Friday, August 15, 2008

Clinton to get a place in sun at convention

WASHINGTON – Turns out Democratic primary loser Sen. Hillary Clinton will get time to shine at the party's national convention after all – and quite a bit of it. Democrats officially will choose Barack Obama to run against Republican John McCain this fall.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Clinton backers to make noise in Denver

WASHINGTON – Still sore from an epic primary battle, some of Sen. Hillary Clinton's supporters aren't buying the unity theme planned for the Democratic National Convention. They weren't mollified when nominee-in-waiting Barack Obama gave prime-time speaking slots to Clinton and her husband, the former president. Instead, they're itching for a fight and plan to wage one in Denver.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

McCain adviser lobbied for republic

WASHINGTON – John McCain's chief foreign policy adviser and his business partner lobbied the senator or his staff on 49 occasions in a 3-1/2-year span while being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the government of the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Speaker pick shows Obama's Va. focus

HONOLULU (AP) – Barack Obama chose Mark Warner, Virginia's Senate candidate and former governor, to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic convention, underscoring Democrats' all-out effort to win the Southern state for the first time since 1964. The move announced Wednesday also raises questions about the prospects of Obama choosing Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine as his running mate.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Figure in scandal a McCain fundraiser

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (AP) – A political strategist tied to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal is helping raise money for Sen. John McCain, urging his fellow Georgia Republicans to attend a fundraiser for the presidential candidate in Atlanta.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

NH voters seeing blue

Like any retail salesman worth his salt, a political party's true goal is to keep longtime customers happy while appealing to new ones. And with November's election looming, statistics indicate Democrats have had many more new customers walk through their doors than Republicans. Between the election of November 2006 and this July, the state Democratic Party gained 42,573 registered voters.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Health care key in Dem platform

PITTSBURGH (AP) – Democrats shaped a set of principles Saturday that commits the party to guaranteed health care for all, heading off a potentially divisive debate and edging the party closer to the position of Sen. Barack Obama's defeated rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

McCain faults Obama on Iraq war

LAS VEGAS (AP) – Republican Sen. John McCain on Saturday issued a scathing critique of Barack Obama's judgment and readiness to be commander in chief, telling a veterans' group his Democratic rival had tried to "legislate failure" in Iraq and placed his own ambition ahead of military success there.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Clinton says she, Obama aligned

LAS VEGAS (AP) – Sen. Hillary Clinton told an exuberant crowd Friday she wants Sen. Barack Obama to win the White House, even though he dashed her own presidential dreams – and she wants her supporters to vote that way, too.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Many voters may cast paper ballots

SAN DIEGO – Come November, more Americans might cast their ballots on paper than in any other election in U.S. history. That wasn't supposed to happen. If everything had gone according to the government's $3 billion plan to upgrade voting technology after the hanging-chad fiasco in Florida in 2000, that sentence would read "electronic machines" instead of paper.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Obama pokes fun at McCain over tire-pressure issue

ELKHART, Ind. – Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Wednesday taunted Republican candidate John McCain for agreeing on the importance of keeping tires inflated as an energy-conservation measure after having joined the GOP in mocking the idea. "It will be interesting to watch this debate between John McCain and John McCain," Obama said as he campaigned in Indiana with Sen.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Obama, McCain diverge on solution for energy woes

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Democrat Barack Obama blamed Republican energy policies for some of the nation's economic woes Tuesday as his GOP rival John McCain advocated a large expansion of nuclear power. Both candidates roamed the economically depressed Rust Belt touting their energy plans as concerns about $4-a-gallon gasoline and job losses have emerged as the presidential campaign's hottest issues.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Obama opposes slavery reparations

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, opposes offering reparations to the descendants of slaves, putting him at odds with some black groups and leaders. The man with a serious chance to become the nation's first black president argues that government should instead combat the legacy of slavery by improving schools, health care and the economy for all.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Obama shifts on offshore drilling

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) – Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that's what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Explosive issue hits Obama-McCain campaign

WASHINGTON – Playing the "race card." That means trying to exploit the most explosive political issue in this year's presidential contest, hoping it will help your candidate and hurt the other guy. John McCain brought up the issue Thursday – but accused Barack Obama of starting it all.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Obama slams McCain over oil company tax breaks

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) – Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama seized on a record oil company profit to argue that rival John McCain offers only tax breaks for Big Oil and "short-term gimmicks" to consumers struggling with soaring gasoline prices. The Illinois senator quickly incorporated news of Exxon Mobil's nearly $12 billion quarterly profit into his remarks at a town hall meeting.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Presidential hopefuls wrapping up search for running mates

WASHINGTON – As speculation swirls, Barack Obama and John McCain are knuckling down to the work of choosing running mates with their nominating conventions just weeks away. Current and former governors and senators seem the most serious contenders, though most of those mentioned are playing coy about any discussions with either campaign.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

McCain ad misleads voters on Obama's troop-support votes

FactWatch '08

Sen. John McCain's campaign released the 30-second TV spot "Troop Funding" on July 18, and said it would run on national cable television and in unspecified "key states." The claim that Obama "voted against funding our troops" is true. He did, once, last year. But that's hardly the whole story.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Obama hit over canceled visit

Vote '08: President

WASHINGTON – Republican John McCain's campaign on Saturday sharply criticized Democratic rival Barack Obama for canceling a visit to wounded troops in Germany, contending Obama chose foreign leaders and cheering Europeans over "injured American heroes."

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Obama: McCain shifting on Iraq

LONDON – Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama brushed aside Republican criticism of his overseas trip on Saturday and stood outside the famed 10 Downing Street to say that both President Bush and Sen. John McCain were moving his way on the key issues of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Obama's private prayer published

JERUSALEM (AP) – An Israeli newspaper's decision to publish a handwritten prayer left by Barack Obama in the cracks of Jerusalem's Western Wall drew criticism Friday as an invasion of his privacy and his relationship with God. In the note, placed at Judaism's holiest site Thursday, Obama asks God to guide him and guard his family.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

McCain criticizes Obama Iraq policies

DENVER (AP) – Republican presidential candidate John McCain, ridiculing Barack Obama for "the audacity of hopelessness" in his policies on Iraq, said Friday that the entire Middle East could have plunged into war had U.S. troops been withdrawn as his rival advocated.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Judge tosses suit against McCain over citizenship

CONCORD – A federal judge dismissed Thursday a Nashua man's legal challenge that Republican presidential nominee-to-be Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was ineligible because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. After a one-hour hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph LaPlante ruled Fred Hollander, of 56 Dorchester Way, lacked legal standing to bring the complaint.

Friday, July 25, 2008

In Berlin, Obama calls for unity to fight terrorism

BERLIN – Cheered by an enormous international crowd, Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama, of Illinois, on Thursday summoned Europeans and Americans together to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it" as surely as they conquered communism a generation ago.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Obama pledges support for Israel

Vote '08: President

SDEROT, Israel – From the solemnity of a Holocaust museum to a dusty village battered by Hamas rockets, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama on Wednesday professed "an unshakable commitment to the security" of Israel, whether the threat comes from terrorists, Iran or elsewhere.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

McCain says he didn't misstate facts on buildup

Vote '08: President

BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Republican John McCain pushed back Wednesday against Democratic criticism that he misstated when the troop buildup ordered by President Bush began, saying elements were put in place before Bush announced the strategy in early 2007.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

McCain rips Obama on Iraq

Vote '08: President

ROCHESTER – Sen. John McCain charged Tuesday that rival Sen. Barack Obama would rather lose the war in Iraq if it means winning this fall’s election. The presumptive GOP nominee told a nearly packed house of supporters at the Rochester Opera House that a year ago he risked his political future by embracing an unpopular troop surge that helped reduce U.S. casualties in Iraq.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Presidential candidates trying to beat the clock

CONCORD - Third-party candidates Ralph Nader and Bob Barr are working to beat a deadline to qualify for New Hampshire's presidential ballot as alternatives to Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama. Nader spokesman Chris Driscoll said Tuesday the campaign has gathered about 3,000 signatures of registered voters and hopes to have 6,000 by the Aug.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

The perfect part: Cindy McCain happy to play supporting role

Vote '08: President

WASHINGTON – Cindy McCain might yearn to be invisible sometimes, or at the very least, not surrounded by the Secret Service and photographers and gawking people. The scrutiny seems too much to bear. Something about that half-apologetic manner.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

AFL-CIO falsely attacks McCain over veterans’ health care

The AFL-CIO points to Republican Sen. John McCain’s votes against Democratic proposals to increase funding. Those were defeated along party lines and were accompanied by alternative measures to increase benefits by smaller amounts, all of which passed unanimously or with near-unanimous majorities. McCain supported all of them.