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PRESIDENTIAL WATCH
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(caricatures by
Linda Eddy)
Friday, August 15, 2008
GENERAL NEWS HEADLINES with excerpts
Gallup
Poll: tied
If the election were held today, registered voters would be equally likely to vote for John McCain (44%) or Barack Obama (44%), according to the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update.
The Aug. 12-14 polling shows a slight dip in Obama's support, which had ranged between 46% and 48% (averaging 47%) in August. McCain has averaged 43% support among registered voters so far in August. Thus, the closer margin seen in today's results is due more to movement away from Obama than toward McCain. Twelve percent of registered voters now say they are undecided or supporting another candidate, which is on the high end of what Gallup has measured this year.
Barack Obama blinks
in Hillary
face-off
Russia
rolls over Georgia, Hillary Clinton does the same to Barack Obama. Now
we know who's boss.
Obama blinked and stands guilty of appeasing Clinton by agreeing to a roll call vote for her nomination. That he might not have had much choice if he wanted peace only proves the point that he's playing defense at his own convention.
What does he get out of it? Not much and not for long...
see also:
As a tribute, Dems to place Clinton's name in nomination
McCain displays credentials as Obama relaxes
For
the last several days, Senator Barack Obama has seemed
to fade from the scene while on his secluded vacation in
Hawaii, as his opponent, Senator John McCain, has seized
nearly every opportunity to display his foreign policy
credentials on the dominant issue of the week: the
conflict between Russia and Georgia.
Only once, at the beginning of the week, did Mr. Obama discuss the fighting in public, when he emerged from his beachfront rental home to condemn Russia’s escalation, in a way that seemed timed for the evening television news. He took no questions whose answers might demonstrate command of the issue.
Mr. McCain and his surrogates, however, have discussed the situation nearly every day on the campaign trail, often taking a hard line against Russia to the point of his declaring the other day, “We are all Georgians.” ...
Corsi's anti-Obama book makes NY
Times best seller list
for second time - sales dwarf anti-McCain books
Jerome
Corsi's anti-Obama book "Obama
Nation" is reportedly appearing for the second time atop the New
York Times best-seller list.
Details of his actual sales, from a source with access to Nielsen BookScan, show that his book has vastly outstripped other recent political titles, notably books critical of John McCain.
BookScan reports that Corsi has sold about 40,000 copies last week. (BookScan figures typically though to include about 70 percent of sales, and may further understate the sales of a book that, like Corsi's, has been distributed through nontraditional channels.)
... Sales for anti-McCain titles, meanwhile, have been terrible. David Brock's "Free Ride" BookScanned a total of about 3,000 copies. Matt Welch's "Myth of a Maverick" moved about 2,000.
Combined, that's less than a day of Corsi's sales.
see also:
Obama pushes back hard on Corsi book
Rove sees 4 key battleground
states
for November election
Karl Rove predicts Colorado, Virginia, Michigan and Ohio will be the coveted prizes this November as Barack Obama and John McCain battle for the winner's goal of 270 Electoral College votes...
THE CANDIDATES:
John McCain... today's headlines with excerpts
Sports owners fund McCain, shun Obama
Through the end of June, team owners in the four major sports and their families have given to or raised as much or more than $3.2 million for McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, compared with as much as $615,000 for his Democratic rival Obama, according to a Politico analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission, the campaigns and interviews.
Not only did McCain raise more than Obama from the owners in each of the four major professional sports leagues analyzed, but McCain even raised six times more from the owners of teams in Obama’s hometown of Chicago...
McCain alarms base with abortion comment
McCain’s
comments Wednesday to the Weekly Standard’s Stephen
Hayes that former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge’s
pro-abortion rights views wouldn’t necessarily rule him
out quickly found their way into the in-boxes of
Christian conservatives. For those who have been
anxiously awaiting McCain’s pick as a signal of his
ideological intentions, there was deep concern that
their worst fears about the Arizona senator may be
realized...
McCain aide sees Va. as close but winnable
The comments by Mike DuHaime, McCain's political director, represent a significant shift in the GOP's thinking and are the latest signal that Virginia is emerging as a state that could make or break McCain's chances to defeat Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic nominee...
McCain raises $27 million in July
John McCain raised $27 million in July, his largest one-month fundraising haul since clinching the Republican presidential nomination, while the Republican National Committee brought in nearly $26 million.
McCain had $21 million to spend as August began and the national party started the month with $75 million to compete with...
Obama bodysurfs in Hawaii
Are these the pictures Republicans have been waiting for?
Obama bests McCain among Bush-backing bankers, drug companies
Democrat Barack Obama has captured $9.6 million in donations from employees working for securities, mortgage and drug companies, compared with McCain's $6.6 million. In 2004, people in those industries gave $10.6 million to Bush and $5.4 million to Democratic nominee John Kerry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a research group in Washington.
Obama reaches 2 million donors
Barack Obama's campaign announced that it has reached another milestone in its record-smashing fund-raising -- 2 million individual donors, believed to be by far the most by any presidential candidate.
The presumptive Democratic nominee, harnessing the power of the Internet like no candidate before him, had brought in about $340 million by the end of June, compared to about $145 million for Republican rival John McCain.
Military abroad favoring Obama, money-wise
It's not a ton of money or large number of donors, but it is interesting to note that more US military members deployed abroad are backing Democrat Barack Obama than Republican John McCain.
The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign money, reported that Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than McCain. Ron Paul, who like Obama opposes the Iraq war, has received four times McCain's amount though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination.
The George Clooney, Barack Obama smear
According to the story that ran Tuesday in the Daily Mail, a notorious British tabloid, Obama has exchanged e-mails, phone calls and text messages with Clooney, who was supposedly advising the candidate on everything from body language to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Obama-Clooney story was concocted from anonymous sources. Yet it spread throughout the world within hours. It was quickly picked up by The Drudge Report and television networks ranging from Fox News to NBC. The overall result served to bolster Republican candidate John McCain’s dubious contention that his rival Obama is a vapid “celebrity” rather than presidential material.
Clooney responded to the article with humor: “"I have never texted or e-mailed Sen. Obama,” he said in a statement. “And I'll offer a million dollars to anyone who could prove otherwise.
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