunting. I am
not a hunter. But I have gone hunting."
Hillary promises to reform NAFTA
Clinton says her husband is smart, but he does make mistakes. She says
she would correct the mistakes related to NAFTA or pull the United
States out of the agreement.
On a conference call with reporters today, Clinton aide Howard Wolfson
says Obama will is spending $3.3 million on Pennsylvania television
this week, twice what Clinton's spending.
Hillary's Pennsylvania asset - Gov. Ed Rendell
Clinton
would bail out General Motors...
In saying a federal role would be justified, Mrs. Clinton explained:
"Yes, one in eight jobs are related [to the auto industry],
absolutely. You know, but I want something in return. You know, we
don't want to just keep investing in the car companies unless they
change their direction. But they're beginning to do that."
Chatty crowd forces Hillary to cut speech short
Hillary Clinton was forced to cut her normal stump speech short when a
chatty and meddlesome crowd kept her from grasping their attention.
Clinton, who was addressing the Philadelphia County Democratic Party's
Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, spoke for just over five minutes, despite
having the press arrive almost two hours beforehand.
Elton John fundraiser draws formal complaint
Barack Obama... today's headlines with excerpts
Long-lost article by Obama's dad
surfaces
Elements of Obama's argument now seem prescient, others
deeply dated, but his central aim – particularly in the
context of the heady early days of African independence
– was moderate and conciliatory.
Poll: Pennsyl. race
unchanged by Obama remarks
The Quinnipiac University poll found that
Hillary Clinton leads Obama 50 to 44 percent, a margin
unchanged since the organization's last statewide poll
at the beginning of the month.
The unchanged margin does not come as a
great surprise. Obama’s remark was made public Friday
afternoon, leaving only two days to permeate the public.
see also:
Poll: Clinton holding the line in Pa.
"If John McCain wants to turn this election into a
contest about which party is out of touch with the
struggles and hopes of working America, that's a debate
I'm happy to have," he said. "I may have made a mistake
last week in the words that I chose, but the other party
has made a much more damaging mistake in the failed
policies they've chosen and the bankrupt philosophy that
they've embraced for the last three decades."
Rezko trial: witness recalls
seeing Obama at 2004 party for Iraqi-born investor
convicted on fraud
Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign has long said that the
senator does not recall meeting the investor, Nadhmi
Auchi, a billionaire who has been convicted on fraud
charges in Europe. Mr. Obama’s spokesman, Bill Burton,
said again Monday that the senator had no recollection
of attending any such event.
Obama: Clinton criticism
'toughening me up'
Barack Obama: “I’m sure that Senator Clinton feels like
she’s doing me a great favor because she’s been
deploying most of the arguments that the Republican
Party will be using against me in November and so it’s
toughening me up.”
see also:
Obama sees attacks as GOP warmup
BET-TV founder says Obama would
not be leading if he were white
"Geraldine Ferraro said it right. The problem is, Geraldine Ferraro is
white. This campaign has such a hair-trigger on anything racial ... it
is almost impossible for anybody to say anything."
Ralph Nader... today's headlines with excerpts
There
is widespread agreement that American Catholic voters are far more
diverse than monolithic. Even so, both the Clinton and the Obama
campaigns have hired Catholic outreach directors, deployed an army of
prominent Catholic surrogates testifying on their behalf and created
mailings that highlight their commitment to Catholic social teachings
on economic justice and the common good...
The
senator appears to have spent too much time in the pews
at Trinity United Church, acquiring a jaundiced view of
the world beyond his own. The senator concedes that his
words were "poorly chosen," but a lot of voters, in
Pennsylvania and elsewhere, will conclude that the words
he chose describe exactly what the senator actually
thinks. It could be a bitter epitaph for a campaign...
...
it’s one thing for a German thinker [Karl Marx] to
assert that “religion is the sigh of the oppressed
creature.” It’s another thing for an American
presidential candidate [Obama] to claim that we “cling
to ... religion” out of economic frustration.
Former
U.S. President Jimmy Carter met an ex-minister in Hamas's government
on Tuesday, defying Israeli leaders who shunned the Nobel Peace Prize
laureate over his contacts with the Islamist movement.
McCain:
Obama comments were 'elitist'
John
McCain wants the federal government to free people from paying
gasoline taxes this summer and ensure that college students can secure
loans this fall, a pair of proposals aimed at stemming pain from the
country's troubled economy. 
McCain
is planning to call for wealthier Medicare recipients to pay higher
premiums in order to qualify for the prescription drug coverage, the
McCain campaign’s top economic advisers said Monday evening. He is
making the call for higher premiums as he is pushing for a series of
cuts in corporate and other taxes.
McCain
indicated he would offer some sort of alternative to the legislation
to address concerns that expanding the GI Bill could lead more members
of the military to get out of the service.
While
praising Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, Ms. Rice said in an
interview, “I don’t want to be, don’t intend to be, won’t be on the
ticket.”
In
the new 30-second spot, "Pennsylvania," an announcer references
Obama's comments. A woman says, "I was very insulted by Barack Obama."
A man then calls him "out of touch." 
“You
know, my dad took me out behind the cottage that my grandfather built
on a little lake called Lake Winola outside of Scranton and taught me
how to shoot when I was a little girl,” she said. 
Hillary,
outspent
Few
presidential candidates have ever had the benefit of a local promoter
like Mr. Rendell, who before being elected governor was the mayor of
Philadelphia. He is campaigning as vigorously for Mrs. Clinton’s
election as he would for his own, and constantly talking her up with
remarks that, alas, sometimes go off message. (On Monday, he shrugged
off the impact of Mr. Obama’s comments. “It will cost a couple of
points at the margin, but it won’t be a sea-changer,” the governor
said.) 
Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday said that if confronted with the
prospect of a General Motors or Ford bankruptcy, she would extend the
resources of the federal government to help keep the auto company
afloat.
Judicial
Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes
government corruption, announced today that it filed a formal
complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) related to a
fundraising concert by musician Sir Elton John on behalf of Hillary
Clinton’s presidential campaign. Elton John, a foreign national, is
prohibited by federal law from making any contribution to a federal,
state or local election campaign.
Obama
Sr.'s journal article repeatedly asks what the Kenyan
government means by "African Socialism," as distinct
from Soviet-style communism, and concludes that the new
phrase doesn't mean much. 
Barack
Obama’s “bitter” comment may have had little immediate
impact in the Democratic primary race in Pennsylvania,
according to a poll out this morning. 
Obama
ties McCain, Bush 'failures'
A
government witness testified on Monday at the trial of
the Chicago businessman Antoin Rezko that Senator Barack
Obama attended a party in 2004 that Mr. Rezko held to
court a controversial Iraqi-born investor for a large
real estate project.
"What
I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant is that if you take a
freshman senator from Illinois called `Jerry Smith' and
he says I'm going to run for president, would he start
off with 90 percent of the black vote?" [Bob] Johnson
said. "And the answer is, probably not... ."
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