WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama came out swinging on the economic crisis facing the U.S. financial system during the first U.S. presidential debate, while Republican rival John McCain first words were to praise the bipartisan efforts to craft a rescue plan.
 
Obama blasted the Bush administration and tried to tie the last eight years to McCain. 
 
“This is a final verdict on eight years of failed economic policy promoted by George Bush and supported by Senator McCain,” Obama said as the debate at the University of Mississippi opened.
 
Meanwhile McCain said he, along with many Americans, had not been feeling so great about the U.S. economy these days — stark contrast to his widely-panned comment more than a week ago that the fundamentals of the economy were strong — and he welcomed Democrats and Republicans working together for a plan.
 
“I’m feeling a little better tonight,” McCain said. “”We have finally seen Republicans and Democrats sitting down and negotiating together and coming up with a package.”
 
They both cited the need for transparency and oversight in the rescue plan. 
 
But missing from the two senators — one of whom will be president come Jan. 20 — was a firm commitment to vote for the rescue package being crafted. Obama said the language hadn’t been crafted yet but was optimistic a deal could be struck while McCain said he hoped he could vote for it.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

- Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Bourg (McCain and Obama greet each other at the first presidential debate in Oxford, Miss.)
 

WASHINGTON - Ah the Internet world, a place where things move very quickly — maybe too quickly in the political world.

Before Republican presidential hopeful John McCain announced he would attend the presidential debate on Friday night in Mississippi, apparently an Internet advertisement slipped out onto the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page with it declaring he won the contest.

Here’s a screenshot of the Web advertisement as posted by the Washington Post in which it claims “McCain Wins Debate,” with him in the foreground and an American flag in the background.

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said the ad posting was a mistake by the Wall Street Journal.  Oops.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

- Photo credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder (McCain boards his campaign plane in Arlington, Virginia, on Sept. 26)

DALLAS - Talk about a swing vote in a swing state — or is it a battleground faith in a battleground state?

The Great Schlep is an online campaign urging young U.S. Jews to urge their grandparents in Florida to vote for the Democratic presidential ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the Nov. 4 election against Republican John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin.

To do so it has enlisted the aid of comedian Sarah Silverman who does a sometimes foul-mouthed plea for Jews to fly to Florida to visit grandma and grandpa and sell the idea of Obama in the White House to them.

“If Barack Obama doesn’t become the next president of the United States, I’m going to blame the Jews,” she says.

Florida is seen as one of about 10 closely contested states where the most exciting White House race in a long time will be ultimately decided.  The state has a sizable Jewish population — about five percent of the state’s population by some estimates — and also has a large elderly retiree population.

The U.S. Jewish vote often leans heavily Democratic but McCain’s tough stance on terrorism issues is seen a winner among many elderly voters. Plus, there have been some questions raised about Obama’s support of Israel despite his efforts to affirm his strong support.

According to a survey released on Thursday by the American Jewish Committee, 57 percent of U.S. Jewish voters back Obama and 30 percent support McCain. It was based on interviews with over 900 Jewish voters between Sept. 8 - 21 and had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

The Great Schlep is part of JewsVote.org and the Jewish Council for Education & Research, a federal political action committee.

See the video here (warning: the language in here may be offensive to some people). 

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni (Silverman at Emmy awards earlier this month)

WASHINGTON - Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has been widely criticized for citing Alaska’s proximity to Russia as foreign policy experience. But she is not backing down.

The Alaska governor, running mate to Republican presidential nominee John McCain in the Nov. 4 election, defended her position on Thursday in a rare one-on-one session with a reporter. 

In only her third nationally televised interview since she was nominated earlier this month — this one on CBS with anchor Katie Couric — Palin was asked what she meant.

“That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land — boundary that we have with — Canada. It– it’s funny that a comment like that was — kind of made to — I don’t know, you know? Reporters,” Palin said, explaining that she had been mocked.

Asked to explain why living near Russia enhances her foreign policy credentials, Palin responded: “Well, it certainly does because our — our next-door neighbors are foreign countries. They’re in the state that I am the executive of.”

Asked whether she had ever been involved in any negotiations, for example, with the Russians, Palin answered: “We have trade missions back and forth. We — we do– it’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where — where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is — from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to — to our state.”

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder - Republican vice-presidential nominee Alaska Governor Sarah Palin at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting in New York on Sept. 25. 

WASHINGTON - John McCain should have seen this one coming.
 
The Republican presidential candidate suspended his campaign and dramatically announced he was going to Washington to help hammer out a $700 billion bailout to save the U.S. economy.
 
Then he called to cancel with David Letterman. At the last minute. Leaving the wickedly funny late night comic with blank airtime to fill. Probably not the smartest move.
 
“Senator John McCain, the Republican candidate for president, was supposed to be on the program tonight,” Letterman said in an opening volley. “But had to cancel the show because he’s suspending his campaign because the economy is exploding.”
 
“You know who John McCain is,” he added to laughter from his live audience. “He’s the running mate of Sarah Palin, you’re aware of that?”
 
And that was just the start. Letterman wasn’t about to let it go. After heaping praise on McCain as an American hero, it was right back to the cancellation.
 
“When you call up and you call up at the last minute and you cancel a show, ladies and gentlemen, that’s starting to smell,” Letterman said. “This, this is not the John McCain I know, by God. It makes me believe something’s gone haywire with the campaign.”
 
“This just doesn’t smell right because this is not the way a tested hero behaves. Somebody’s putting something in his Metamucil,” he said.

A presidential candidate doesn’t just suspend the campaign, Letterman insisted.

“You go back to Washington. You handle what you need to handle. Don’t suspend your campaign. Let your campaign go on, shouldered by your vice presidential nominee, that’s what you do. You don’t quit,” Letterman said, pausing to let his audience mull over the idea of McCain letting the little-experienced Alaska governor take over the campaign.
 
“Or is that really a good thing to do?” Letterman asked.
 
The jibes kept coming. McCain’s age — at 72 he’ll be the oldest president to start a first term in office — and Palin’s inexperience.
 
He reacted with mock astonishment when he discovered McCain had not raced back to Washington but was instead being interviewed for the CBS evening newscast with Katie Couric. Letterman watched a live TV feed from the studio as McCain’s face was patted with makeup.
 
“Doesn’t seem to be racing to the airport, does he?”
 
“Hey John, I got a question. You need a ride to the airport?”

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo credit: Reuters/Molly Riley (McCain at U.S. Capitol on Thursday after returning to Washington for talks on U.S. financial crisis)

DALLAS - Another day, another video showing Sarah Palin in church.

The latest Palin You Tube video to show up on the Internet features grainy footage of John McCain’s vice presidential running mate receiving a blessing against witchcraft in a Pentecostal church in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska.

You can see the video here. Palin says nothing in it and keeps her head bowed throughout the blessing that was reportedly given by a Kenyan pastor and witch hunter.

The video, like a previous one in which Palin tells a congregation that U.S. troops in Iraq were on a “task from God,”  has been widely reported and commented on. It reportedly was made in 2005 before she was elected governor of Alaska. It began circulating on the Internet this week.

Palin is an evangelical who has ignited the Republican Party’s conservative Christian base. But incidents such as this one have raised eyebrows in some quarters, especially among foreign media covering the U.S. campaign in the run-up to the Nov. 4 election between McCain/Palin and Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

The online edition of Britain’s Telegraph newspaper said the incident recalled the damaging reports that Obama faced over his links to pastor Jeremiah Wright, who made stridently anti-American sermons.

To see some domestic media criticism, click here.

Some U.S. evangelicals will see nothing strange in a Pentecostal service evoking witchcraft. And many others will no doubt say what a candidate does in a church is nobody else’s business. 

Are candidates, their pastors and what they do in church fair game in this election year? Or not?

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Brian Snyder  (Palin listens to McCain at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting in New York on Sept. 25, 2008)

Faithful America, an online community of religiously-motivated activists, is running an ad on Christian and country music radio stations in Mississippi and Tennessee urging Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his Republican rival John McCain to stick to the truth in their televised debate on Friday.

"Unfortunately, politicians are often more interested in scoring political points and attacking each other than in telling us the whole truth about how they're going to lead our nation," it says.

".. our politicians need to understand that the Ninth Commandment wasn't just a suggestion," it says, refering to the biblical commandement which says not to bear false witness against your neighbor.*

The campaign has been getting increasingly nasty with both sides accusing the other of distorting the truth in attacks on the other.

Friday's first debate at the University of Mississippi in Oxford will focus on foreign policy and national security, an area of strength for McCain, 72, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who has been a staunch advocate of U.S. military involvement in Iraq.

Faithful America comprises a number of religious traditions and is devoted to action in areas mostly associated with U.S. liberals or progressives such as ending poverty, promoting peace and tackling climate change.

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* Ninth commandment? Eighth commandment? It's the eighth for Roman Catholics and Lutherans, ninth for all other Christians and Jews.

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential hopeful John McCain has proposed postponing the first debate with his rival, Democrat Barack Obama, citing a need for the two senators to return to Congress to help hammer out a compromise on a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street.

For his part, Obama said the debate, which is to focus on foreign policy, should go ahead because now is a time when Americans need to hear from the candidates.

Should the two White House hopefuls go on with the show? Should they switch the topic of the debate to the economy? Or should they cancel as McCain suggested while dealing with the crisis?

Have your say in the comments section, or log onto the news prediction market HubDub to place a virtual wager on whether Friday’s scheduled debate will take place.

Will the Obama/McCain debate happen on Friday?

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

PHILADELPHIA – Just ordering sandwiches can be political during a presidential campaign.

Aides to John McCain bought a supply of Philadelphia’s trademark cheesesteaks for media covering his campaign this week from Geno’s – renowned for its signs that read “This is America. When ordering please speak English.”

The signs have sparked controversy, even though owner Joey Vento has said he does not refuse service to non-English speaking customers.

Critics say the signs are intimidating.

The Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations looked into the controversy and, earlier this year, ruled in a split decision that the signs did not constitute discrimination.

When Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigned in Philadelphia ahead of the Pennsylvania primary this spring, they each sampled a cheesesteak – but neither ate at Geno’s, according to local media reports.

McCain was nowhere near the press corps when the Geno’s order arrived at the Philadelphia hotel on Tuesday, so it was not known if he ate one. The McCain campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

The order came with a supply of bumper stickers featuring Geno’s saying, a few of which now decorate the press section in the back of McCain’s campaign plane where reporters and photographers hang pictures and mementoes from months on the road.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS, Ohio - Republican John McCain said on Tuesday if he is elected president, the nation will be building dozens of new nuclear power plants.

The presidential nominee, touring an Ohio factory that makes parts for nuclear power plants, said the United States needs to build 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 to create jobs and to help achieve energy independence.

“It’s obvious to me we will be expanding nuclear power plants in America,” McCain said, adding that the nation also needs to store and reprocess nuclear fuel.

“We can do that. Other countries in the world are doing that, and we can as well,” he said.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

Photo credit: Reuters (Three Mile Island)