Obama Biden // Current TV

Push to register felons to vote could aid Obama

RICHMOND, Va. - Undaunted by the heat, James Bailey spent his late-summer afternoons... more

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Big audience for Joe Biden-Sarah Palin TV debate

Who's running for president, anyway? Far more people watched Thursday's... more

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Michael Markarian: Humane Society Legislative Fund Endorses Obama-Biden

First time ever Humane Society endorses a Presidential Candidate!!!

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Obama rebuffs McCain's call to delay debate

Senator John McCain on Wednesday injected another surprise into his presidential... more

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Can Obama win Texas?

People seem really into the idea of Obama winning Texas. Since people keep asking me to comment on whether I think he can win it or not, and since we just got a poll today showing him trailing McCain in Texas by just 5%, here's my view right now.

Can he win it? If he puts a huge effort into the state, he can. Will he? Very probably not. We already know that Obama does not plan to buy TV advertising or do any serious campaigning in Texas. He has a lot of volunteers in the state (roughly 10,000) and they do plan to send 10-15 paid staff there as well, so they will compete to some extent, but the fact that he isn't going all out means a few things. One, that he doesn't think he has a great shot at winning it. Two, that even if he could win it by going all out, it isn't worth the risk. Obama does not need Texas at all. He is currently up or tied in 12 states Bush won in 2004 and has a better chance of winning any of those states than he does Texas, which means it makes no sense to take away money, time, and resources from those states and put them in Texas which is one of the most expensive, complicated places to run a campaign in the country. And anyway, if Obama is still within single digits of McCain in Texas when October rolls around, that means he is doing VERY well elsewhere in the country and is probably in position for a near landslide victory, so again, in that case, Texas is not needed.

Sure, Texas might seem like a nice state to go after since it is the second most valuable state in the country in terms of electoral votes, but again, the risk is not worth the reward. Based on what David Axelrod said about Texas, their goal there seems to be to stay close enough to help down-ballot Democrats, especially Democrat Rick Noriega who is running close to Republican Senator John Cornyn and could grab that seat for the Democrats. Even if a poll shows up in October that has Obama within, say, six points of McCain, he won't spend any money or time there. It just isn't worth it when he is in such good position in so many other swing states. And we already know that the very red states that he plans to gamble on a bit are Georgia, Alaska, Indiana, and North Carolina, and he has a much better chance in those than in Texas. Even if he wanted to, Obama can't compete in every state. He has to pick and choose based on where he thinks he has the best chances to win or drain resources from McCain. McCain will never spend money in Texas because he knows that if Obama is in position to win Texas, the election is already lost. There is no scenario where McCain somehow wins states like Ohio, Florida, Iowa, etc. but loses Texas because to win those states, his position would have to improve, meaning it would improve in Texas as well.

Demographically, Texas IS a state Obama can win. If we look at the 2004 exit polling from Kerry/Bush in Texas, we see that 66% of voters were white, 20% were Hispanic, 12% were African American, 1% was Asian, and 2% was other. This breakdown is VERY different from the state's overall racial breakdown which has whites making up less than 50% of the population, and Hispanics/African Americans making up more than 50%. That being said, we know based on the Texas primary results that Hispanic turnout is going to be WAY up this year. We also know that African American turnout is going to be way up this year. Let's say Hispanic turnout increases to 23% and African Americans to 16%, reducing whites to 58% (we'll keep Asians at 1% and other at 2%). This would probably be a best case scenario for Obama.
People seem really into the idea of Obama winning Texas. Since people keep asking me... more

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Obama mocks McCain's call to fire SEC chairman

ESPANOLA, N.M. (AP) -- Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama promised new ideas... more

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Obama and McCain trade jabs over economy

GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) -- John McCain and Barack Obama traded increasingly barbed insults along with prescriptions for the ailing economy Tuesday as financial fears shoved aside lipstick on pigs and every other political issue in a blink with just weeks left in the long presidential campaign.

An ad by Democrat Obama sneered: "How can John McCain fix our economy if he doesn't understand it's broken?"

Getting even more personal, Republican McCain retorted: "Sen. Obama saw an economic crisis, and he's found a political opportunity. My friends, this is not a time for political opportunism; this is a time for leadership."

McCain commented as he and running mate Sarah Palin addressed a rally late Tuesday in Vienna, Ohio.

The verbal dueling showed the importance both candidates put on the issue of the economy as the continuing financial meltdown on Wall Street has driven all other issues out of the news. Both campaigns now believe the candidate who manages to wrest control of the issue and gain voters' confidence could well be the next president.

Earlier in the day, McCain called for a crisis commission, while Obama laughed that off as "the oldest Washington stunt in the book."

"This isn't 9/11," Obama told a noisy crowd of more than 2,000 at the Colorado School of Mines, dismissing the idea of a need for study. "We know how we got into this mess. What we need now is leadership that gets us out. I'll provide it. John McCain won't."

McCain, campaigning in Florida, promised reforms, too, to expose and end the "reckless conduct, corruption and unbridled greed" that he said had caused the financial crisis on Wall Street."

The bewildering turmoil has shaken Americans' confidence, erased hundreds of billions of paper wealth for U.S. stockholders and led McCain and Obama to forsake other controversies and scramble back to the economy as the primary concern of voters.

The presidential campaign had taken an odd turn to side issues - Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere" and moose-hunting, Obama's crack about lipstick on a pig - after McCain's surprise pick of Alaska Gov. Palin as his running mate. There was a fascination with huge crowds attracted by Palin. But the collapse and merger of some of Wall Street's legendary companies forced a return to reality seven weeks before the election.GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) -- John McCain and Barack Obama traded increasingly barbed insults... more

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2 Candidates, 2 Approaches to Wall Street

WASHINGTON — The crisis on Wall Street will leave the next president facing tough choices about how best to regulate the financial system, and although neither Senator Barack Obama nor Senator John McCain has yet offered a detailed plan, their records and the principles they have set out so far suggest they could come at the issue in very different ways.

On the campaign trail on Monday, Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, struck a populist tone. Speaking in Florida, he said that the economy’s underlying fundamentals remained strong but were being threatened “because of the greed by some based in Wall Street and we have got to fix it.”

But his record on the issue, and the views of those he has always cited as his most influential advisers, suggest that he has never departed in any major way from his party’s embrace of deregulation and relying more on market forces than on the government to exert discipline.

While Mr. McCain has cited the need for additional oversight when it comes to specific situations, like the mortgage problems behind the current shocks on Wall Street, he has consistently characterized himself as fundamentally a deregulator and he has no history prior to the presidential campaign of advocating steps to tighten standards on investment firms.

He has often taken his lead on financial issues from two outspoken advocates of free market approaches, former Senator Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman. Individuals associated with Merrill Lynch, which sold itself to Bank of America in the market upheaval of the past weekend, have given his presidential campaign nearly $300,000, making them Mr. McCain’s largest contributor, collectively.

Mr. Obama sought Monday to attribute the financial upheaval to lax regulation during the Bush years, and in turn to link Mr. McCain to that approach.

“I certainly don’t fault Senator McCain for these problems, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to,” Mr. Obama told several hundred people who gathered for an outdoor rally in Grand Junction, Colo.

Mr. Obama set out his general approach to financial regulation in March, calling for regulating investment banks, mortgage brokers and hedge funds much as commercial banks are. And he would streamline the overlapping regulatory agencies and create a commission to monitor threats to the financial system and report to the White House and Congress.

On Wall Street’s Republican-friendly turf, Mr. Obama has outraised Mr. McCain. He has received $9.9 million from individuals associated with the securities and investment industry, $3 million more than Mr. McCain, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group. His advisers include Wall Street heavyweights, including Robert E. Rubin, the former treasury secretary who is now a senior adviser at Citigroup, another firm being buffeted by the financial crisis.

Story continued at link...WASHINGTON — The crisis on Wall Street will leave the next president facing... more

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Palin leaves Alaska, heads back to the trail

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CNN) – Sarah Palin’s most recent visit to Alaska may... more

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Campaign confirms Palin did not go beyond Iraqi border

(CNN) – Sarah Palin did not visit troops in Iraq, a spokesperson for the... more

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Obama and McCain favor private solution to Lehman woes

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain favor a... more

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Obama accuses McCain camp of lies, phony outrage

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Wednesday accused Republican John McCain's campaign of using "lies and phony outrage and Swift-boat politics" in claiming he used a sexist comment against vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Calling it "the latest made-up controversy by the John McCain campaign," Obama responded to the Republicans' charge that he was referring to Palin when he used the phrase "lipstick on a pig" at a campaign stop Tuesday.

"I don't care what they say about me. But I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and Swift-boat politics. Enough is enough," he said.

Obama's reference to swift boating was to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, an outside group that in 2004 made unsubstantiated allegations about Democratic nominee John Kerry's decorated military record in Vietnam.

In his initial comments Tuesday, Obama was delivering a dissertation about McCain and President Bush when he used the lipstick aphorism - not Palin. In fact, his reference to the Alaska governor later on was a defense of her strong belief in religion.

The lipstick maxim is hardly new to either Obama or McCain. The Democrat has used it in the past, and McCain repeated the folksy metaphor when he criticized Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on health care. McCain was never accused of being sexist when he uttered those words.

Later in the day, during an appearance on the "Late Show with David Letterman," the host jokingly asked Obama: "Have you ever actaully put lipstick on a pig?"

"The answer would be no, but I think it might be fun to try," Obama said. He said it was all part of the "silly season in politics" as the campaign heats up.

Letterman ridiculed the notion of the McCain campaign convening a meeting and deciding Obama had called their vice presidential nominee a pig.

"Technically, had I meant it this way she would be the lipstick, you see. The failed policies of John McCain would be the pig," Obama said, drawing laughter from the audience. "Just following the logic of this illogical situation."

Obama used the reference as he criticized McCain's policies as similar to those of President Bush, saying: "You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still going to stink after eight years."NORFOLK, Va. (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Wednesday... more

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Obama dishes out tough talk on education

(CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday detailed his plan to strengthen the education... more

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Obama and McCain have big economic differences

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Job No. 1 for the next president? In the minds of an overwhelming number of Americans, it's fixing what ails the sick economy. What the voters will have to sort out are very different approaches offered by Barack Obama and John McCain.

Both of their fix-up plans rely heavily on tax cuts, but in sharply different ways that speak to the historic differences between Democrats and Republicans.

McCain, borrowing a page from Ronald Reagan and President Bush, would keep tax rates low for higher-income taxpayers and slash rates for corporations, arguing that this is the way to jump-start a lethargic economy and create more jobs.

Obama, focusing on a theme of many past Democratic campaigns, seeks to target his help to the squeezed middle class and address the growing income inequality between rich and poor. He would retain all of the Bush tax cuts for families making less than $250,000 a year, but would do away with Bush's cuts for people making more than that.

The money raised from tax increases on the wealthy would be redirected by Obama to tax relief for lower-income Americans.

Unlike a lot of campaign debates where the promises of neither side get enacted into law, this war of words will make a difference because all of Bush's tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of 2010.

Since neither party wants to go back to the tax rates in effect before 2001, whoever wins will have to work with Congress to pass legislation shaping how the tax code will look beyond 2010. At stake will be billions of dollars.

Under Obama, the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers, those making roughly $600,000 or more, would see their taxes go up on average by $93,709 in 2009, according to an analysis done by the Tax Policy Center, because Obama would begin implementing his tax changes even before the scheduled expiration of the Bush cuts.

Under McCain, those same taxpayers would see an average reduction of $48,860, reflecting in part additional cuts he is proposing.

By contrast, the bottom 20 percent of taxpayers, those with taxable income of roughly $19,000 per year or less, would see their taxes cut by an average of $567 under Obama's program and $21 under McCain's plan, the tax center estimates.WASHINGTON (AP) -- Job No. 1 for the next president? In the minds of an overwhelming... more

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Obama plans extended meeting with Bill Clinton

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama plans to lunch with... more

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Democrats post big gains in voter registration

CLAIRTON, Pa. (AP) -- Five days a week, Linda Graham trolls tattered neighborhoods of this once thriving steel city outside Pittsburgh for unregistered voters she can sign up as Democrats - one of thousands of unknown volunteers whose work outside the limelight has already altered the basic arithmetic of the November election.

The epic nomination battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton helped put millions more Democrats on the voter rolls while Republican registration declined. Now Graham, 45, has taken three months of unpaid leave from her job at Pittsburgh's Central Blood Bank in the hope of adding to those gains before the presidential vote.

She's encouraged by the response here. "They're all feeling the crunch" of lost jobs and a sagging economy, Graham said. "But people are feeling empowered. They're feeling like, you know what, I hold a little bit of power in this."

To counter this effort, the Republicans are counting on a formidable, high-tech get-out-the-vote operation that has helped them win the past two presidential elections.

Since the last federal election in 2006, volunteers like Graham combined with the enthusiasm generated by the Obama-Clinton struggle to add more than 2 million Democrats to voter rolls in the 28 states that register voters according to party affiliation. The Republicans have lost nearly 344,000 thousand voters in the same states.

The Democrats hope their voter registration efforts can boost Obama to victory in competitive states like Pennsylvania, Nevada and Florida and perhaps even give him a shot at winning traditional Republican states like Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

Both Obama and his Republican rival, John McCain, are fighting for independent swing voters, and many of the new Democrats had been unaffiliated voters.

The number of unaffiliated voters dropped by nearly 900,000 since 2006. Many joined the Democratic Party to take part in the primaries and caucuses, and now they will now be targeted by an aggressive get-out-the-vote campaign.

Nationwide, there are about 42 million registered Democrats and about 31 million Republicans, according to statistics compiled by The Associated Press.

The Democrats have posted big gains in many competitive states, including Nevada, New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado and Florida. They have also been targeting historically Republican southern states.

Since 2006, the Democrats have added 167,000 voters in North Carolina, while the Republicans have added 36,000. The Democrats' biggest voter registration goal is in Georgia, where the Obama campaign hopes to register 500,000 voters before the election, said Dean, who has spent the past month traveling the country on a voter registration bus tour.CLAIRTON, Pa. (AP) -- Five days a week, Linda Graham trolls tattered neighborhoods of... more

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Obama/Biden take 8-Point lead

(CBS) Democratic nominee Barack Obama's lead over Republican John McCain has grown after the Democratic convention, which 71 percent of Americans say they watched. Obama and his running mate Joe Biden now lead McCain and Sarah Palin 48 percent to 40 percent, according to the latest CBS News poll.

This is the first CBS News poll to include the vice presidential candidates in the horserace question.

The eight-point lead for the Democratic ticket is up from Obama’s three-point lead before the convention. But there are still a significant number of voters who have yet to firmly make up their minds.

Before the Democratic convention, McCain enjoyed a 12-point advantage with independent voters, but now Obama leads among this group 43 percent to 37 percent. Obama's lead among women has also grown to 14 points (50 percent to 36 percent), and the Democrat maintained the lead he had before the convention among voters who supported Senator Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.

The poll shows an increase in the number of Obama voters who are enthusiastic about him. Sixty-seven percent of Obama voters say they enthusiastically support him, which is up from 48 percent who said so before the convention. About a quarter of McCain’s backers are enthusiastic about him--unchanged from before the Democratic convention.

Sixty-three percent of registered voters say Obama understands their needs and problems, while just 41 percent say that about McCain. And after the Democratic convention, 58 percent of voters say Obama is "tough enough," which is up from 48 percent in early August.

Though Obama has seen his lead grow, there are still areas where he has room to improve. The latest CBS News poll shows no change in the percentage of registered voters who say Obama has prepared himself well enough for the job-- a sentiment in which McCain has held a large advantage. But fewer voters now say Obama is not prepared for the job of President than before the convention.

Although 50 percent of voters now say that Obama has made it clear what he would do as president (up from 41 percent), 44 percent still say the Democratic nominee has not made it clear

(go to link for full article)(CBS) Democratic nominee Barack Obama's lead over Republican John McCain has... more

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Historic White House race enters final stretch

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- They embody four uniquely American stories. They offer messages of transformation with two distinct world views. They pursue one goal. Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama and their respective running mates, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, begin the final eight weeks of their historic and remarkably close presidential contest ready to rewrite national politics. Race, gender and age barriers are at stake. A shifting political landscape will take the fight to previously ignored states. Advertising will suffocate the airwaves with intensely negative exchanges. Debates could be as decisive as the final Carter-Reagan debate of 1980. And more money will be spent by the hour in politics than ever before. Armed with a bigger bankroll and a partisan Democratic advantage, Obama is competing in more states than John Kerry did in 2004, including typically Republican states like Virginia and North Carolina. Soon, strategists predict, the number of states in play will narrow to nine or 10, resembling past elections with Virginia the new battleground in the mix. As election day closes in, they say, McCain needs to shore up his position in previous Republican states and hope the only states left in play are Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. "Whoever wins two out of those three will probably win the election," said Scott Reed, a Republican strategist who managed Bob Dole's 1996 campaign and is close to the McCain camp. Obama and McCain march into the fall campaign with their parties newly unified - tasks they accomplished by each reaching out to a female political figure. Obama joined hands with former rival Hillary Rodham Clinton and sealed the deal with many of her supporters. But McCain's selection of Palin proved most stunning and has the potential to change the game. Obama sits atop a mountain of advantages. President Bush and the Republican Party remain highly unpopular, Democrats have displayed greater intensity, Obama has expanded the electorate, and he has set huge records for political money. McCain, however, has managed to remain far more popular than his party or his president. Independent voters and even some Democrats remain unsure about Obama, either because of his race or his rapid rise from obscurity. And while Obama's election would represent a monumental milestone for the nation by putting the first black man in the White House, Palin gives voters a chance to make history, too, by electing the first woman as vice president.ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- They embody four uniquely American stories. They offer... more

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Obama: McCain focused on biography over economy

DURYEA, Pa. (AP) -- Democrat Barack Obama called Republican rival John McCain's acceptance speech the final piece of an out-of-touch convention that focused on its nominee's biography instead of the struggles of the middle class. "If you watched the Republican National Convention over the last three days, you wouldn't know that we have the highest unemployment in five years because they didn't say a thing about what is going on with the middle class," Obama told workers at a specialty glass factory. "They spent a lot of time talking about John McCain's biography, which we all honor," the Illinois senator said. "They talked about me a lot, in less than respectful terms. What they didn't talk about is you and what you're seeing in your lives and what you're going through, or what your friends or your neighbors are going through." Obama pointed out that the nation's unemployment rate zoomed to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August, according to a government jobs report issued Friday. "We've now lost 605,000 jobs since the beginning of this year," Obama said. "We've had eight consecutive months of job losses." Obama seized on the new jobs report as part of his strategy to tie McCain to President Bush's stewardship of the economy and to connect with voters who fear their jobs will disappear. There is no shortage of such voters in Rust Belt Pennsylvania. In accepting the Republican presidential nomination, McCain spoke at length about his biography, his love of country and his principles for governing.Obama mocked McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis for saying the election would be decided more by voters' views about the candidates than about issues. "Personalities? I mean, I've got a pretty good personality. But that's not why I'm running for president," Obama said to laughter. In two days of campaigning in Pennsylvania, Obama has been reaching out to middle-class and working class voters who preferred Hillary Rodham Clinton to him during the Pennsylvania primary. "I have to say to you: I'm not perfect, but the one thing people can't deny is that for my entire public life, I've been fighting for folks like you, ordinary, middle-class families and working families, helping them getting ahead," Obama said, borrowing a theme that helped Clinton win in these rural, largely white areas. Obama later greeted workers and patrons at The Avenue Diner in Wyoming, Pa. Asked by reporters his reaction to McCain's acceptance speech, Obama replied, "Still haven't heard, after three days, what they're going to do for the economy."DURYEA, Pa. (AP) -- Democrat Barack Obama called Republican rival John McCain's... more

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Palin's convention speech brings in cash for Obama

Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is bringing... more

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