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PRESIDENTIAL WATCH
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(caricatures by
Linda Eddy)
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
GENERAL NEWS HEADLINES with excerpts
Indiana, North Carolina primaries are today
NYTimes: For primaries in two states, a variety of scenarios
...the Democratic presidential primaries taking place on Tuesday in North Carolina and Indiana have more delegates up for grabs than any of the remaining contests. For political, demographic and mathematical reasons, those states have the potential to reshape the competition between Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.
WashingtonPost: Who's more red, white and blue-collar
Obama and Clinton try to win over middle America...
USA Today: Young voters poised to flex voting muscle
If this season's patterns hold today in the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, voters under 30 are headed for increases not just in turnout but also in their share of the electorate...
Washington Times: Wright flap's toll on polls
Is the bottom falling out for Barack Obama? It's too early to say, but there are some disturbing signs.
Politico: Clinton fate hangs in the balance
If Hillary Clinton wins in either Indiana or North Carolina Tuesday, the primary election terrain suddenly begins to look more favorable to her than at any other point since Super Tuesday Feb. 5...
DRUDGE: Hillary faces '15-point defeat' in North Carolina, sees Indiana win
Hillary Clinton's inner circle now fears a stinging defeat is likely in North Carolina.
"Look, we worked hard and gave it our best shot, but the demographics, well, they are what they are," a top campaign source explained to the DRUDGE REPORT as voting began Tuesday morning.
The campaign now believes a 15 point loss, or more, would not be surprising...
The campaign hopes media attention will stay fixated on the competition in Indiana, where 72 delegates are on the line, and Clinton internals show a victory...
Obama, Clinton predict fight stretches to June 3rd
In comments on most major cable and network programs, the two White House hopefuls expressed confidence in their chances of winning the Tuesday contests but refused to predict that voting this week would be decisive enough to end the primary fight and begin the general election against putative GOP nominee John McCain...
Clinton,
McCain gas tax holiday opposed by over 200 economists
More than 200 economists, including four Nobel prize winners, signed a letter rejecting proposals by presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain to offer a summertime gas-tax holiday.
... The moratorium would mostly benefit oil companies while increasing the federal budget deficit and reducing funding for the government highway maintenance trust fund, the economists said.
THE CANDIDATES:
John McCain... today's headlines with excerpts
McCain woos Hispanics, launches Spanish website
The
Arizona senator's campaign launched a Spanish language Web site to
mark the Mexican Cinco de Mayo festival and McCain told reporters that
"everything about our Hispanic voters is tailor-made to the Republican
message."
"I am confident that I will do very well," he said. "I know their patriotism, I know the respect for the family, the advocacy for pro-life, I know the small business aspect of our Hispanic voters."
McCain to deliver major speech today on his judicial philosophy
McCain guests on Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show' Wednesday
Hillary Clinton... today's headlines with excerpts
Clinton: OPEC 'can no longer be a cartel'
Clinton's
attacks on oil prices as artificially inflated, Enron-style, keep
escalating, and today she appeared to threaten to break up the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
"We’re going to go right at OPEC," she said. "They can no longer be a cartel, a monopoly that get together once every couple of months in some conference room in some plush place in the world, they decide how much oil they’re going to produce and what price they’re going to put it at," she told a crowd at a firehouse in Merrillville, IN.
"That’s not a market. That’s a monopoly," she said, saying she'd use anti-trust law and the World Trade Organization to take on OPEC.
Clinton: Obama out of touch
Hillary Clinton landed in Indiana Monday and picked up where she left off yesterday – hammering Sen. Barack Obama hard on the gas tax.
"I think it’s a false choice as my opponent and others have been trying to say. ‘Oh we can’t do anything in the short run to help people – we can only worry (about) the long run.’ People live in the short run. People get up every day and have to go fill up their tanks."
... "My opponent Senator Obama, he disagrees with me. He wants you to pay it. Not the oil companies. And he’s always going on TV, and he’s always saying ‘oh you know that’s just like $20 dollars.’ Well you know for a lot people $20 dollars is something right? $20 dollars means something."
Bill Clinton: Rural hit man
it's
this role -- what Clinton has alternately described as the "designated
rural hit man" and "ambassador … to small-town America" -- that
showcases the former president at his most effective.
A fast pace for Bill Clinton
This was Mr. Clinton in double time. In the last full day before the Democratic primary in North Carolina, the former president finished a two-day swing through the state at breakneck speed.
He delivered his stump speech on front porch after front porch, ticking off a laundry list of reasons to vote for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. ..
Clinton camp retools delegate math
"That's what we believe is the standard for deciding this — who has the majority of the total delegates including Michigan and Florida to decide the nomination," said Clinton strategist Geoff Garin.
Limbaugh talks about Clinton 'crush'
"...Mrs.
Clinton saying that I have always had a crush on her. You know, it's
probably just the other way around. I've told you about the time she
followed me in an elevator in a New York hotel and hit the stop button
and asked to be treated like a woman because it hadn't happened in
such a long time..."
Barack Obama... today's headlines with excerpts
Obama pushes 'regular guy' image
Forget
the eloquent speeches, the elegant suits and the Ivy League pedigree;
Barack Obama is not so different from you, just a regular guy. With an
eye to white working-class voters, Obama has recalibrated his image to
bat away impressions that he is out of touch, an elitist.
... The Indiana primary today will test whether the new working-class incarnation pays off, but some supporters in the state prefer the old version.
"You want your president to be elite," said Caleb Warner, 29, who came out to see Obama on Saturday in Noblesville, Ind., drawing on an Indianapolis Colts analogy: "I want Peyton Manning as my quarterback. He's an elite quarterback. I want the best guy for the job."
Obama begs: help me finish Hillary
Barack Obama made an impassioned appeal to voters last night to end Hillary Clinton's dreams of another comeback in the race for the White House.
The Illinois senator told Democrat voters heading to the polls today in Indiana and North Carolina: "I need help."
Obama still tainted by his pastor
the
new Fox 5/The Washington Times/Rasmussen Reports poll:
In the poll, 66 percent said the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. hurt Mr. Obama and an overwhelming majority said Mr. Obama's repudiation of his former pastor did not rescue his presidential campaign.
Obama brings up controversies to prove toughness, electability
"You know when folks are reaching when the big attack on me is I’m not wearing a flag pin or that I served on a board with a guy who was a member of the weather man back in the 1960's, they're reaching, you know that was the best they could do."
While Obama regularly brings up his former pastor Rev Wright on the campaign trail -he has never brought up his relationship to Ayers unsolicited...
Obama responds to Clinton's comments on OPEC
"You
say you’ve been in the White House for eight years,
you’ve had two terms as U.S. Senator and haven’t said a
word about OPEC and now suddenly you’re gonna take it
right to OPEC," an exasperated Obama said. "When you’ve
opposed fuel efficiency standards that would actually
reduce demand for oil and put OPEC in a bind. That’s not
being straight with the American people. That’s not the
kind of politics we believe."
Indiana may feel coattail effect in fall
Many Democrats also calculate that Obama, more than New York Sen. Clinton, can inspire legions of new voters -- particularly young people -- to turn out in November. They see a greater potential to draw independents and crossover Republicans as well.
That is one reason Obama continues to pick up superdelegate endorsements even after Clinton's victories in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and as controversy flares over the Illinois senator's relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
Teamsters Union defends Obama endorsement
The Teamsters union vigorously denied on Monday that its decision to endorse Senator Barack Obama in the presidential race was in any way tied to Mr. Obama’s statement that federal supervision of the union had run its course.
Will exams cost Obama student votes?
Barack Obama's campaign has gotten a boost all year by a big youth vote, but in Tuesday's balloting, that powerful force confronts a new challenge: final exams.
The latest primaries in North Carolina and Indiana happen to arrive when most college students are in the midst of tests and preparing to exit campus at semester's end.
Two Maryland leaders endorse Obama
On
the eve of primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, Barack Obama
angled for an advantage on a second front yesterday, picking up
pledges from two party leaders in Maryland to pull nearly even with
Hillary Clinton in the race for superdelegates.
Ralph Nader... today's headlines with excerpts
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