IOWA
PRESIDENTIAL WATCH
Iowa...
Where Presidents Begin
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on each candidate to see today's news stories
(caricatures by
Linda Eddy)
Wednesday, Feb. 20,
2008
GENERAL NEWS HEADLINES with excerpts
NY Times: McCain affair with lobbyist?
It had been just a decade since an official favor for a
friend with regulatory problems had nearly ended Mr. McCain’s
political career by ensnaring him in the Keating Five scandal. In the
years that followed, he reinvented himself as the scourge of special
interests, a crusader for stricter ethics and campaign finance rules,
a man of honor chastened by a brush with shame.
But the concerns about Mr. McCain’s relationship with
Ms. Iseman underscored an enduring paradox of his post-Keating career.
Even as he has vowed to hold himself to the highest ethical standards,
his confidence in his own integrity has sometimes seemed to blind him
to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest.
Obama opens up 14-point lead nationally
The poll showed Obama with a 14-point edge over Clinton, 52 percent to
38 percent, after being in a statistical tie with the New York senator
last month.
Obama also leads Republican front-runner John McCain in a potential
November election match-up while Clinton trails McCain, enhancing
Obama's argument he is the Democrat with the best shot at capturing
the White House.
Obama, McCain win Wisconsin primary
*McCain's
remarks *Obama's
remarks
Delegate scorecard (from
WashingtonPost)
Obama: 1423 (169 superdelegates) Clinton
1297 (239 superdelegates)
McCain: 942 (73 unpledged dels.) Huckabee:
245 (5 unpledged dels.)
Texas and Ohio are where all the action has gone
...in Texas, Barack Obama talked about the crisis
affecting subprime borrowers. Mr. Obama pledged to penalize predatory
lenders, offer a tax credit to cover 10 percent of interest on
mortgages of struggling homeowners and make an additional $10 billion
in bonds available to help buy first homes or avoid foreclosure.
...the Ohio and Texas primaries will be held March 4,
along with those of Rhode Island and Vermont. ... The four states
together will decide 370 pledged delegates, the second-largest trove
after the 22 contests on Feb. 5. Depending on the popular vote outcome
and the complex delegate math, the March 4 votes could give Mr. Obama
a commanding lead, put Mrs. Clinton ahead or leave them essentially
tied and looking toward the next big-state contest, Pennsylvania on
April 22.
THE CANDIDATES:
Mike Huckabee... today's headlines with excerpts
Huckabee: Raul Castro is a 'tyrant
and dictator' just like big bro Fidel
In a statement provided by the campaign, Huckabee called Castro a ”
tyrant and dictator” just like his brother Fidel.
... “The sad thing is that Raul is not going to be much better than
his brother Fidel. And especially, if you look at Raul’s personal
involvement in the shooting down of the aircraft operated by ‘Brothers
to the Rescue’, ” Huckabee said.” That was sheer murder, I personally
would like to see Raul Castro indicted for that murder. I think that
to shoot down a civilian aircraft, that was unarmed, over
international waters is an act of not just aggression, its an act of
murder. And we shouldn’t be all that happy if Raul becomes the new
dictator.”
Heading to Texas, Huckabee remembers the Alamo
Huckabee headed to Texas on Tuesday, a state where he feels he can
pick up conservative votes because “Texas is a state where
independence matters a lot, people there don’t like to be told what to
do, how to think, how to vote. I think we’ll find a very welcome
atmosphere.”
He will also visit the Alamo on Thursday, invoking symbolism he feels
is appropriate, “There’s a lot of history there, a lot of history of
courage, of valor and also of people who stood by their convictions no
matter what.”'
Huckabee says passion keeps him in the race
"Let me assure you that if it were about ego, my ego doesn't enjoy
getting these kinds of evenings where we don't win the primary
elections," Huckabee told reporters at a Little Rock hotel. "So it's
got to be about something more than that, and it is. It's about
convictions."
The former Arkansas governor said he still wanted to deliver his
message about issues important to him, such as opposition to abortion
and a revised U.S. tax policy.
"We're going to keep marching on," Huckabee said. He already has
campaign appearances scheduled in Ohio and Texas, which hold primaries
March 4.
John McCain... today's headlines
with excerpts
McCain turns fire on Obama:
"eloquent but empty"
Exit polls: McCain takes Wisconsin
by wide margin
Self-identified Republicans made up more than 7 of 10
voters, and they went for McCain by 22 points - 58
percent to 36 percent for Huckabee.
Conservatives also went for McCain by 4 percentage points, and among
those voters who consider themselves somewhat conservative McCain wins
55 percent to Huckabee’s 38 percent.
McCain even wins among frequent conservative talk radio listeners.
These voters make up 28 percent of primary participants, and they went
for McCain over Huckabee by 20 points.
Again today, the retired naval aviator garners the support of
veterans. Vets make up almost one quarter of voters, and they chose
McCain over Huckabee by a significant 63 percent to 31 percent.
Voters also clearly think that McCain is the best Republican to defeat
the Democratic nominee in November. A solid majority of more than 8 of
10 voters picked McCain.
see also:
McCain heads off Huckabee surprise in Wisconsin
Cindy McCain responds to Michelle
Obama's late-breaking pride in America
When asked at a media availability afterward if they were responding
to Michelle Obama’s comments Monday that this election is the “first
time” she was “really proud” of her country, Sen. McCain deferred to
his wife–who reiterated her previous words.
“I just wanted to make the statement that I have and always will be
proud of my country,” McCain said.
Speaking in Wisconsin Monday, Michelle Obama caused a stir when
she said, “for the first time in my adult lifetime I am really
proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but
because I think people are hungry for change.”
see also:
Comments bring Michelle Obama, Cindy McCain into fray in Wisconsin
McCain wins Washington state's GOP
primary
John McCain won Washington state's primary, CNN and Fox
News projected, shoring up his front-runner status in
the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
McCain, 71, defeated former Arkansas Governor Mike
Huckabee and U.S. Representative Ron Paul of Texas. A
total of 19 delegates are at stake in the primary.
Another 18 delegates are picked through a caucus system,
which began on Feb. 9.
McCain may upset Dems' strategy
But the emergence of John McCain as the likely standard-bearer for the
GOP may have scrambled the equation, cooling a potential political
revolt among Hispanics and sending Democrats in search of a new
playbook.
"It completely screws it up," said Charles Black, a senior McCain
adviser. "We nominated the one person who will not suffer that
backlash." ...
McCain promises to be a uniter
John McCain may be closing on the magic number of
delegates to claim the GOP presidential nomination, but
he's not taking anything for granted. Even before the
polls closed in Wisconsin, he arrived here to kick off
his campaign for Ohio's delegates.
McCain will spend much of the next three days in Ohio,
though with a leisurely schedule that alternates
campaign events with fund-raising activities here and in
Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. Speaking to reporters
after he flew to Ohio's capital this afternoon, McCain
acknowledged that he still needed to energize a
Republican electorate that was dismayed by GOP missteps
in recent years.
"Our base was dispirited by the spending and
corruption," McCain said, arguing that scandals largely
explained the loss of GOP control in Congress. "We have
a lot of work to do with our base. We have to unite it
and we have to energize
Ron Paul... today's headlines with excerpts
Hillary Clinton... today's
headlines with excerpts
Ron Fournier: It's panic-button
time
... In a sign of desperation, the Clinton camp floated the idea of
poaching delegates that Obama earned via elections. While allowable
under Democratic National Committee rules, the tactic would likely
divide Democrats along racial lines and set the party back decades.
It would be the ultimate act of selfishness and foolishness. Even
Clinton must realize there is little she can do to win the nomination.
She can only help Obama lose it.
Hillary Clinton defiant after
Wisconsin loss
This time around, she did not even wait for the results to come in.
Instead, on Tuesday night, Clinton announced that she would give a
"major address" in Manhattan on Wednesday morning and delivered what
aides described as a "preview" in Ohio. It seemed clearly designed to
be a pre-emptive strike against the news that Clinton had lost yet
another primary race.
Wisconsin exit polls spell trouble for Clinton
Barack Obama neutralized Hillary Clinton’s strength with women and
devastated her among men in the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday,
according to exit polls. ..
Wisconsin beginning of the end for Hillary
Clinton?
Hillary in Ohio: Work not words
"It's about picking a president who relies not just on words -- but on
work, hard work, to get American back to work," ..."Someone who's not
just in the speeches business -- but will get America back in the
solutions business."
... The aim of the Clinton speech -- and the reason it was released
before the Wisconsin results were known -- is to show that regardless
of what happened tonight Clinton is committed to driving a serious
contrast between herself and Obama in the two weeks before Ohio and
Texas vote.
Barack Obama... today's headlines with excerpts
Teamsters Union to endorse Obama
Obama is meeting with Teamster President James P. Hoffa in Austin,
Texas, today. The endorsement is expected to come soon thereafter,
said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the
planned formal announcement.
The Teamsters represent 1.4 million members.
Union support will be key in the Democratic primaries in the next few
weeks, particularly in Ohio on March 4 and Pennsylvania on April 22.
Ohio and Pennsylvania have some of the nation's largest number of
union workers, with more than 15 percent of the workforce unionized in
Pennsylvania and just over 14 percent in Ohio.
Obama takes 10 in a row!
see also:
Victorious Obama: "We have lift-off"
Wisconsin and Hawaii hand victories to Obama
Obama win sets stage for showdowns
in Texas, Ohio
His win sets the stage for showdowns in Texas and Ohio
on March 4, two states Clinton's supporters acknowledge
she must win.
The timing of the two candidates' evening speeches
indicated that both are readying for a bruising two
weeks. In a small breakdown of political etiquette,
Clinton stepped to the podium in Youngstown, Ohio, soon
after polls closed in Wisconsin, to open what her
campaign billed as a major new front against Obama. And
Obama began his own speech in the middle of hers,
causing cable networks to interrupt her talk and cut to
his.
Obama chips away at Clinton's
usual hard core of supporters
"He's making a real assault on the Clinton coalition for the first
time," said Mark Mellman, an independent Democratic pollster whose
Wisconsin clients date to the 1980s.
In a state in which nearly 9 in 10 Democratic voters are white, Obama
won more than 6 in 10 of the votes of white men, while Clinton held
only a narrow edge among white women. And he defeated her by
double-digit margins among those voters with family incomes less than
$50,000 and among those without college degrees, exit polling shows.
Obama says Clinton's housing plan
helps rich
Barack Obama accused rival Hillary Clinton on Tuesday of
rewarding the rich and hurting future mortgage seekers
with her plan to end the U.S. housing crisis.
"It will reward people who made this problem worse but
it will also reward people who are wealthy and don't
need it," Obama, who would be the first black president,
told a small group gathered to discuss the economy in
San Antonio.
"A blanket freeze like she's proposed will drive rates through the
roof on people who are trying to get new mortgages to buy or refinance
a home," he said.
"Experts say the value of homes will fall even more, and even more
families could face foreclosure."
Dana Milbank: Obama by the numbers
- twice-told tales
Obama had a ready answer for the questions about his
originality: another big primary win.
...
A chant of "Yes, we can" filled the arena, and Obama,
emerging underneath a banner honoring basketball great Hakeem Olajuwon,
enjoyed a reception the Houston Rockets would envy. "The American
people have spoken out, and they've said we need to move in a new
direction," Obama told the arena.
Whoever first uttered the words that followed, it didn't
much matter: On the arena floor, they were drowned out by deafening
cheers.
Obama opens 2-front fight
"I revere and honor John McCain's service to his country. He's a
genuine hero," Obama told a packed house at Houston's Toyota Center
Tuesday night, during his roughly 45-minute post-Wisconsin victory
speech. "But when he embraces George Bush's failed economic policies,
when he says he's willing to send our troops into another 100 years in
Iraq, then he represents the party of yesterday, and we want to be the
party of tomorrow."
It helps that Obama now lumps both his opponents into the same camp,
the Washington establishment that voted for war in Iraq and has
catered to special interests.
"The last thing we need is to have the same old folks doing the same
old things, making the same mistakes over and over again," he said in
Houston.
Obama defends wife on matter of pride
He commented after Cindy McCain, wife of Republican presidential
candidate John McCain, made a veiled reference to Michelle Obama's
recent remarks.
Cindy McCain told a Wisconsin rally on Tuesday: "I'm proud of my
country, I don't know about you, if you heard those words earlier."
Barack Obama, interviewed on WOAI radio in San Antonio, Texas,
expressed frustration that his wife's comments became political
fodder.
"Statements like this are made and people try to take it out of
context and make a great big deal out of it, and that isn't at all
what she meant," Obama said.
"What she meant was, this is the first time that she's been proud of
the politics of America," he said. "Because she's pretty cynical about
the political process, and with good reason, and she's not alone. But
she has seen large numbers of people get involved in the process, and
she's encouraged."
tracking the Larry Sinclair/Obama limo-cocaine-sex
story -- as the mainstream media steadfastly refuses
to report it: 
Mr.
McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never
had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance
of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business
before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of
redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.
Barack
Obama has surged past Hillary Clinton to open a big national lead in
the Democratic presidential race, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll
released on Wednesday.
Barack
Obama swept to a double-digit victory in the Wisconsin primary
Tuesday, turning aside a fierce effort by Hillary Clinton and further
propelling his campaign as the Democrats head toward epic contests in
Ohio and Texas.
John
McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, defeated Mike Huckabee,
55% to 37%, in their party's contest in Wisconsin. McCain also won the
GOP's Washington primary, moving him closer to formally clinching the
nomination, even as Huckabee continued to resist pressure to withdraw
in the cause of unity.
In
Ohio, Hillary Clinton spoke of her plans to revitalize
the ailing Ohio economy with investments in wind and solar power,
medical research, advanced automotive technology and low-cost home
loans to protect people from foreclosure. Ohio has one of the highest
foreclosure rates in the nation.
Mike
Huckabee may have had a down day in Little Rock while he
awaited for the Wisconsin election results, but he
jumped in full force and joined the sharp criticism
against Raul Castro’s apparent ascension as leader of
Cuba, now that his brother Fidel is stepping down after
decades at the helm.
Following
his win in Wisconsin, John McCain immediately turned his
fire on Democrats, and particularly Sen. Barack Obama
(Ill.), dismissing what he said was an "eloquent but
empty call for change that promises no more than a
holiday from history and a return to the false promises
and failed policies of a tired philosophy that trusts in
government more than people." 
“I
am proud of my country. I don’t know about you? If you
heard those words earlier, I am very proud of my
country,” Mrs. McCain said while revving up the crowd
and introducing her husband.
For
Democrats, 2008 was supposed to be the year of the
Mountain West, when three years of relentless Republican
attacks on undocumented immigrants would fuel a backlash
among Hispanics that would change the playing field in
Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, and perhaps
alter the landscape of presidential politics for a
generation.
After
10 consecutive defeats — including a heartbreaker in
tailor-made Wisconsin on Tuesday — Hillary Clinton win
the nomination unless Obama makes a major mistake or her
allies reveal something damaging about the Illinois
senator's background. Don't count her out quite yet, but
Wisconsin revealed deep and destructive fractures in the
Clinton coalition.
Hillary
Clinton has gotten good over the last few weeks at
fleeing a primary state she has just lost and trying to
turn the page. 
"Her
coalition just is not holding," said Lawrence R. Jacobs, director of
the University of
Clinton has tried to stop Obama's momentum in Wisconsin by suggesting
he borrowed speech excerpts inappropriately from his political ally,
Barack
Obama is slated to pick up the endorsement of the
powerful Teamsters, the second major union endorsement
for the Democratic front-runner in a week, union
officials told The Associated Press on today. 
Barack
Obama (Ill.) swept to victories in Wisconsin
and Hawaii yesterday, bringing to 10 the number of
consecutive contests he has won over Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton
and raising the stakes for crucial votes in Ohio and
Texas next month...
...
yesterday the senator from Illinois broke deep into
Clinton's base in Wisconsin. He solidified gains he made
in last week's Potomac Primary, proving competitive
among some key Wisconsin voting blocs that had been
backing the senator from New York and overtaking her
among others. 
...
an increasingly confident Obama is beginning to battle on two
fronts, holding off Clinton with one arm as he takes increasingly
frequent swings at McCain with the other. At Obama rallies, McCain has
become a foil, the object of boos and hisses for the partisan
faithful. But Obama appears to believe he has found the way to attack,
even as he continues his outreach to Republicans.
Barack
Obama sought Tuesday to clarify his wife's statement that she is proud
of the U.S. "for the first time in my adult life." He said her
newfound pride is about the political system and was not meant to
disparage her country. 
Obamabomb?
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