Are Democrats trying to soften the blow for President Barack Obama if the Democratic candidate for Virginia governor, Creigh Deeds, loses in the November elections?

The Washington Post thinks so. It says in a front page story that top Democrats sense that Deeds is likely to lose in the key swing state so they’re trying to distance Obama from him.

The article cites senior administration officials who are frustrated with the way Deeds has handled his campaign, saying he refused some strategic advice. They also say he did not reach out to some key constituencies that helped Obama win Virginia in the 2008 presidential race — the first time in decades that a Democrat won in that state.

A senior administration official said Deeds badly erred on several fronts, including not doing a better job of coordinating with the White House. “I understood in the beginning why there was some reluctance to run all around the state with Barack Obama,” said the official, who spoke to the newspaper on condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly about the race. “You don’t do that in Virginia. But when you consider the African American turnout that they need, and then when you consider as well they’ve got a huge problem with surge voters, younger voters, we were just a natural for them.”

So will this prep work help shield Obama from any fallout if the Democrat does not win the Virginia governorship?

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Obama campaigns with Deeds)

President Barack Obama fired back on Tuesday at conservative critics who say he has not accomplished enough in his first nine months in office.

He told them they should “grab a mop” to help him clean up the mess he inherited from Republican President George W. Bush.

Many Republican critics say the continued sluggishness in the economy and the rise in the unemployment rate to 9.8 percent were a sign that Obama policies on the economy were not effective.

But at a pair of Democratic fund-raisers in New York, the president emphasized the dire straits the economy was in when he took over from Bush.

“I don’t mind cleaning up the mess that some other folks made. That’s what I signed up to do,” Obama said. “But while I’m there mopping the floor, I don’t want somebody standing there saying, you’re not mopping fast enough or you’re not holding the mop the right way.”

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Photo Credit:Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama at a Democratic party fundraiser in New York City)

A year ago, Senator Arlen Specter was on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania — appearing for a fellow Republican senator,  John McCain, who was in an intense race for the presidency against a Democratic senator, Barack Obama. The two presidential candidates both spent a great deal of time in the swing state, which ended up going Democratic in the November election.

A year later, Specter is busy on the campaign trail again in another tough Philadelphia political battle, his own bid for reelection. But this time, the former moderate Republican is a Democrat. And he wielded the Democrats’ most formidable election weapon at an evening of fundraising on Tuesday — President Barack Obama.

Specter left the Republican party earlier this year, helping to strengthen the Democratic majority in Congress. To thank the 79-year-old, Obama had said he would stand by Specter even in a primary fight to be nominated as the Democratic candidate to retain his Senate seat in 2010.

And he stood by him on Tuesday. Obama spoke at two different fundraising events in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Inquirer said the twin Specter events were expected to raise close to $2.5 million, the goal of the evening. Obama touted Specter’s record and qualities to an audience of several hundred supporters who had donated $1,000 to $4,800 each.  Slightly hoarse after a day of speeches to auto workers, the AFL-CIO and Specter supporters, Obama later spoke again at a sit-down dinner for a group of big donors to Specter and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.  Aides said Obama posed for 100 pictures with the 200 dinner attendees, two of them at a time.

Obama hailed Specter as “a man who has always put his state before politics, before party.”

Specter praised Obama as “a transformational candidate moving toward being a transformational president.”

Specter knows about transformation.

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PHOTO CREDITS: Specter and Obama arrive in Philadelphia, Larry Downing/REUTERS. McCain and Palin campaign in autumn 2008, Brian Snyder/REUTERS

President Barack Obama has targetted healthcare reform as his top legislative priority. Now he just has to convince Congress to make it work.

Over the past week, Obama has stepped up pressure on lawmakers, speaking out each day about the need for an overhaul of the unwieldy system. He also has invited key lawmakers to the White House for a little personal persuasion.

Four Republican senators made the trip down Pennsylvania Avenue to see the president on Wednesday and today he’ll meet with Republican Senator Olympia Snowe and Democrat Ben Nelson. Yesterday Obama also took the opportunity of congratulating the newest congresswoman — Judy Chu of California — on her victory to make a special mention of healthcare and the need to reform the system and lower costs for Americans.

When they’re not being wooed by the president, lawmakers will stay busy talking about healthcare on Capitol Hill today. The thorny issue of taxes will take center stage in the congressional debate.

The House Ways and Means Committee begins debate, and may vote, on proposed taxes and fees in the House Democratic healthcare proposal. Those include a tax on richest Americans to help pay for the healthcare overhaul. Two other House committees — Energy and Commerce and Education and Labor — are working on their portions of the bill.

The Senate Finance Committee meets in closed session again for debates on how to pay for the overhaul. They are considering whether to tax any portion of employee healthcare benefits.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor heads back to the hearing room to face senators in the Judiciary Committee for the fourth day in a row. Though Republican lawmakers have tried to paint her as a judicial activist who will stamp the court with Obama’s liberal agenda, Sotomayor has held steady and remained calm with measured assurances that she is not an activist.

After pressing the lawmakers on healthcare, Obama has a busy few hours in New York. He’ll speak at a fundraiser for Governor Jon Corzine, deliver remarks to the NAACP’s 100th anniversary conference then attend a Democratic National Committee fundraising dinner.

After that he flies back to Washington. Phew.

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Photo credit: REUTERS/Larry Downing (Obama at Rose Garden after speaking about healthcare reform)

Sure it’s a long way before the November 2010 U.S. congressional election — and a lot can happen between now and then. But at this point, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada seems to be in jeopardy of becoming the second Senate leader in a half century to be voted out of office.

A poll released on Tuesday by the Las Vegas Review-Journal found that half of Nevada voters had an unfavorable view of Reid, while 38 percent had a favorable view, the newspaper said.

Reid won reelection in 2004 to a fourth term with 61 percent of the vote. But his approval ratings have since slipped. He became Senate Democratic leader in 2005, and majority leader in 2007.

“Harry Reid could be in trouble,” said Jennifer Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington.

Duffy said Reid faces the dangers of being a Senate leader while his party controls the White House.

“You have to be in tune with the White House as well as your constituents,” Duffy said.

Still, Duffy said, she now rates his race as “likely Democrat.” But she noted that’s largely because Reid doesn’t yet have a Republican opponent.

The statewide poll of 625 Nevadans was conducted by telephone last week by the Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc., for the Nevada newspaper. With Democrats now holding 59 of 100 Senate seats, Reid could lose and his party could still end up retaining control the chamber in next year’s election.

Senate leaders are among the most powerful members of Congress and have routinely won their reelection. But in recent years they have faced unhappy constituents. Polls showed Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky in trouble much of last year. He rallied down the stretch, however, and won a fifth term with 53 percent of the vote.

Democrat Tom Daschle of South Dakota was the last Senate leader to be ousted. He was unseated in 2004 as a top target of Republicans who branded him “the chief obstructionist” to then President George W. Bush’s conservative agenda.

Reid’s campaign manager brushed off the new Nevada poll.

“The primary number Senator Reid is worried about is Nevada’s 10.4 percent unemployment rate, and that’s why he’s focused on fixing the economy and creating jobs in Nevada,” Brandon Hall was quoted as saying by the Review-Journal. “Polling numbers move up and down. The only poll that really matters is on Election Day.”

REUTERS/Jason Reed      (U.S. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada)

America may have a president and Congress that support abortion rights, but a new Gallup poll suggests that for the first time such a stance is not the majority view.

Gallup said on Friday that a new poll, conducted May 7 to 10, found "51 percent of Americans calling themselves 'pro-life' on the issue of abortion and 42 percent 'pro-choice.' This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995."

"The new results, obtained from Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs survey, represent a significant shift from a year ago, when 50 percent were pro-choice and 44 percent pro-life. Prior to now, the highest percentage identifying as pro-life was 46 percent, in both August 2001 and May 2002."

Underscoring how divisive the issue remains, the poll further found that 23 percent of Americans felt abortion should be illegal in all circumstances and 22 percent said it should be legal in all circumstances.

Still, it found that 53 percent held to a middle view -- that is should be legal in certain circumstances. That figure, Gallup said, has been steady since 1975.

A few other things stand out. The percentage of Republicans and those who lean to that party who lablel themselves "pro-life" rose by 10 percentage points over the past year to 70 percent. As there was essentially no shift among Democrats on this issue (33 percent said they were "pro-life," unchanged since last year) much of the shift clearly came from the Republican side. Does this suggest a hardening among the party faithful, whose numbers have also been in decline, in reaction to the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama?

Much of the opposition to abortion in America has been faith-based, led mostly though not exclusively by conservative Catholics and evangelicals. The latter in particular have for decades been a key base of support for the Republican Party.

There has been much recent talk among the media and Republican strategists that the party needs to move away from divisive social issues like abortion and gay marriage in a bid to broaden a base which many see as shrinking. This poll will be ammunition for those who say the party needs to stick its guns on these issues.

The findings are sure to stir both sides of this emotional debate, especially as Obama seeks to fill a new vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, where the legality of issues such as abortion can ultimately be decided.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst - An anti-abortion protester holds a sign in front of the US Supreme Court building during the March for Life in Washington, D.C., January 22, 2009. 

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has twice been to Mexico in recent weeks, and so when she appeared at two State Department events on Friday with a cough and apparent cold symptoms, reporters asked an obvious question.

 Did the top U.S. diplomat possibly get the new H1N1 swine flu during her trips to Mexico in late March and with U.S. President Barack Obama last month?

“You’ll be happy to know it’s just mild allergies.  She suffers from mild allergies.  That’s all it is,” said State Department spokesman Robert Wood when asked about Clinton’s health.

 Another aide said Clinton has had allergies for a long time. The flu virus has killed up to 176 people in Mexico and since spread to the United States, where there has been one death.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Clinton testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 30)

WASHINGTON - Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives were unapologetic on Friday after not a single one of them voted for the $787 billion economic stimulus package.
 
The Democratic majority pushed the spending and tax cuts measure through the House 246-183 at the urging of Democratic President Barack Obama, who had courted Republican support.
 
Republican leaders insisted the plan may do more harm than good by expanding government and not doing enough to create private-sector jobs.
 
Representative Virginia Foxx went further. “I think it’s a cruel hoax on the American people that they have been led to believe that by passing this bill that there are suddenly going to be millions of jobs out there, particularly for blue collar workers that have lost their jobs,” she said.
 
Through weeks of debate, the two parties stuck to their ideologies, with Republicans favoring tax cuts and Democrats leaning toward government spending.
 
Republicans may be hoping their lock-step opposition will help vault them back into majority status in the House. They look longingly back to 1993, when every House Republican voted against a balanced-budget plan by then-President Bill Clinton that accomplished its goal.
 
Nonetheless, Republicans took control of the House in 1994 elections.
 
Asked whether Republicans risked looking bad if the U.S. economy does recover in the near term, House Republican Leader John Boehner said: “I think standing on principle and doing the right things for the right reasons on behalf of your constituents will never get you in trouble.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Boehner holds a copy of the stimulus bill, following the passage in the House of Representatives of the stimulus package)

WASHINGTON - Republican critics of the Democratic-backed landmark stimulus package are pointing out that its 800-billion-dollar-plus price tag would — “in one fell swoop,” as Republican Representative Todd Akin put it — consume more resources than have been laid out for two wars, so far.

The Pentagon says the United States has committed $524.6 billion to the nearly six-year-old conflict in Iraq and $120.9 billion to the fighting in Afghanistan since 2001.

“I almost have to pinch myself, gentlemen, to think that just standing here a couple of hours ago, we just voted to spend $800 billion, more than the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the Republican Akin declared Wednesday after the House of Representatives passed the stimulus without a single Republican vote in favor.

“Can our economy handle that?” he asked.

For years, Democratic opponents of the war in Iraq have questioned its cost and the fact that the 2003 invasion under the Republican Bush administration and the occupation that followed were done on borrowed money, adding to U.S. debt that ultimately must be paid by taxpayers.

Now Republicans, who largely supported the Iraq war, are trying to turn the tables on their Democratic critics and ask whether it is wise to borrow as much cash again all at once, taking on even more interest costs. “I know the Bush administration was savaged for the money that’s spent on the war in Iraq,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, said this week.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, dismissed Republican criticism that the package was too big, saying he had also consulted with Republicans who said “the package was too small” to get the economy moving again.

But Sessions said: “We’re talking about the largest spending bill in the history of the republic.” He cited Congressional Budget Office estimates that the  stimulus could cost $347 billion in interest on the national debt over the next decade, if none of its costs are offset.

Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing(House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer speaks next to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about the economic stimulus package on Capitol Hill in Washington on January 28.

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During the presidential campaign last year, Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham was a frequent tormentor of Democrat Barack Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden.

Graham, a close friend of Republican candidate John McCain, would ridicule Biden as “Joe the Biden” and lampooned his loquacious ways — “He’s the sound-bite machine that keeps on giving,” Graham would say. “Keep it up, Joe!”

And Graham frequently had this to say about Obama himself: “You’ve seen his book, ‘The Audacity of Hope?’ He’s got a sequel coming out: ‘The Times I Stood Up To The Left.’ It’s a short read.”

So it is worth noting that not only did Graham travel this past week with Biden on a trip to Kuwait, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, but he joined Biden in briefing Obama about their journey on Wednesday.

As reporters listened, Graham and Biden spoke at length. Obama, seated between them, waited patiently for his turn.

After his role as McCain’s attack dog during the campaign, Graham appeared ready to work with Obama.

“The campaign is over; I am disappointed in the outcome, but like every American, I’m excited about what awaits our country in the future,” Graham said.

He said he found that some leaders of the countries they visited were surprised that a bipartisan U.S. delegation would visit so soon after the contentious election.

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (Graham joins Obama, Biden in Washington DC)