WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush, despite record low job approval ratings, made a rare public appearance on Wednesday to help Michigan Republicans raise money for the November campaign and he used it to mock the campaign themes of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
    
Bush never mentioned Obama’s name but used the Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s name 11 times throughout his 22 minutes of remarks to about 300 supporters in Livonia, Mich.
 
Obama has repeatedly used the words “hope” and “change” as themes of his campaign and to bash the Bush administration in his bid capture the White House in November. But Bush tried to turn the tables on Obama using his own words against him.
 
“The other side talks a lot about ‘hope,’ and that sums up their Iraq policy pretty well: They want to retreat from Iraq and hope nothing bad happens,” Bush said. “But wishful thinking is no way to fight a war and to protect the American people.”
 
On change, Bush said Democrats once favored lower taxes, believed in “common sense American values” and that “America should pay any price and bear any burden in the defense of liberty — but they have changed.”
 
“This isn’t the kind of change the American people want,” Bush said. Americans want change that make their lives better, their country safer. That requires changing the party control of the Congress.”

Republicans face an uphill battle retaking control of the House of Representatives because numerous lawmakers are retiring or seeking another office, while in the Senate they must defend 23 seats and Democrats have only 12 seats to guard.

Bush has made numerous appearances on the campaign trail to help Republican candidates raise money, but almost all of them in the last few months have been behind closed doors (the White House says their policy is to keep fundraisers at private residences closed to the press). Last week Bush made a public appearance in Washington to help the Republican congressional and Senate campaign committees raise some $21.5 million.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick in Livonia, Mich. 

- Photo credit: Jim Young (Bush speaking to supporters at a fundraiser in Michigan.)
 

Sort of like Walter Mondale's 1984 political slogan, "Where's the Beef?," the 2008 political campaign is all about pork- pork barrelling, that is.

John McCain's campaign last week launched a video game on Facebook called "Pork Invaders," a spoof on the 1978 arcade favorite "Space Invaders" that takes aim at pork barrelling, or government spending that aims to satisfy a group of voters in exchange for their political support. 

In the game, players use arrow keys to shift a McCain logo across the screen to shoot red "vetoes" at a herd of pigs looming above.  But watch out, the pigs are ready to aim at and, well, soil, the Arizona Senator's logo.  The more pigs players "veto," the larger the amount of dollars saved in the budget. 

The low-tech game is a "unique way to get the Senator's message out there about pork barrelling and earmarks," according to Rick Gorka, a spokesman for the McCain campaign.  

Facebook users can add the video game application to their profiles.  This is one of the first online strategies McCain's campaign has used on Facebook, a social online network popular with the young voters who have flocked to support McCain's rival, Democrat Barack Obama.

"Folks on Facebook tend to get news in non-traditional means, whereas our grandparents would sit down and watch the news with Tom Brokaw," said Gorka.  "Facebook is yet one avenue we can use to target voters in this election."  

But will the game really be popular with young voters?  The majority of high school and college-aged Facebook users weren't even born back when "Space Invaders" was popular and could miss the humor of the campaign's spoof. 

McCain's campaign describes the game as "very popular" with users, yet it's only drawn 433 daily active users out of the 80 million on Facebook.  Obama doesn't have his own video game (for now), but he still overwhelmingly leads McCain in terms of pledged Facebook supporters.  Over a million Facebook users list themselves as Obama fans, easily trumping McCain's tally of 152, 619 supporters. 

-- Posted by Jennifer Martinez

LOS ANGELES - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Tuesday criticized a John McCain adviser who was quoted as saying a Sept. 11-type attack before the November election would benefit the Republican White House hopeful.
 
But Obama stopped short of calling for the firing of Charlie Black, McCain’s top political adviser.
 
“There are certain things that should transcend politics and the prospect of a terrorist attack on American soil is one of them,” Obama told reporters on his campaign plane while traveling to Los Angeles.
 
“I think, factually, he’s wrong,” Obama said. He called the foreign policy under Republicans in the last few years disastrous and cited the failure to catch al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and renewed violence in Afghanistan as examples.
 
“So I’m happy to have that debate about who is actually going to be stronger on terrorism,” Obama said.
 
Fortune magazine said Black, in discussing how national security was McCain’s strong suit, had said when asked about another terrorist attack on U.S. soil that “certainly it would be a big advantage to him.”
 
Black apologized for the remarks and McCain disavowed the comment. “I cannot imagine why he would say it. It’s not true,” McCain said, adding he had worked hard since the Sept. 11 attack to prevent another such attack.
 
Obama, pressed on whether Black should step down from his role advising McCain, said, “I leave it up to John McCain.”

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Picture credit: Reuters/Steve Marcus. Obama speaks during a campaign visit to the Las Vegas Springs Preserve in Las Vegas, Nevada, June 24, 2008.

WASHINGTON - Hankering for a history lesson on the Bush presidency from a Democratic point of view? Then look for the “Bush Legacy Tour” bus, which will be visiting communities across the country from now until the November presidential elections. 

The liberal Americans United for Change activist group launched the national tour on Tuesday with much fanfare and a lunchtime barbeque in front of the AFL-CIO union building a block away from the White House.

It’s a 28-ton, 45-foot long, bio-diesel-powered museum on wheels featuring interactive exhibits “on the worst policy failures that grew out of the Bush/conservative agenda,” touts the group.

The group has broader ambitions than just sharing its views on George W. Bush’s presidency. It is zeroing in on the conservative thinking Republican presidential candidate John McCain represents, said the group’s president Brad Woodhouse. 

“We are really talking about an ideology that Bush in many cases was a vessel for,” he said.

The bus features exhibits on Bush’s economic policies, the Iraq war, his administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina and a gasoline pump comparing the price when Bush took office to what it costs to fill up now.

Not in the mood for a liberal history lesson? McCain sent a letter to supporters on Tuesday announcing a contest for a ride on his “Straight Talk Express” bus for some lucky donor.         

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Americans United for Change

WASHINGTON - Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems to think so. But she is touting Rep. Chet Edwards of Texas, not former presidential candidate John Edwards who twice ran for president and was the Democrats vice presidential candidate in 2004.

For the past few weeks, Pelosi, who will chair the Democratic National Convention in Denver in late August, has been talking up the nine-term congressman from central Texas as a possible running-mate for Barack Obama.

She floated the idea to Obama’s vice presidential search team a few weeks ago and again on Tuesday more publicly, at a breakfast with a group of reporters.

“I’ve had no conversations with the Obama campaign,” Edwards told Reuters on Capitol Hill. But he added that he was “humbled” that Pelosi would suggest him and left the door open to the possibility.

Edwards is known on Capitol Hill as an articulate centrist Democrat with a proven ability to win in a congressional district with a Republican tilt. His work on expanding veterans’ health and education benefits and his southern, fiscal conservative credentials could also help round out a ticket headed by a man seen as a liberal northerner.

For those who think Obama needs a foreign policy/national security expert to fill in the gaps in the presidential candidate’s resume, Edwards could pale compared to other names floating around, including Sen. Joe Biden, retired Gen. Wes Clark, former Sen. Sam Nunn and Sen. Jack Reed.

But the congressman might have a leg up on the competition in at least one other area, he would do Obama proud in a sport that is traditionally favored by presidents and vice presidents. As a youngster, Edwards was an avid, accomplished golfer.  

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Kevin Lamarque (Pelosi on Capitol Hill in May)

 FRESNO, California — Republican presidential candidate John McCain had a bandage on the top of his head on Monday, but McCain said it was not due to a new bout of skin cancer.

“It was a brush with a low-hanging door,” McCain told reporters at a news conference at Fresno State University.

McCain has had four instances of melanoma — a potentially lethal type of skin cancer — and various other skin growths have been taken off his body over the years.

McCain, 71, said he bumped his head getting out of a car during a visit to Canada last weekend. He said his head “hit the roof a teeny bit.”

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo credit:Reuters/Chris Wattie. (John McCain smiles while delivering a speech to the Economic Club of Canada in Ottawa on June 20, 2008)

ALBUQUERQUE - Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is retiring a presidential seal that made its debut at a Chicago event last week.

“It was a one-time seal for a one-time use,” Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. The seal, which resembled the official presidential seal, had a picture of a bald eagle on it. A phrase inscribed above it read “Vero Possumus,” a Latin expression that roughly translates to the campaign’s slogan, “Yes, we can.”

The seal helped complete a presidential-looking setting as Obama sat at the head of a U-shaped table with Democratic governors in a stately hall of a Chicago museum. In addition to the seal on the podium, blue curtains adorned the backdrop along with a row of flags.

Our earlier blog post on the Obama seal posted on Friday prompted mixed reviews from readers. Some liked the seal and thought the Latin expression was clever. Others thought it conveyed a penchant for image over substance.

Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic.com said there were second thoughts about the blog at Obama’s campaign headquarters.

“The worry for Obama’s image managers is that it gives the press a pretext to call Obama arrogant, an example for them to add to a list of arrogant moments, and a way to distract them from what Obama is saying,” Ambinder wrote in his blog.

Photo credit: Reuters/Carlos Barria (Obama delivers speech)

Is the Democratic Party really "Godless" and are Republicans really righteous?

Far from it, though there are findings from the monumental U.S. Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life which could be used perhaps to make such arguments. You can see our main story on the survey here and the survey itself, which was released on Monday, here.

On partisan affiliation for example, the survey found that Mormons were the most staunchly Republican religious group in America with 65 percent of those polled indentifying with or leaning towards that party.

Members of historically black Protestant churches remain the most reliably Democratic at 77 percent while the Godless crowd was also firmly in that camp. It found that atheists and agnostics leaned heavily Democratic (65 percent and 62 percent respectively).

But among evangelical Protestants, a group normally associated with the Republican Party and social conservative causes, things are less clear cut. The survey found 50 percent of this group tilted Republican but 34 percent of such folk favoured the Democratic Party.

This raises interesting issues. Can presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama woo the faith vote without alienating the party's "atheist base?" Can his Republican rival John McCain woo independent evangelicals?

The survey was taken in 2007, so it is not up-to-the-minute, and the first batch of its findings were released in February. But it involved polls of over 35,000 U.S. adults nationwide and so it is an excellent indicator of broad trends.

ALBUQUERQUE - It is no secret that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will be hitting the campaign trail together on Friday.

The Obama campaign announced last week that the two former rivals would appear in public for the first time since the Illinois senator captured the Democratic presidential nomination on June 3.

But the campaign kept the location of the joint appearance under wraps. Until now.

Their rally will take place in Unity, New Hampshire, a small town near the Vermont border where each candidate received 107 votes in the primary.

Clinton threw her support behind Obama at a rally in Washington on June 7, where she announced she was suspending her campaign and urged her supporters to back Obama.

The community’s name underlines the message of party unity the two are trying to promote after their bitter nomination struggle.

In a cliff-hanger vote, Clinton won the Jan 8 New Hampshire primary, edging out Obama who had been expected to prevail.

The Granite state will be a battleground in the general election. Though it has leaned Democratic in the past few years, Republican John McCain has a long history there which could help him.

New Hampshire launched McCain’s ascent to victory in his party’s minating race this year. The state also backed him for the Republican nomination in 2000 when he ran against President George W. Bush, but the Arizona senator stumbled in later races.

Obama has gone to lengths recently to try to court Clinton’s disappointed supporters and to promote the party unity message.

Last week, he convened national security meetings that included several high-profile Clinton advisers, such as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and retired Gen. Wesley Clark. Obama and Clinton will also meet on Thursday with her financial donors at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.

Visiting New Mexico on Monday, Obama held a town hall with women workers and was introduced by the state’s Lt. Gov. Diane Denish.

In his discussion with the women, Obama talked of growing up as the son of a single mother and told of his grandmother who went to work in a bomber factory during World War II and later became the “financial rock” of his family as he emphasized his support for equal pay for women workers.

Click here for more Reutes 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed. Sen. Hillary Clinton speaks at the National Building Museum in Washington June 7, 2008.

CHICAGO - Barack Obama’s presidential campaign rolled out a new slogan on Friday: “Vero Possumus.”

The Latin phrase roughly translates to his main campaign mantra, “Yes, we can.”

The words made their debut on a seal on the Democratic White House hopeful’s podium as he met with governors from his party in Chicago. The seal resembled the official presidential seal, complete with a picture of the American eagle with “Vero Possumus” inscribed above it.

It helped complete a presidential-looking setting for Obama’s meeting with the governors. In addition to the seal were a row of American flags lined up behind Obama and long blue curtains that also adorned the backdrop of the roundtable meeting.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo: Reuters/Jim Bourg - Barack Obama at a news conference after meeting his foreign policy advisory panel at a hotel in Washington, D.C., on June 18, 2008.