IOWA
PRESIDENTIAL WATCH
Iowa...
Where Presidents Begin
click
on each candidate to see today's news stories
(caricatures by
Linda Eddy)
Weekend Report, March
15-16, 2008
GENERAL NEWS HEADLINES with excerpts
Obama, Clinton agree to play nicer
The talk lasted three or four minutes in full view of reporters
watching on the balcony above who could see them talking, but not hear
what they said.
"They approached one another and spoke about how supporters for both
campaigns have said things they reject," said Clinton spokesman Phil
Singer. "They agreed that the contrasts between their respective
records, qualifications and issues should be what drives this
campaign, and nothing else."
An Obama adviser, speaking on a condition of anonymity about the
private conversation, gave a similar account, while stressing that it
was Obama who approached Clinton on the subject. They committed to
making sure that their supporters don't get overheated in the future,
the adviser said.
Wes Pruden: The plain things nobody can say
... We'll know we've eliminated racism, the real thing, when we can
all talk like grown-ups, in front of one another.
Cuomo says close Dem race could be 'ruinous'
``It would be ruinous to the Democrats to get to the convention
without an arrangement of some kind,'' Cuomo said in an interview on
Bloomberg Television's ``Political Capital with Al Hunt,'' scheduled
to air today.
THE CANDIDATES:
John McCain... today's headlines
with excerpts
McCain heads to Iraq, Mideast, Europe
McCain plans $1000-a-plate fundraiser in London
The transatlantic fund-raiser is to be held March 20 at the home built
by the first Earl Spencer, an ancestor of Diana, the late Princess of
Wales.
McCain says he worries about pre-election Iraq
attacks
John McCain said on Friday that he feared that terrorists might step
up their attacks in Iraq this fall in an attempt to tip the November
election against him.
“I worry about it because I know they pay attention, because of the
intercepts we have of their communications,’’ Mr. McCain, the
presumptive Republican nominee for president, told a friendly crowd at
a town hall-style meeting at the Springfield Country Club in suburban
Philadelphia. “I worry about it, because the hardest thing in warfare
to counter is someone, or a group of individuals, who are willing to
take their own lives in order to take others.’’
He added, “I also believe that they may be able to carry out some
spectacular suicide attacks, but we do have them on the run.’’
Nonetheless, he concluded, “Yes, I’m very worried.’’
Hillary Clinton... today's
headlines with excerpts
Hillary's big donors threaten to withhold $$$
over delegate battle
Hillary in Pennsylvania, takes on big oil
profits
"Both Senator Obama and Senator McCain have sided with Dick Cheney and
Big Oil," Clinton said, noting both had voted for a 2005 bill that
offered some tax subsidies for oil companies.
Clinton aide Mark Penn: Obama can't win general
election
Hillary Clinton’s chief Strategist Mark Penn says Democratic
front-runner Barack Obama can’t win the general election in November —
and Hillary can.
In a conference call with reporters on Thursday, Penn asserted that
Obama can’t win because he has been unable to beat Hillary in several
big states that are key to success for Democrats in the November.
Barack Obama... today's headlines with excerpts
Rev. Wright leaves Obama campaign;
Obama condemns words but not ministry of former pastor
Obama’s campaign announced that the minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright
Jr., had left its spiritual advisory committee after videotapes of his
sermons ignited fierce debate in news accounts and political blogs.
Obama did not clarify whether Wright volunteered to leave his African
American Religious Leadership Committee, a loose group of supporters
associated with the campaign, or whether the campaign asked him to
leave.
see also:
Obama denounces Wright's statements as 'inflammatory'
Obama makes rare FOX News appearance: video
"If I had thought that was the tenor or tone on an ongoing basis of
his sermons, then yes, I don't think it would've been reflective of my
values or my faith experience...If I had heard them repeated, I
would've quit." - Barack Obama, during FOX News interview.
O'Reilly on Obama/pastor: a simple question
Gingrich on Obama/pastor: 'he has a credibility
question'
Gingrich continued: “Does he honestly expect the nation to believe
that for 20 years, longer than 20 years, according to his own
testimony, … he didn't notice the anti-American rhetoric? I mean, does
somebody seriously believe that in over 800 potential Sunday visits,
it never once came up, no one ever mentioned it to him? I think that
strains credibility.”
The story behind the story: Obama's pastor
To reporters who had followed the campaign, it was an old, oft-written
story. But this time it had video of Wright saying things like “U.S.
of K.K.K.A.,” available on YouTube and played endlessly by cable news
channels.
A key part of Obama’s case is electability — the notion that he can
heal the nation’s red-blue divide by appealing to Republicans, or “Obamacans,”
as he gleefully calls these crossover supporters.
The coverage of Wright's comments bolstered the effort by Sen. Hillary
Clinton to raise vague doubts about the judgment of her rival for the
Democratic presidential nomination.
And it revived conservative chatter about Obama’s patriotism that has
been fueled by rumors he does not put his hand on his heart for the
Pledge of Allegiance (false) and stopped wearing a flag lapel pin
(true).
Pelosi's stance boosts Obama
Although Pelosi offered her assessment without directly referencing
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., her comments lend considerable support to
the Illinois Democrat.
Political prognosticators give Clinton more of a chance of catching,
or even surpassing, Obama in the national popular vote but Pelosi
argued that superdelegates should follow the pledged-delegate, not the
popular-vote, leader.
Rezko's role bigger than admitted
Days ago, Politico asked the campaign for a detailed list of the
$157,835 in Rezko-linked contributions it said it had donated to
charity.
The campaign attributed only $85,185 of that to a list of specific
donations from Rezko and 16 associates, declining to attribute the
rest because it told Politico it didn’t want to subject other
contributors “to any suspicion of wrongdoing or embarrassment.”
see also:
Obama describes developer deal as a mistake
Ralph Nader... today's headlines with excerpts
Rivals
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton agree: They sometimes disagree with
their trash-talking supporters and will try to cool it. Advisers to
the Democratic candidates shed some light Friday on the private chat
the two candidates had Thursday on the Senate floor. 
The
Obama campaign, if not necessarily the man himself, seems determined
to make tough questioning of the man and his qualifications
off-limits. Mild, general criticism is OK, barely, but pressing too
hard with the wrong questions is taken for racism, bigotry,
fanaticism, zealotry and other forms of treachery. Once upon a time,
presidential candidates labored mightily to find a log-cabin
birthplace in their past, but some Democrats think they've come up
with a candidate born in a manger.
Former
NY Gov. Mario Cuomo, a Democrat, said the party may be able to avoid a
damaging convention fight if Clinton and Obama teamed up on a party
ticket, or if the media forced the candidates before then to
substantively address big policy issues facing the nation, such as the
economy and the war in Iraq. 
Sen.
John McCain will step off a plane in Iraq this weekend to see
firsthand the effects of the troop increase that he has championed and
that his presidential ambitions are tied to, at the outset of a
week-long series of private meetings with Middle Eastern and European
leaders that will be as much an overseas audition as it is political
theater aimed at voters in the United States.
John
McCain has been averaging a fund-raiser a day in America’s pockets of
affluence – hotel ballrooms in New York, Atlanta, Chicago – but now he
will expand his pursuit of campaign donations at a $1,000-a-plate
lunch at the 18th century Spencer House in London.
Reflecting
how tense the situation has become, influential fund-raisers for
Senator Hillary Clinton have stepped up their behind-the-scenes
pressure on national party leaders to resolve the matter, with some
even threatening to withhold their donations to the Democratic
National Committee unless it seats the delegates from Florida and
Michigan or holds new primaries there. 
Continuing
her extensive campaigning in Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton promised to
increase the taxes on profits from oil companies and criticized her
rival Barack Obama in an appearance at an event held at a gas station
in Pittsburgh. 
Barack
Obama condemned racially charged sermons by his former pastor Friday
and urged Americans not to reject his presidential campaign because of
“guilt by association.” 
On
“The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News,
Bill O’Reilly said Friday night:
“I wouldn’t sit in a church
where a pastor said that.
Would you?
Why does Sen. Obama?
That’s a simple question.” 
Former
House Speaker Newt Gingrich told Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren: “In
terms of Sen. Obama, I think he has a credibility question.” 
"If
the votes of the superdelegates overturn what's happened in the
elections," said Pelosi, "it would be harmful to the Democratic
Party." 
Obama's
acknowledgment that Rezko raised as much as $250,000 for earlier
campaigns, initially made in an interview with The Chicago Tribune and
confirmed later to Politico, came after a year-and-a-half-long trickle
of admissions about Rezko’s fundraising role and more than a month
after Obama’s aides contended that they had identified and jettisoned
all Rezko-linked cash. It also came as Rezko’s trial on corruption
charges, underway in Chicago, brought increased scrutiny of Obama’s
ties to the real estate developer, fast-food magnate and political
insider.
view more past news & headlines
paid for by the Iowa Presidential Watch PAC
P.O. Box 171, Webster City, IA 50595