Nine months after losing the U.S. presidential election to Democrat Barack Obama, Republican John McCain is still taking center stage to voice disagreement with his former U.S. Senate colleague.

On Monday, McCain announced in a Senate speech that he would vote against Obama’s first U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, a federal judge for the past 17 years.

“She is an immensely qualified candidate,” McCain conceded.

But he added: “I do not believe that she shares my belief in judicial restraint.”

Echoing the concerns of a number of Senate Republican leaders, McCain complained she has ruled based not strictly by the law but also personal beliefs.

Despite a wall of Republican opposition, Sotomayor seems virtually certain to be confirmed this week by the Democratic-led Senate.

The American Bar Association gave Sotomayor its top rating, she has been supported by a number of law enforcement groups, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which often sides with Republicans, urged the Senate to confirm her, saying her record shows that she would be fair to business.

McCain said he monitored Sotomayor’s testimony at her Senate confirmation hearing last month. He said liked what he heard, but didn’t necessarily believe it.

“She clearly stated that ‘as a judge, I don’t make law.’ While I applaud this statement, it does not reflect her record as an appellate court judge.”

“As an appellate court judge, Judge Sotomayor has been overturned by the Supreme Court six times,” McCain said.

McCain lost to Obama after issuing countless warnings about the now popular president. He put out another warning on Monday — this one to fellow lawmakers.

“The American people will be watching this week when the Senate votes on Judge Sotomayor’s nomination. She is a judge who has forsworn judicial activism in her confirmation hearings, but who has a long record of it,” McCain said.

“If she uses her lifetime appointment on the bench as a perch to remake law in her own image of justice, I expect that Americans will hold us senators accountable,” McCain said.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (Obama and McCain talk at a recent meeting)

There’s a cold wind blowing in Washington on Tuesday morning, one day after a late-winter storm dumped up to a foot of snow on the region. DC residents anticipate a thaw when our national leaders provide their daily dose of hot air.

President Obama meets U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the White House at 11:30. They are expected to discuss their efforts to revive the global economy.

After that, Obama meets with Boy Scouts at 3 p.m.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testifies to Congress about the economy starting at 10:00, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner testifies about Obama’s budget proposal at 12:30. Markets are continuing to swoon after yesterday’s plunge; will their testimony spark a rally?

At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert Gates will meet his French counterpart, Herve Morin.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in Jerusalem, pledged to push hard for Palestinian statehood and said the United States might seek to improve relations with Syria.

The Senate begins debate on a $410 billion spending bill that would cover government operations through October. Obama’s former rival, Republican Senator John McCain, is upset about the earmarks contained in the bill.

The House may vote on a housing bill that would let bankruptcy judges reduce mortgage debt.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (A worker clears snow from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on March 2)

For more Reuters political coverage, click here.

WASHINGTON - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama and his defeated Republican rival, John McCain, are engaged in somewhat of a rematch. The two are trying to help their respective parties win a razor-close U.S. Senate race in Georgia. 

McCain has accepted an invitation to attend a rally in Atlanta on Thursday for Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, while Obama aides are being dispatched to the state to provide a hand to Democratic challenger Jim Martin, a former state senator.

A Dec. 2 runoff is being held because neither Chambliss nor Martin obtained the majority required under state law in the Nov. 4 election to be declared the winner.

A Democratic aide said no final word has been given on whether Obama will visit Georgia on behalf of Martin. A Republican aide said there’s a chance former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin may show up for Chambliss.

While Obama won the White House, McCain took Georgia.

Georgia is one of three states where tight U.S. Senate races have yet to be decided.

The two others are in Minnesota, where Republican incumbent Norm Coleman is trying to fend off a challenge by Democrat Al Franken, and Alaska where Republican incumbent Ted Stevens, convicted last month of political corruption, is clinging to a narrow lead over Democrat Mark Begich.

Democrats gained six seats in Tuesday’s election to increase their majority in the 100-member chamber to 57.

If they win the three remaining races they would reach for the first time in three decades the 60 needed to pass legislation over Republican hurdles.

Both political parties along with political analysts say they don’t expect Democrats to run the table and pocket 60.

For more Reuters political coverage, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Tami Chappell (Sen. John McCain grabs arm of Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss during campaign rally last February in Georgia)

WASHINGTON - Republican White House hopeful John McCain, fresh from his first debate with Democratic rival Barack Obama in Mississippi, expressed regret on Saturday that his performance didn’t win over all the pundits in the press.
 
“I was a little disappointed the media called it a tie but I think that means, when they call it a tie, that means we win,” McCain said during a telephone call that was caught by cameras filming him at his campaign headquarters.
 
Both camps claimed victory after the 90-minute debate on Friday.
 
Meanwhile, Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, sought to lower expectations for the next debate in Tennessee on Oct. 7. It will be conducted in a town-hall style with questions from an audience.
 
“We will be a decided underdog in that encounter, and John McCain is the undisputed town hall champion,” Plouffe told reporters on a conference call, noting that McCain — who is fond of the format — had challenged Obama to do joint town hall meetings throughout the summer.
 
“He clearly feels, even more than the foreign policy debate, this is his home turf. So if we can just escape relatively unscathed against the undisputed town hall champion in Tennessee, we’ll be thrilled.”
 
Obama has held regular town halls of his own throughout the 2008 campaign and does not appear to struggle with the format.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder (McCain talks on the phone at his campaign headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, on Sept. 27)
 

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)

FORT MYERS, Florida - Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, mocked by Republicans as a “gaffe machine,” took a swipe Wednesday at a remark by John McCain’s campaign manager that “this election is not about issues.”
 
“This election is not about issues?” Biden asked rhetorically, drawing hoots and hollers at a town-hall style meeting with several hundred people in Fort Myers, Florida. Noting Americans have difficulty paying for such basics as health insurance and gasoline for their cars, Biden said, “Where I come from, that’s an issue.”
 
Campaign manager Rick Davis, in an interview with The Washington Post, said, “This election is not about issues.” He said, “This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.” He predicted that the more voters get to know McCain and Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama, the more they will like the Republican ticket.
 
Biden bristled. “You have the greatest character in the world, but you are not going to give me a fighting chance that would keep my job. I love ya, but I don’t want you as president,” he said.
 
During 35 years in the Senate, the fast-talking, often long-winded Biden has earned a reputation for gaffes. Republicans count two since last week’s Democratic National Convention — when he referred to Obama as “Barack America” and put himself on the top of the ticket by saying he was “running for president.”
 
On Wednesday, Biden made another slip of the tongue. In promising to help Americans if elected, he said, “the Biden, excuse me, the Obama-Biden administration.” Amid laughter, he added, “Believe me, you all got it right: Obama-Biden.” 

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young 

ST. PAUL - Faith was on full display at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night with prayers from a pastor and tunes belted out by a Christian pop star.

Miles McPherson, a senior pastor of The Rock Church in San Diego and former professional football player, evoked patriotism and faith while leading the convention in prayer:

“Thank-you God for always being there for us. And thank you for making America the greatest country in the world. We pray these things in Jesus’ name,” he said to warm cheers from the crowd.

Such overt displays of religion, politics and nationalism would be almost unheard of in many European countries but are common in America, especially with Republican crowds.

The invocation was given by a former U.S. Air Force chaplain while Christian singer Rachael Lampa sang her songs “When I Fall” and “Blessed” on a night dedicated to the theme of “service.”

In brief remarks broadcast from the White House, President George W. Bush said: “I am optimistic because I have faith in freedom’s power to lift up all of God’s children and lead this world to a future of peace.”

The party has a powerful conservative Christian base which is slowly warming to Arizona Senator John McCain who will accept its presidential nomination for the Nov. 4 election on Thursday night.

It has been energized by his selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, a devout Christian who is strongly opposed to abortion rights. She will accept that nomination on Wednesday night.

So expect to a lot more displays of faith on the political stage in St. Paul.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

-Photo credit: REUTERS/Mike Segar, Sept 2, 2008

Colin Powell was President George W. Bush’s first secretary of state, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s supporting the presidential bid of fellow Republican John McCain.

“I’m looking at all three candidates, I know them all very, very well, I consider myself a friend of each and every one of them, and I have not decided who I will vote for yet,” Powell said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Powell, like McCain, is a military veteran who publicly supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and he served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the first Gulf War in 1991.

But while McCain wants a continued U.S. military presence there, Powell said the armed forces will simply be unable to maintain 140,000 troops in Iraq beyond next year.

Whoever is president next year, “they will face a military force, a United States military force, that cannot sustain, continue to sustain, 140,000 people deployed in Iraq,” Powell said. “They will have to continue to draw down at some pace.”

Powell said he was impressed with fellow African-American Barack Obama, despite the Democratic Illinois senator’s relative lack of experience.

“Sen. Obama, he didn’t have a lot of experience in running a presidential campaign, did he, but he seems to know how to organize a task and he seems to know how to apply resources to a problem at hand,” Powell said.

“So that gives you some indication that (despite) his inexperience in foreign affairs and domestic affairs, he may be somebody who can learn quickly.”

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

Photo credit: REUTERS/Lee Jae-Won (Powell speaks at the World Knowledge Forum in Seoul October 17, 2007)

WASHINGTON — Speculation about who would make a good vice presidential running mate for Republican John McCain ranges all the way from party also-rans Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney to Democrat Bill Richardson. But a new Gallup survey shows the largest bloc of rank-and-file Republicans — 31 percent — are those who cannot name a candidate for the job.

The next biggest group, 21 percent, prefer the choice marked “other.”

Huckabee and Romney, who were both defeated by McCain in the Republican presidential primary race, led the pack of named choices with 18 percent and 15 percent, respectively, in the telephone survey conducted March 24-27.

Some 8 percent of 453 Republicans and Republican-leaning voters polled would like to see Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as vice president.

She was followed by the “no opinion” category which drew 5 percentage points.

Then came three other former Republican hopefuls: Fred Thompson with 4 percent; and Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani with 2 percent apiece.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent who has appeared at campaign events with McCain, also got 2 percent.

Former Democratic presidential hopefuls John Edwards and Bill Richardson each drew 1 percent.

Gallup said the results have a 6 percentage-point error margin.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage

Photo credit: REUTERS/Jason Reed (McCain speaks at the Naval Academy in Annapolis on April 2)