WASHINGTON--White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) touts ethics in a new Iowa spot for this leadoff presidential vote state. The opening scene in the ad is of his announcement speech last February in Springfield. Obama in the spot said he is "extremely proud" that his campaign has refused money from political action committees and federal lobbyists. Former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) also has bragging rights--he only took $20 from PACs.
Obama did take money from PACs and lobbyists for his state senate, U.S. House and U.S. Senate campaigns. "He is leading by example," a narrator in the ad said.Obama embraced the self-imposed ban on PAC and lobbyist money only when he opened his presidential campaign fund in February.
A PAC fact: PACs tend not to be major players in presidential campaign primaries.
Of the $265 million raised by the entire field of 2008 candidates (not counting transfers in and candidate contributions) only $2,215,061 of that came from PACs.
How much did Obama "sacrifice" by not taking PAC money. Let's look at the leading PAC receipient, who turns out to be chief rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) In the first half of the year, she collected $532,046 from PACS, according to an analysis by the Federal Election Commission, followed by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Ct.) at $458,194; Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) who received $393,812; GOP former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney collected $222,900; former GOP New York city Mayor Rudy Giuliani took in $219,158; New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, $126,800; Sen. Joe Biden,(D-Del.); $65,200; Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Ks.) $40,635; Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), $1,400.
WASHINGTON—Some rank-and-file potential donors to a September fund-raiser hosted by Oprah Winfrey for Democratic White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama at her California estate are being told the event is sold out.
Meanwhile, in other California 2008 presidential contest news, a forum on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues will be attended by seven of the eight Democratic contenders on Aug. 9 in Los Angeles. Singer Melissa Etheridge will be among the questioners at the forum sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign and LOGO, the new cable channel with programming aimed at a gay and lesbian audience.
WASHINGTON -- Until last week, White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) lived a charmed political life, never the subject during his campaigns for state Senate, U.S. House and U.S. Senate of a major negative hit, so he never had to punch back.
WASHINGTON-- Since Monday's Democratic debate, White House hopeful Barack Obama has been explaining his position on meeting with leaders of rogue nations. With preconditions? He said none at the debate. The next day he said-as did his spokesmen--of course they would do diplomatic spadework. But the Sunday before the debate he said he would meet with Hugo Chavez--with certain conditions. Rival Hillary Rodham Clinton hit Obama as "naive" over this, triggering Obama to move aggresively and say (not by name) Clinton was "Bush Cheney lite." On Saturday, in Iowa, AP's Mike Glover is reporting Obama said, "I was called irresponsible and naive because I believe that there is nobody we can't talk to," said Obama, drawing loud cheers. "We've got nothing to fear as long as know who we are and what we stand for and our values."
Actually, that position is pretty much the same as Clinton's. Clinton backer former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack held a conference call with reporters a short time ago to make a few points. He said Obama is distorting Clinton's record on her approach to diplomacy and he is disappointed with with "negative politics."
Transcript of Vilsack's comments below. And response to the Vilsack call from the Obama campaign.
WASHINGTON--Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle sent out a fund-raising appeal on Friday afternoon to see if they can make some money off heated exchanges this week between Democratic rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.
"Last week, one of the leading Republican candidates equated Hillary with Karl Marx. Yesterday, one of the leading Democratic candidates called her "Bush-Cheney lite," Doyle wrote, in a reference to Obama.
Note how the campaign is not going to get Obama claim ownership of the word change: Again, from the Doyle letter,
Hillary needs your support most now that the attacks have started in earnest. You and I and Hillary are all ready for change."
for the entire letter, click below..
WASHINGTON--I say this all the time when I am asked about polls on television shows and this latest Iowa poll prompts me to make the point here. National polls don't matter much in the 2008 presidential primary. Individual polls from the early primary states are more important. I rarely write about polls but this new KCCI poll demonstrates that in key leadoff state of Iowa, there are four candidates in play, in order, John Edwards, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson. So while the overall front-runners are Clinton and Obama, Iowa throws a lifeline to Edwards and Richardson. The New Mexico governor moved up in rankings, so his campaign bragged about it on Thursday.
Click below for Richardson release...
WASHINGTON—Democratic White House hopefuls Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards will be fund-raising in Chicago on Aug. 7, when they will be in the city for a presidential forum sponsored by the AFL-CIO.
WASHINGTON—I’ve been musing over the argument made by White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) that his unique multicultural background gives him the best grounding of all the 2008 candidates to be president when it comes to foreign policy. But is this actual experience? Depends on what you mean by experience.
On Tuesday, Obama said Washington experience is “illusory" and on Wednesday continued to try to tie Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to the Bush-Cheney administration.
UPDATE “Well, this is getting kind of silly," Clinton told CNN's John King. " I’ve been called a lot of things in my life but I’ve never been called George Bush or Dick Cheney certainly. We have to ask what’s ever happened to the politics of hope.''
Thursday morning I asked Obama about his multicultural background and his chief rivals and he said, “And what’s been interesting about this debate over diplomacy is, I really think that it is a debate over the same conventional thinking that led people to authorize the war in Iraq without asking questions versus a, an approach to foreign policy that asks questions and is informed by a knowledge and perspective of cultures like those in Iraq and is not trapped by a lot of received wisdom.''
For Clinton, the experience question is answered by her deep detailed knowledge of process, players and politics from years in the White House as First Lady and six plus years in the Senate.
WASHINGTON--White House hopeful John Edwards unveiled his economic plan on Thursday, with proposals to revamp the tax code to close the gap between the "two Americas."
WASHINGTON--One of the biggest issues for White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is to convince voters that he has the experience to be president. He turns 46 on Aug. 4 and has been in the Senate since January, 2005. And on Tuesday night he said his foreign policy judgement was better than anyone else running for president.
At an off-the-record session sponsored by Time-Warner in New York on Tuesday, Obama said, "Look, one thing I'm very confident about is my judgment in foreign policy is, I believe, better than any other candidate in this race, Republican or Democrat.''
(that quote and those below about the Tuesday Time-Warner event came from the Obama campaign late Wednesday night)
Obama also said, "And I don't base that simply on the fact that I was right on the war in Iraq. But if you look at how I approached the problem. What I was drawing on was a set of experiences that come from a life of living overseas, having family overseas, being able to see the world through the eyes of people outside our borders."
And this, "The notion that somehow from Washington you get this vast foreign policy experience is illusory."
WASHINGTON--It's Wednesday, and White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is continuing to keep pressure up on chief rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) over the issue that is central to both of their presidential campaigns: who has the best judgement.
NBC staked out Obama on Capitol Hill on Wednesday where he continued to talk tough. Obama also continued to have to explain what he really intended to say in the debate.
These quotes from NBC: "I think what is irresponsible and naive is to have authorized a war without asking how we were going to get out -- and you know I think Senator Clinton hasn’t fully answered that issue."
WASHINGTON -- In fallout following a Democratic presidential debate, White House hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton accused rival Sen. Barack Obama of being "naive," as tensions between the camps increased Tuesday because Obama said he would be willing to talk without precondition to leaders of rogue nations.
WASHNGTON--Moving to a larger venue, the AFL-CIO's Democratic Aug. 7 presidential forum in Chicago will be a mega-event now--at Soldier Field, home of the Bears, with up to 15,000 people expected. It will also be a dramatic, visual display of the political strength of union members, one of the most important Democratic constitutient groups.
Unlike most presidential forums and debates from both sides of the aisle, where the audience is inside a theater and numbers usually in the hundreds, the AFL-CIO is moving the forum from McCormick Place West outdoors to Soldier Field so union members and their families to be able to see the leading Democratic contenders for themselves. Seven of the eight Democrats will be at the forum, moderated by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.
"From Day One," said AFL-CIO spokesman Steve Smith, "We wanted to get as many of our members and their families in front of the candidates to listen to the candidates and to have the candidates listen to us."
WASHINGTON--In his first radio ads to be aired in South Carolina, the critical primary state where the African-American vote is a crucial bloc, White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) talks about "young black men" in prison and emphasizes his Christian faith.
WASHINGTON--The naming of the House Foreign Affairs committee room in the Capitol for former International Affairs Committee chairman Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) was supposed to take place on Wednesday. It is postponed because Hyde, 83, is recovering from triple bypass heart surgery he underwent on Saturday in a hospital in Aurora, Ill.
WASHINGTON—Monday’s debate revealed a divide between Democratic presidential rivals Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) over talking to leaders of rogue nations during their first year in office.
Obama, searching for common ground, said he would. Clinton said she would first try a variety of diplomatic steps in order to not be used as a propaganda tool. The differences between them bubbled over to Tuesday as the Obama team tried to reinforce his bona fides as a commander-in-chief--perhaps concerned his answer may have left him looking naive--while taking a swipe at Clinton he did not deliver during the debate over her vote to authorize the war. On Tuesday morning, the Clinton campaign hosted a conference call with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a Clinton advisor.
Said Albright, Clinton’s reply was a “very sophisticated answer which shows an understanding of the whole process." (will be UPDATING with more from call)
Obama’s memo hit Clinton for not demanding an exit strategy when she voted to authorize the Iraq war.
WASHINGTON--The CNN/YouTube videos experiment turned out to be a success. The videos were a fun, inventive way to talk about policy and get around just journalists asking questions. I’m curious about whether the youth-oriented “wassup?” format ended up bringing in more and younger viewers. I looked forward to the video questions—not because the questions were that far afield, they were not—they were, simply, entertaining, such as the Snowman worried about the implications global warming would have for his son.
WASHINGTON—Chris Nolan is a Democratic precinct committeeman from north suburban Mundelein. He asked via his YouTube video a very interesting question about the Bush and Clinton hold on the White House for so many years. Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush….and another Clinton? This is the Clinton fatigue question.
