WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. - Pennsylvania native and Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden hopes the Philadelphia Phillies’ baseball World Series win is a good omen for Tuesday’s presidential election.

“How about those Phillies?” Biden said at a rally in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on Thursday.

The Philadelphia Phillies won baseball’s World Series on Wednesday against the Tampa Bay Rays, in a game watched by Biden’s wife, Jill, who like him is a rabid Phillies fan.

“I am on the campaign trail and she said: ‘Joe I am going to the (baseball) series,” Biden said.

Biden, who grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, said his wife appeared on a local Philadelphia radio station on Thursday and raved about the performance of Phillies pitcher Brad Ledge, who clinched the Phillies’ win by shutting down the Rays in the last inning of Wednesday’s game.

“It must have given her an idea because when I called her to say hello, she said, ‘Joe, you have to do with this campaign what Brad did that night.’ Lights out tonight, lights out …” he said.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Bill Kostroun (Phillies’ Geoff Jenkins sprays fans with champagne after the Phillies defeated Tampa Bay to win the World Series)

UPDATED - Adds Laura Bush event

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney will take a different approach than his boss to the presidential campaign this last weekend before election day — he will spend it at a public rally in his home state.

Cheney will attend a Get-Out-the-Vote rally in Laramie, Wyoming on Saturday, a rare public sighting on the campaign trail by Cheney or his boss, President George W. Bush. Both have attended numerous fundraisers around the country this election cycle but with their job approval ratings hovering around record lows, they have almost all been closed-door affairs.

Unlike Cheney, Bush is spending the last weekend of the 2008 campaign season secluded at the Camp David presidential retreat.

Cheney’s spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said he plans to spend Election Day on his annual hunting trip in South Dakota and has already voted by absentee ballot — for Republican hopeful John McCain in case anyone had any doubts.

While McCain has been locked in tight races elsewhere, he can likely count on winning Wyoming. The latest polls show him ahead by 20 points.

First Lady Laura Bush will attend a Get-Out-the-Vote rally in Shepherdville, Kentucky on Monday, another state where McCain is ahead by a comfortable margin according to the latest polls.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Cheney in his limousine earlier this month)

WASHINGTON - When the new Congress convenes in January, Sen. Joe Lieberman may no longer be chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. In fact, Lieberman may no longer be a member of the Senate Democratic Caucus.

A growing number of Democrats are fed up with Lieberman, their 2000 vice presidential nominee who normally votes with them on such basics as education, health care and the environment. 

But Lieberman, a former Democrat turned independent, is campaigning for Republican presidential nominee John McCain largely because of McCain’s support for the Iraq war. 

Lieberman has also been supportive of two Senate Republicans up for reelection next week — Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Susan Collins of Maine. 

Democrats, who are expected to increase their majority in Tuesday’s election, may punish Lieberman by stripping him of his commmittee chairmanship or even booting him out of their caucus. 

If Lieberman loses his chairmanship, as widely expected, he may drop out of the caucus. Some senior aides say he’s unlikely to be thrown out, but others say no decision has been made. 

“We are not going to discuss that until after the election,” Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, a member of the Senate Democratic leadership, told reporters this week when asked about Lieberman’s fate. 

When a reporter suggested that Lieberman may be in trouble, Schumer said, “You can draw your own conclusions.” 

If Lieberman is worried, he isn’t showing it. 

“Senator Lieberman is focused on doing all he can to elect John McCain as president rather than post-election Washington punditry and politics,” said Marshall Wittman, Lieberman’s communications director. 

Polls show Democrat Barack Obama leading in the White House race. But if McCain pulls it out, Lieberman could end up in a McCain administration, perhaps as defense secretary.

Photo credit: Reuters/ Carlos Barria (McCain and Lieberman)   

QUANTICO, Va., Oct 30 (Reuters) - Aside from the treasured memories, President George W. Bush will probably take back to Texas a souvenir or two from his years in the White House.

And as president he gets more than just T-shirts and mugs.

On Thursday, the Marines and sailors who take care of Marine One presented Bush with a little piece of the presidential helicopter to take home.

Any helicopter that carries the president is called Marine One and only a handful of senior aides get a lift in it. When Bush goes out of town, he takes the helicopter from the White House South Lawn to Andrews Air Force Base where his plane, Air Force One, is waiting.

He also flies the helicopter to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland and has flown in Marine One for aerial views of disaster areas such as in the aftermath of hurricanes. And the fleet is also used occasionally to ferry foreign leaders to Camp David as well as Vice President Dick Cheney.

On Thursday Bush visited the Marine Helicopter Squadron One Hangar to thank those who fly and service the official helicopters and received a gift — a piece of the helicopter’s tail rotor and a window.

The rectangular window was framed. “It was a window that he used to look out,” White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said.

Stanzel sought to allay some concerns among the press corps traveling with Bush that the presidential flight may become a touch too breezy with a missing window, telling reporters dryly that the squadron had a few extra ones for the helicopters.

- Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Bush arrives at the White House aboard Marine One)

WASHINGTON - Who will be blamed if Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives get crushed in Tuesday’s election?

That’s a question being asked amid Republican fears that they may lose as many as 30 seats. That would be on top of the 30 they dropped in the 2006 election that saw Democrats win control of the House, which they now hold, 235-199.

If House Republicans have another bad night, their leaders could be in jeopardy of being replaced — just like the manager of the baseball team who’s bounced after a bad season or two.

“There’s going to be a shakeup,” predicted a senior Republican leadership aide.

A former leadership aide said another big loss would trigger “spontaneous combustion from the House Republican” members, signaling “a need for change.”

The top dog, John Boehner of Ohio, is preparing to run for another two-year term as minority leader, according to aides. So far, nobody appears to be emerging as a viable challenger. But that could change after the election as the damage is surveyed.

Boehner won high marks this summer when he crafted an election-year message that resonated with voters: the call for expanded oil drilling that morphed into “drill, baby, drill” at the Republican presidential nominating convention.

But by mid-September, the Wall Street bailout coupled with falling gasoline prices virtually wiped out Republican advances.

There’s speculation House Republican Whip Roy Blunt, the party’s second in commmand, could play the “fall guy” and step aside, Republican aides say.

“He’s held the whip (job) for two terms …. there’s blood in the water,” the ex-House aide said, adding the six-term Missouri congressman has mulled leaving leadership or even Congress. A Blunt spokeswoman said that for now, Republicans are focused on congressional elections, not leadership races.

Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the chief deputy whip, is jockeying to move up a notch, Republican aides say.

And then there’s Rep. Adam Putnam, the 34-year-old Floridian who holds the number-three post in House Republican leadership. Aides speculate he wants to keep the job, with Boehner’s backing. But some also wonder if he’ll get blamed for Republicans lacking a clear agenda. There’s also hard feelings over how he handled the Wall Street bailout.

Boehner, Blunt and Putnam may all be at risk if Election Day turns into a Republican nightmare. But at this point, it’s a bit of a mystery what will happen.

“They may all get wiped out or just one or two of them,” a leadership aide said. “It’s hard to say.”

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Boehner, Blunt and Putnam talk to reporters earlier this month)

KISSIMMEE, Fla. - Former President Bill Clinton appears to have gotten over any misgivings he may have had about Democratic presidential candidate  Barack Obama.

Campaigning with Obama on Wednesday, Clinton not only gave the Illinois senator his support, he heaped praise on him, describing him as a calm manager who had responded deftly to the financial crisis and sought advice from the best experts.

“You’ve got to see (Obama’s) reaction to the financial crisis, and America nearly coming off the wheels,” Clinton told a cheering crowd of 35,000 in Kissimmee, Florida.

Appearing on stage with Obama, Clinton said the Democratic presidential nominee “took a little heat” for not saying very much when the financial crisis first erupted in mid-September.

“He talked to his advisers. He talked to my economic advisers,” Clinton said, listing experts such as investor Warren Buffett and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker whom Obama consulted.

Obama also spoke to  Clinton himself and Hillary Clinton, the former first lady and Obama’s former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“You know why? Because he knew it was complicated. And before he said anything he wanted to understand,” Clinton said.

It was probably the highest form of praise that Obama could have received from Clinton, who prides himself in particular on his own handling of the economy.

Although Bill Clinton endorsed Obama in his campaign against Republican John McCain, and he and his wife have campaigned for Obama, many media reports have said the former president continued as recently as the summer to harbor hard feelings about the primary fight. Some reports also said Clinton had reservations about whether Obama was experienced enough to be president.

Wednesday’s open-air rally in Kissimmee marked the first time the two  campaigned together, although they met for a private lunch last month at Clinton’s library in New York.

When he took the podium, Obama immediately complimented Hillary Clinton, saying he had learned from her as a candidate, and saying that most Americans wished that the last few years “looked a lot like the Clinton years.”

He called Bill Clinton a “great president” and said Americans were nostalgic for the good economic times of the 1990s.

SUNRISE, Florida - Barack Obama said on Wednesday he was not worried that his race would cost him the presidential election.

Many polls show Obama, who would be the first black president in U.S. history, with a lead of between 5 and 9 percentage points over his Republican rival John McCain. But some pundits say the so-called “Bradley effect” could occur on Election Day on Tuesday that might cause Obama to lose.

The Bradley effect is named after former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who lost the California governor’s election in 1982 despite polls predicting he would win.

Political analysts believe the surveys turned out to be wrong because voters did not want to appear bigoted and told pollsters they were voting for Bradley, who was black, even when they were not.

Some pundits have suggested Obama’s unexpected loss to his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary election in January might have been an example of the Bradley effect.

Asked on Comedy Central’s Daily Show with Jon Stewart whether he was worried about that pattern occurring on Nov. 4,  Obama said he was not.

“(The pundits) have been saying that for a while but we’re still here. So I don’t think white voters have gotten this memo about the Bradley effect,” Obama said.

Stewart noted that Obama is the biracial son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya.

He asked if Obama might go into the voting booth and decide he could not cast the ballot for himself.

“It’s a problem,” Obama joked. “I’ve been going through therapy to make sure that I vote properly on the 4th.”

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama and running mate Joe Biden at a rally)

(Reporting and writing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Bob Tourtellotte)

The list of celebrities encouraging U.S. citizens to get out and vote in the presidential election on Nov. 4 continues to grow and in novel ways.

As he did earlier this month, Leonardo DiCaprio has rounded up many of his friends, including Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Steven Spielberg, to encourage people not to vote. That's right, not to vote." Of course, midway through the video the conversation steers toward the negative ramifications of not voting and the tone changes to getting out the vote. People can check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v+fX40RsSLwF4

Elsewhere, Whoopi Goldberg, Vanessa Williams and Ana Ortiz are telling voters that when they do vote, they need to have a phone number handy in case they encounter problems -- 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683). Or, go to their site 866ourvote.org.

They have some new non-partisan videos, too, including the likes of Samuel L. Jackson and Robert DeNiro. Those can be found today at:

http://www.866ourvote.org/newsroom/news?id=0118

These actors are working in conjunction with a group called Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which was formed to help voters on election day. Comcast Entertainment Group airs the PSA on its cable channels E! and Style.

The group will have thousands of lawyers and law students working phone lines on election day, to take calls from voters who might encounter problems at the polls. They will deal with questions such as voters whose names do not appear on registration rolls and polling places with long lines.

And problems do arise. Who can forget the complaints and questionable voting in several important states in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.

SUNRISE, Florida - With two days until Halloween, Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden has offered Republican presidential hopeful John McCain some costume suggestions.

As the Nov. 4 election looms, the Delaware senator poked fun at McCain’s promise that his policies differ from Republican President George W. Bush.

“I know Halloween is just around the corner. Folks, John McCain, dressed as an agent of change, that costume doesn’t fit,” Biden said as he warmed up the crowd for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in Sunrise, Florida, late on Wednesday.

“John McCain, who bragged about voting 90 percent of the time with George Bush. There is not one single substantive difference.”

Biden used the same joke earlier at a stump speech in Jupiter, Florida. No word on what Biden plans to wear for Halloween.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage 

PHOENIX - Polls in recent days suggest that John McCain’s lead over Democratic rival Barack Obama may be slipping in the Republican’s home state of Arizona, with one released  late on Tuesday indicating that the race is now too close to call.

With less than a week to go until the Nov. 4 election, the poll by Arizona State University showed McCain leading Obama 46 points to 44, a slender advantage that was within the three-point margin of error.

“John McCain’s support in Arizona has slipped to the point where, at least in our poll, it’s a statistical dead heat,” said Tara Blanc, the assistant director of the survey carried out by ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and Channel 8 /KAET.

“At this point it’s anybody’s race. It will frankly come down to who goes to the polls on election day,” Blanc told Reuters by telephone.

Presidential candidates can usually count on winning in their home states. A notable exception was Democrat Al Gore, who lost Tennessee when he was running against then Texas Gov. George W. Bush in 2000.

Several polls indicate that McCain’s lead over Obama has tightened in Arizona in the past month, which has been marked by fallout from the global economic crisis.

A similar poll by ASU in late September gave McCain a 7 point lead. A Rasmussen poll out this week showed McCain’s lead in the desert state had slipped to 5 points, down from 21 points late last month.

The Democratic party in Arizona – a state that McCain has represented in the U.S. Senate since 1986 – not surprisingly seized on the results of the latest survey.

“According to the Cronkite poll …. John McCain is in danger of losing Arizona,” Don Bivens, the chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party told a conference call with reporters, adding that it showed that “Senator Obama is closing the gap.”

The McCain campaign, meanwhile, were dismissive. Politico.com reported McCain spokesman Jeff Sadosky saying: “John McCain has never lost an election in Arizona, and this one will be no different, regardless of Obama’s attempt to buy the election with millions of dollars in advertising.”

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder (McCain in the battleground state of Florida)