AIRBORNE FROM SAN ANTONIO EN ROUTE BROWNSVILLE---After Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made a brief visit to the Mexican border following an event with Christian evangelicals in the border town of Brownsville, Obama made a very short stroll down the aisle in the campaign plane.
On wooing Hispanic voters:
"We seem to have consistently made inroads. The more people know about me and my track record. Obviously we've got a lot of catching up to do in Texas generally. But we seem to be making progress.
BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS--Travel on a presidential campaign plane is very expensive for reporters. That's true for the Clinton, Obama and McCain press corps. Here's a sampling from the latest invoices I received Friday from the Obama campaign for the ATA charter that carries reporters, Obama staffers, Secret Service agents, crew and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on this latest campaign swing. For example, the price for the short hop in Texas between Dallas and Austin on Wednesday was $442.12.
The prices are first class plus--call it the candidate class premium. There are lots of meals and snacks.
And there are other pricey items each news organization has to pay, besides the charter bill: buses for ground transport at each stop, food at filing centers, internet connections, plus hotels. Last night the Obama travel press stayed at a Hilton in Houston for $175 the negotiated group rate.
THIS INCLUDES UPDATED MATERIAL FROM FIRST POSTING....
HOUSTON, TEXAS--A stark new ad by the Clinton campaign--"It’s 3am and your children are safe and asleep" and something is happening--:Who do you want answering the phone?" is triggering a strong response by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and his team.
At a veterans event here, a very serious looking Sen. Barack Obama just responded. He said the ad plays on "peoples’ fears."
"I don't think these ads will work this time because the question is not about picking up the phone, but the question is what kind of judgment will you exercise when you pick up that phone.
"In fact, we have had a red phone moment. It was the decision to invade Iraq. Sen. Clinton gave the wrong answer. George Bush gave the wrong answer. John McCain gave the wrong answer.
But I stood up and said that a war in Iraq would cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars...
....that’s the kind of judgment I intend to show when I answer that phone in the White House as President of the United States of America," Obama said.
That phrase that Obama used--that Clinton had her "red phone moment" was the same language Obama campaign manager David Plouffe used earlier in a Friday morning conference call. "We don’t think the ad is going to be effective at all, because Sen. Clinton has already had her red phone moment," Plouffe said.
FORT WORTH, Texas -- On the campaign trail, Democratic front-runner Sen. Barack Obama talks about how he would use the bully pulpit if president, and he offered a demonstration Thursday when he drew wild cheers as he told a mostly African-American crowd that parents need to shape up, turn off the TV, help their kids with their homework and stop letting them grow fat eating Popeyes chicken for breakfast.
Obama press conference on campaign plane
Photos by Lynn Sweet
SOMEWHERE ABOVE TEXAS--En route from Austin to Beaumont for a town hall meeting, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) held a press conference on his campaign plane. He was asked if he was ready to write the obit for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.)
This is the print version of a blog column posted on Wednesday
AUSTIN, Texas -- As the front-runner, Sen. Barack Obama took incoming Wednesday from presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain, who went after Obama with some unfinished business from Tuesday's Democratic debate.
AUSTIN, TEXAS--Barack Obama told Ellen DeGeneres that his poll numbers went up after he danced on her show....Day One as president would be "really cool" and chewing on the stop-smoking Nicorette "tastes like you’re chewing on ground pepper – but it does help."
EN ROUTE AUSTIN, TEXAS--Credit Christiana Bellantoni of the Washington Times LINK for digging up what Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was doing while his traveling press corps sat in a bus after a rally Ducansville, outside of Dallas. He was taping a segment of the Ellen Degeneres show.
ABOARD OBAMA CAMPAIGN PLANE OVER TEXAS-Sometime after the beef brisket bbq and before the aircraft landed in Austin, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) strolled through the campaign plane for a brief visit with his travelling press corps.
En route on the Obama plane from Cleveland to a rally in Columbus, Mark Halperin of "The Page" snapped this photo of Obama chief strategist David Axelrod and Lynn Sweet
COLUMBUS, OHIO—One of the Obama rules is to leave no disputable assertion unanswered if you think it distorts your position, your record or your honor.
Presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) got a taste what it is like to be mocked by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Wednesday, in what seemed a preview of a potential general election match-up.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, try as she did Tuesday night, could not throw Sen. Barack Obama off the course he is on to win the Democratic nomination.
Health care dominated much of the debate on the campus of Cleveland State University hosted by NBC's Tim Russert and Brian Williams -- almost solidly for the first 16 minutes -- and Clinton is right when she says her plan has a better chance than the proposal offered by Obama of covering more people.
CLEVELAND, OHIO--Reporters watching the debate here in the filing center groaned when Hillary Rodham Clinton made a very lame joke--I think it was a joke--about always getting the first question.
She then refers to a Saturday Night Live skit from last Saturday that was very clever--mocking puffy Obama press -- but her line about it was not. She got some laughs and boos from the audience
WASHINGTON--At a press conference in Cleveland later Tuesday morning, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Ct.), who folded his presidential bid in January, will endorse Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president, the AP and Connecticut papers are reporting.
