The conundrum: The need for a coalition ticket that could mend the party's divisions becomes more urgent as the primary battle stretches on and takes a harsher tone. Yet as their fight gets fiercer, it becomes harder to imagine the two ever getting together.

2008 vote could see turnout tsunami

Many state and local election officials expect turnout in the Nov. 4 presidential election to exceed that of 2004, when voter turnout hit 61 percent — which was the highest level since 1968, according to the Center for the Study of the American Electorate.

“November could see the highest turnout of my lifetime,” said Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer, 63. “Turnout could be up to as much as 80 percent.”

Huckabee cites power of 'kingmakers'

"Rank-and-file evangelicals supported me strongly, but a lot of the leadership did not," the former Arkansas governor says. "Let's face it, if you're not going to be king, the next best thing is to be the kingmaker. And if the person gets there without you, you become less relevant."

... Huckabee said his foreign-policy views were misunderstood by evangelical leaders who criticized him for not comprehending the direness of the "Islamo-fascist" threat.

Their criticism and even antagonism still leave him bemused, and he said it was "like playing the Whack-a-Mole pizza-parlor game" in trying to shoot down their objections.

"I was the one person who talked about this being a theological war, not just a geopolitical war [because] it was unlike a traditional war over borders and boundaries," he says.

Congressman: don't discount Gore-led ticket

U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney, (D-FL), is hoping he won’t have to attend the Democratic Party national convention in Denver in August.

If he does go, that will mean the Democrats still haven’t decided a nominee for the presidential election. And if neither Sen. Hillary Clinton nor Sen. Barack Obama has clinched the nomination by August, Mahoney says we may see a brokered convention, meaning the nominee could emerge from a negotiated settlement.

“If it (the nomination process) goes into the convention, don’t be surprised if someone different is at the top of the ticket,” Mahoney said.

A compromise candidate could be someone such as former vice president Al Gore, Mahoney said last week ...

Report: Palestinian textbooks... Israel does not exist, Jews subhuman enemies

Seven years after the Palestinian Authority began publishing textbooks for use in West Bank and Gaza schools, there still is no recognition of the State of Israel and no advocacy of peace with it. Instead, the textbooks promote violent struggle, while hateful descriptions of Jews and the West remain prevalent.

“While Israeli leaders speak openly of negotiating a two-state solution, Palestinian children are exposed to a rigid, narrow worldview in which Israel does not exist and Jews are considered subhuman enemies,” said AJC Executive Director David A. Harris. “A negotiated settlement cannot succeed until Palestinian children are taught to live in peace with their Israeli neighbors.”

A summary report, Palestinian Textbooks: From Arafat to Abbas and Hamas, is co-published by AJC and the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (formerly the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace– CMIP) and is available at www.ajc.org. It concludes a seven-year project of surveying PA schoolbooks by CMIP. A draft version of the full report on grades 11 and 12 will be available at www.edume.org, where the complete reports for all the other grades also can be found.   Read More

THE CANDIDATES:

John McCain... today's headlines with excerpts

McCain says Dems won't acknowledge gains in Iraq

Senator John McCain, returning to the U.S. after a trip to Europe and the Mideast, accused Democrats of refusing to acknowledge gains being made in improving security in Iraq.

``My Democratic opponents who want to pull out of Iraq refuse to understand what is happening,'' McCain, who has clinched the Republican presidential nomination, told a group at a veterans town hall in Chula Vista, California. ``We are winning in Iraq.''

see also: McCain has tough words for Dems on Iraq, environment

Dems to hammer McCain for '100 years'

Though it’s not exactly an accurate representation of McCain’s views, Democratic strategists view the “100 years” remark as the linchpin of an effort to turn McCain's national security credentials against him by framing the Vietnam War hero as a warmonger who envisions an American presence in Iraq without end.

... On a recent conference call with reporters, Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s bulldog operative, mentioned four times in two minutes that John McCain “wants to be in Iraq for 100 years.”

McCain skips more than half the Senate's votes

... Senator John McCain of Arizona has missed more than half of the roll-call votes since January 2007...

Still, Mr. McCain has a long way to go to match the number of votes Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts missed when he ran for president in 2003-4: 72 percent. He led the entire Senate, followed by Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, who missed nearly half the votes.

McCain's April Fools Day set for Letterman's Show

John McCain is set to appear on CBS's "Late Show with David Letterman" on April Fool's Day. John McCain revealed his intention to run for president during an appearance with Letterman last year.

McCain still faces funding challenge

An Arizona Republic analysis of campaign-finance reports through the pivotal January period shows that many of McCain's largest contributors gave more to his opponents, even Democrats. The lack of major support suggests money could remain a concern for his campaign...
 

Hillary Clinton... today's headlines with excerpts

Clinton camp in lockdown mode after Bosnia flap

“We’ve said all we’re going to say on that,” said Deputy Communications Director Phil Singer on a Tuesday morning conference call with reporters.

A video from CBS News had shown that Clinton’s version of having come under sniper fire was not correct. Her campaign chalked up the discrepancy between her account and the video as a case of Clinton misspeaking.

The Obama campaign seized on the story when it was splashed across the CBS website Monday, with spokesman Tommy Vietor saying it is “part of a troubling pattern of Sen. Clinton inflating her foreign policy experience.”

Hillary admits Bosnia 'misstatement' - not under sniper fire

Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has been receiving heat for her account of a trip she took to Bosnia as First Lady, most recently in a clip that splices her account with CBS footage of the 1996 visit being circulated by the Obama campaign.

It has been disputed whether Clinton was embellishing the risk she faced during the landing in Tuzla and the trip overall. Most recently, Clinton said they landed in an "evasive maneuver" "under sniper fire".

Monday on a conference call with reporters, Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson, defended Clinton but said that she may have "misspoke" in her most recent description of the trip.

Hillary unveils plan to ease housing crisis

On Monday, Clinton laid out a plan in Philadelphia aimed at slowing mounting foreclosures, renewing her call for greater lender transparency and for $30 billion in assistance for individual homeowners and communities to help most Americans through the credit crunch.

Clinton used a speech at the University of Pennsylvania to argue that the federal government should apply the same kind of resources to assist individuals as it did in bailing out investment giant Bear Stearns.

Obama poll collapse may be Hillary's best hope

Clinton's best hope now is that Obama, as a candidate, suffers a political collapse akin to what has happened to the subprime mortgage market, a view shared by aides in both campaigns.

How could that happen? First of all, Clinton not only has to win Pennsylvania on April 22; she has to swamp Obama there.

And she has to go on and post a convincing win against Obama in Indiana, a state where the two appear evenly matched. Results like that would serve to underscore concerns among some Democrats that came after Clinton beat Obama in Ohio, suggesting he was having trouble getting blue-collar white voters into his column. That is one constituency that aides to McCain see very much in play this fall.

Bill says no revote in Fla., Mich. a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise voters

"I must say that this new strategy of denying and disempowering and disenfranchising the voters in Florida and Michigan is, I believe, a terrible mistake. Hillary believes their votes should be counted. And I don't know how we're gonna go to those people in the general election and say you gotta vote for us even though we dumped all over you in the primary," Clinton told a crowd in South Bend, PA.

No Carville apology for 'Judas' remark

Hillary Clinton adviser James Carville won't apologize for comparing New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to Judas, following his endorsement of Barack Obama...

see also: Carville: controversial Judas comment 'had the right effect'

'King of Pork' Rep Murtha debuts on campaign trail for Hillary

Rep. John Murtha's (D-PA) endorsement of Hillary Clinton on March 18 came at a welcome moment for the Democratic candidate: it was only her second endorsement from a superdelegate over the course of several weeks.

On Monday evening in his home district, the anti-war champion and 17-term congressman campaigned with Clinton for the first time and explained his presidential pick.

"Let me tell you something," Murtha said, taking the microphone from Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell. "I have served with seven presidents, and they all got gray hair except for Reagan. Anybody that’s been in the White House for eight years knows how tough it is, understands, has the experience that you need to be president of the United States."