IOWA
PRESIDENTIAL WATCH
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Where Presidents Begin
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on each candidate to see today's news stories
(caricatures by
Linda Eddy)
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
GENERAL NEWS HEADLINES with excerpts
Fight of the flip-floppers
In
recent weeks Obama has abandoned or downplayed his
previous commitments on wiretaps, the pace of
withdrawals from Iraq, trade with Mexico and Canada,
guns, and the funding of his campaign. In most of these
cases he has been moving to the center. In all of them
he is taking the position most advantageous for his
campaign in the fall. Left-wing bloggers, notably
Arianna Huffington, have been screaming in cyberspace.
McCain, meanwhile, has hit on his campaign theme: "country first." The idea is that he puts the national interest above his personal ambitions, unlike certain Democratic presidential nominees. An attack on Obama's convenient flip-flops is an important part of that story. A Republican spokesman says, "There appears to be no issue that Barack Obama is not willing to reverse himself on for the sake of political expedience."
The obvious risk of McCain's gambit is that it will remind people of his own flip-flops. He used to oppose extending the Bush tax cuts, but now favors it. He used to oppose offshore drilling, but changed his mind. His list of reversals, like Obama's, goes on.
Christian group invokes slavery in opposing Obama
(from
Jake Tapper, ABC)...
The Christian Defense Coalition held their anti-Obama press conference today -- "An Appeal to Catholics Regarding the 2008 Presidential Election" -- complete with the "I want you to pay for abortions" Obama-as-Uncle-Sam picture we told you about Monday as well as some other interesting material.
Such as: this image of slavery, invoked in the CDC's literature to
argue that there is nothing wrong with Catholics being "single issue"
voters on abortion.
Argues the CDC: "if that issue involves a fundamental right, such as
the right to life for a certain group of human beings, and there is
only one morally legitimate position on that issue…no faithful
Catholic would vote for a candidate who, although 'personally opposed
to slavery,' supported 'a white man's right to choose' to own slaves."
Click HERE to see the context of the slavery mention as well as the other controversial materials.
THE CANDIDATES:
John McCain... today's headlines with excerpts
McCain: Obama will take away your weird trendy plastic 'crocs'
"Five
years ago, the outdoor footwear company, Crocs, was started by a
couple of entrepreneurs with a great idea, ingenuity and drive,"
McCain said. "This former small business now employs 600 people in
Colorado alone, and sells over 50 percent of its products in 90
countries around the world. Building barriers to Crocs or any American
company's access to foreign markets will have a devastating effect on
our economy and jobs, and the prosperity of American families."
Watch the VIDEO HERE.
McCain plan for budget: fiscal hawks vs tax foes
The tug of war between wanting steep tax cuts and trying to make sure the government spends no more than it takes in has been a theme this year as Mr. McCain’s economic thinking and policies have evolved. ..
see also
McCain says he will balance budget by 2013
Skepticism on McCain plan to balance budget by 2013
Internal politics heat up at McCain campaign
...it is becoming clear that his campaign is once again a swirl of competing spheres of influence, clusters of friends, consultants and media advisers who represent a matrix of clashing ambitions and festering feuds. The cast includes the surviving members of Mr. McCain’s 2000 campaign, led by Rick Davis and Mark Salter; a new camp out of the world of Karl Rove, led by the recently ascendant Steve Schmidt; and on the periphery, the ever-present Mike Murphy, Mr. McCain’s strategist in the 2000 presidential race who has been dispensing advice to the candidate to the annoyance of the other camps, and is the subject of intensifying rumors in Republican circles that he is about to re-enter the campaign.
Barack Obama... today's headlines with excerpts
Top Obama aide signals shift on Iraq withdrawal policy
A
top defense adviser to Barack Obama is recommending that significant
"residual" U.S. military forces remain in Iraq to ensure its
stability, an emerging policy shift that is angering the Democratic
Party's anti-war left and has Republicans charging "flip-flop."
Adding up the cost of Obama's agenda
Some budget analysts say the Democrat's proposals for funding tens of billions of dollars in programs may not be enough.
Like predecessors who also had to square far-reaching promises with inescapable budget realities, they say, a President Obama might need to jettison pieces of Obama-ism.
"I don't think it all adds up," Isabel Sawhill, an official in President Clinton's Office of Management and Budget, said of Obama's spending plans.
"There will definitely need to be a recalibration of these proposals once someone is in office," said Sawhill, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "The fiscal situation just isn't going to permit doing what Sen. Obama or anyone else would like."
Obama acceptance speech moved to outdoor venue
Borrowing from the political repertory of John F. Kennedy, Senator Barack Obama will accept his party’s nomination outside of the main Democratic convention hall this August, in the Denver Broncos’ football stadium that seats more than 75,000 people.
The move, rumored for days and announced by the Obama campaign on Monday, set off a round of complaints from news executives, who for more than a year have been drawing up elaborate plans for a convention that was to culminate in the main hall, at the Pepsi Center in Denver.
Obama's voting record complicates his shift to center
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is trying to claim the political center, following in the footsteps of previous nominees including Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980. Yet the Illinois senator has a higher hurdle than most: a consistently liberal voting record.
Webb withdraws name from veep list
U.S.
Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) announced yesterday that he will
not seek a place on the Democratic ticket next to Sen.
Barack Obama, ending months of speculation that he was a
front-runner for the vice presidential nomination.
Obama says he won't attend Olympics opening ceremony
"In the absence of some sense of progress, in the absence of some sense from the Dalai Lama that there was progress, I would not have gone," the presidential candidate told reporters at a news conference.
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