Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Monday touted star power, with Oprah Winfrey planning to hit the campaign trail in early December to drum up support for his White House bid in key early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. 

The television talk show star has already helped raise about $3 million for his campaign. 

One catch — to get preferred seating in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids you must commit to volunteering for his campaign for four hours or attend a caucus training in the state.
 
But that doesn’t worry rival Hillary Clinton, who lags Obama in Iowa but is leading in national polls.
 
“At the end of the day it’s among us as candidates, and people will make their judgments. I’m proud to have my husband support me. It’s wonderful to have someone with his knowledge and experience … vouch for me,” she said in an interview with CBS News. 

Stepping up her game in Iowa, she is sending her popular husband, former President Bill Clinton, to three events around the state on Tuesday.

The top two Republican presidential hopefuls Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney seem to have dispensed with the holiday good cheer and have spent the last few days trying to label the other as too much like Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
 
Romney in New Hampshire spent the weekend tearing into Giuliani for being similar to Clinton because he supports abortion rights and gay rights, according to the Washington Post. 
 
Meanwhile, Giuliani’s campaign sent out a missive reminding reporters that Romney’s health care plan adopted when he was governor of Massachusetts was essentially embraced by Clinton, and cited a September blog on Politico.com which quoted her legislative director saying her plan was “essentially what he enacted in Massachusetts.” 
 
“Perhaps Campaign Trail Mitt Romney should take a step back and review what Governor Mitt Romney did on health care before talking about which Republican candidate is most like Hillary,” wrote Giuliani spokeswoman Maria Comella.
 
It did not take long for Romney to fire back at the former New York mayor.
 
“I think he’s found himself having to stand up and explain why it is that we ought to make him the nominee when he’s very much like Hillary Clinton.  He’s pro-choice like Hillary Clinton.  He’s pro-gay civil union like Hillary Clinton.  He’s pro-sanctuary cities like she is,” he said on Fox News Radio.

Photo credit: Reuters/Carlos Barria

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has hit a bulls-eye with what amounts to an endorsement from the popular magazine Outdoor Life, which has named him “one of the 25 most influential people in hunting and fishing.”

Huckabee, a folksy former Arkansas governor and Baptist preacher who has been surging in some polls in the key caucus state of Iowa, has been trying to woo religious conservatives, a passionate Republican base which has yet to unite around a single candidate.

“God, guns and gays” is often said to be the focus of this group — and the guns part is not simply about what they perceive as their constitutional rights or defense against violent criminals.

It also stems from the fact that hunting and fishing play a big role in conservative Christian culture in the United States. Prominent religious conservatives who engage in such activities include President George W. Bush and James Dobson, founder of the influential conservative Christian advocacy group Focus on the Family.

A U.S. survey of licensed hunters and anglers last year, commissioned by the (secular) National Wildlife Federation, found half of  those polled identified themselves as evangelical Christians.

This evangelical love affair with shooting and catching things stems from many things.

Some say it’s because the outdoors is part of God’s creation; some see it as a vital bonding experience between fathers and sons and so see it as a “family value”; others may point to the fact that Christ’s disciples were fishermen and to the symbolism of fish associated with early Christianity.

It also helps explain why evangelicals are divided on issues such as global warming as outdoors types often among the first to notice weather and environmental change.

Huckabee, a hunter and angler, could win over much of this crowd.

Outdoor Life, which claims a readership of more than 5.5 million, said he was the only presidential candidate from either party to be named to the list, which appears in its December/January 2008 issue which hit newstands last week.

It said that as governor, he helped pass a “conservation amendment” pumping approximately $26 million into the coffers of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. It also cited “Huckabee’s work to improve public access for hunters and anglers and his kids’ fishing initiatives as additional reasons he was named to the Outdoor Life 25.”

“Mike Huckabee is a perfect example of someone making a difference,” said Todd Smith, Editor-in-Chief of Outdoor Life.

Huckabee’s rivals likely can only wish for praise from such quarters because it goes down so well in the heartland — especially at this time of the year, when deer are running scared.

To the White House, former spokesman Scott McClellan’s criticism of his old boss may taste as bitter as cranberry sauce without any sugar. To Democratic presidential candidates, it’s as sweet as a slice of pecan pie.

McClellan, who served as Bush’s press secretary from 2003 to 2006, said Tuesday the president was “involved” in spreading false information about the leak of a CIA officer’s identity, an action that ultimately resulted in a perjury conviction for top White House aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

The White House denied that Bush had asked anyone to pass on false information. But McClellan’s comments, excerpted from an upcoming memoir, come as another blow for an administration that has suffered rock-bottom approval ratings and an exodus of top aides in recent months.

One day before Thanksgiving, Democratic presidential candidates feasted on the news.

Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden said Bush’s alleged behavior was “outrageous” and called on the president to explain himself.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd said the Justice Department should investigate.

“If in fact the President of the United of States knowingly instructed his chief spokesman to mislead the American people, there can be no more fundamental betrayal of the public trust,” Dodd said.

And New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson? “Rare Truth from a White House Flack: Bush Lies,” read the headline on his press release.

It looks like all three candidates are treating McClellan’s comments like a big bowl of mashed potatoes that could give them the boost they need to catch frontrunners Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards before the primaries start in January.

But they likely can’t count on a second helping from McClellan. His memoir isn’t due out until April, well after most states hold their primaries.

Democrat Barack Obama  told a group of  high school students in New Hampshire on Tuesday that when he was a teenager like them, he was “kind of a goof-off” who indulged in drinking and experimented with drugs.

Not until he got to college, the Illinois senator said, did he clean up his act.

“I will confess to you that I was kind of a goof off in high school,” he said. “It came fairly easily to me, but I never really worked as hard as I should have.”

“I made some bad decisions,” he said. “There were times when I got into drinking and experimented with drugs. There was a whole stretch of time where I didn’t really apply myself. It wasn’t until I got out of high school and went to college that I started to realize, man, I wasted a lot of time. I did a lot of catching up when I got to college.”

Listening from the back row in the high school study hall, freshman Tyler Moglia, 14, liked what he heard.

“I think everybody deserves to play around a little bit, you know?” he said. “He got his priorities straight, you know.”
(Video by Jason Szep)

From America’s thirst for foreign oil to surging oil prices and record oil-company profits, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama says the Bush administration is leading the country down the wrong path. But who’s to blame? The Illinois senator keeps it in the family, blaming his own relative. The “black sheep” in his family, he calls him: U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

Cheney and Obama are distant cousins, and Obama played up the link in a stump speech at a high-school in Alton, a town in New Hampshire where the nation holds its first nominating primary, likely Jan. 8.

“We’ve been talking about energy independence since 1973,” he said. “Yet the biggest change since 1973 is that we actually import more oil as a percentage and gas prices have gone up and Exxon Mobile profits have gone up. Why is that? Well it doesn’t help when you put my cousin Dick Cheney in charge of energy policy,” he deadpanned to loud laughter from the several hundred who packed the school’s gym. “You know everybody has a black sheep in the family,” he added.

Mike Huckabee is trying to muscle up on the rest of the crowd running for the Republican presidential nomination.
The former Arkansas governor, who is running a strong second to Mitt Romney in Iowa, has already scored the endorsement of martial arts expert Chuck Norris this week.
Now he has turned to World Wrestling Entertainment and won the backing of Ric Flair — otherwise known as “Nature Boy,” a former 16-time World Heavyweight Champion of the pro wrestling circuit.
Flair, one of the most colorful figures in the already wild world of professional wrestling, has long been involved in Republican politics. At age 58, he is winding down his career as an active wrestler. He’s known for his colorful robes, bleached blond hair and his enthusiastic, “Whoooooooooo.”
Huckabee was referring to the name of one of those painful-looking grips that wrestlers put on each other when he said: “Ric’s endorsement will help us put a figure four leg lock on our opponents.”

Accusing the Bush administration of short-changing American schools, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama proposed on Tuesday an $18-billion-a-year education plan that aims to make preschool education more affordable, pay teachers better and put a national priority on teaching science.

Unveiling the plan at a packed high school theatre in New Hampshire, the Illinois senator also pledged to pay the expense of a college education for Americans who commit to a lifetime of teaching.

He said the plan would be financed in part by cutting other federal programs, boosting federal revenue and tapping savings from ending the Iraq war. It would also require a five-year delay in the multibillion dollar Constellation program managed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to return astronauts to moon by 2020, according to a memo provided by Obama’s staff.

It includes a $10-billion “Children First Agenda” to provide care, learning and support for families with children up to five years old, and grants to help states pay for the program. Funding would also be boosted for needy children.

A “Presidential Early Learning Council” would coordinate the effort, he said. Child care tax credits would be expanded to strengthen day-care programs. .A new Service Scholarship program would recruit teachers for overcrowded and struggling school districts. All schools would be accredited to see which produced the best and worst teachers, and a mentor program would be expanded to match new educators with more experienced teachers.

But unlike rival Democratic presidential contender, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Obama stopped short of calling for the scrapping of the Bush administration’s signature No Child Left Behind law signed in 2002. But he said the policy had serious flaws, lacked proper funding and had demoralized and stigmatized students and teachers.

“That’s what is wrong with No Child Left Behind and that is what we must change in a fundamental way,” he said in the speech at Central High School in Manchester, the largest city in the state that holds the first presidential nominating primary.

(Photo: Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) shakes hands with a member of the audience following a speech about education reform in Manchester, New Hampshire November 20, 2007. REUTERS/Brian Snyder (UNITED STATES) )

Reuters Television correspondent Jon Decker reports on Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani airing his first television advertisement and the scandal involving his former close aide Bernard Kerik dogging him on the trail. We also wrap up the Democratic slugfest in Las Vegas in which Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton fends off attacks by her competitors.

Most political watchers said Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton held her own last night in Las Vegas fending off attacks from rivals — and got a softball or two, particularly with the question about whether she preferred diamonds or pearls. Conventional wisdom because she’s the front runner or not? Did the rest of the candidates land any blows?
 
Tell us what you think about how they all did … and here’s a link to show you who got the most air time …

– Photo credit: Reuters/Steve Marcus