Democratic presidential hopefuls have found a way to return fire on Republicans after they endured attacks for the anti-war liberal group MoveOn.org’s advertisement criticizing the U.S. commander in Iraq — jump on conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh.
 
They said the popular radio personality on Wednesday referred to troops who supported withdrawing from Iraq as “phony soldiers,” prompting their harsh criticism as well as some less than kind words from the White House.

Democratic contender John Edwards (third in national polls) said “there’s nothing phony about the sacrifices being made by any of our troops in Iraq.”
 
A spokesman for second-tier Democratic hopeful Sen. Chris Dodd said Limbaugh “has no idea what the brave men and women of our armed forces are ostensibly fighting for.”
 
The White House also distanced itself from Limbaugh, with White House spokeswoman Dana Perino saying during her daily briefing on Friday that while she had not read his comments,  ”the president believes that if you are serving in the military that you have the right that every American has, which is you are free to express yourself in any way that you want to.  And there are some that oppose the war, and that’s okay.”

The term was “not one that the president would have used,” she said.
 
During his show on Friday, Limbaugh said he was referring to situations like one individual who had falsely claimed to be a soldier, had served in Iraq and was embraced by anti-war groups.

“When I mentioned the term ‘phony soldier’ — and they all know this — I was referring to a genuine phony soldier about whom I had informed this audience the previous day and did so again the following day,” Limbaugh said.

Here’s the full transcript of the Wednesday show, the controversial bit is at the end. 

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich — a possible 2008 White House candidate — dipped a toe into the online world of Second Life on Thursday for an hour-long question and answer session, protected by a squad of virtual female bodyguards.

The event, which took place in a replica of the U.S. Capitol, was carefully managed like many real-world political rallies. Along with a crowd of about 50 invited attendees, five protesters were confined to an designated area, waving “Conservatism Kills” banners and typing a steady stream of anti-Republican slogans.

Second Life, the virtual world where users from around the world create characters known as avatars, has been a desitination for politicians since last year, when former Virginia Governor Mark Warner — then still a prospective presidential candidate — made an appearance. It also was a battleground in the recent French elections, and volunteers have created Second Life headquarters for their favorite U.S. presidential candidates.

Gingrich has been flirting with a White House run but said earlier this month that “the odds are very high that I won’t run.” His avatar — also named Newt Gingrich — can be seen in the picture above, courtesy of Clear Ink, the consulting firm that organized the Second Life event. It was part of “Solutions Day,” a series of multimedia workshops to commemorate the anniversary of the “Contract With America.”

The former speaker told Reuters ahead of the event that Democrats have taken the lead in using the Internet for political organization.

“But my hunch is that won’t last very long, and you’ll see relative parity in the next three or four years,” he said.

Click here to read more about Second Life, where Reuters opened a bureau last year.

(Reporting by Eric Krangel)

His campaign has been whittled down to the bare-bones and sometimes he flies commercial instead of charter airplanes. But John McCain is laying out some cash to blanket New Hampshire with radio and TV ads this weekend in an effort to grab support in the early voting state.

McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis said the ads would cover the entire state for at least the next couple of weeks.

“This is the next step in an effective campaign to start locking in voters and driving a message that seems to be resonating out there,” said Davis, who cited a poll showing that McCain was getting closer to top Republican rivals Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney in New Hampshire.

The McCain campaign, which was forced to restructure and scale back after poor fund-raising performance in the first half of the year, refused to say how much the ads would cost but said they had enough money to pay for them.

The three ads focus heavily on McCain’s military background and war-hero status. Two include an excerpt of the former Navy pilot being interviewed while prisoner of war in Hanoi in 1967.

The campaign said they will help highlight McCain’s experience and ability to lead the country.

The Arizona senator began the year as one of the Republican front-runners but has lost support from Americans in part because of he supports President George W. Bush’s increasingly unpopular strategy in Iraq.

– Photo credit: Brian Snyder

Vice President Dick Cheney helped raise some $700,000 in the first of a series of campaign fund-raising events this week to help Republicans re-capture Congress — but don’t count on hearing much about them since they are all closed to the press.

While Cheney has a well-known penchant for secrecy, the blame belongs to the hosts of the events who asked that the events be closed to public scrutiny, according to his spokeswoman Megan Mitchell. When President George W. Bush attends fundraisers, only ones held at private homes are closed.

“His role will be similar to what it has been in past campaigns. He wants to help the Republicans take back the House and gain a majority in the Senate,” said Cheney spokeswoman Megan Mitchell.

However, analysts see Republicans facing an uphill battle to win back Congress after a number of senators and congressmen in battleground states like Virginia, Ohio and Nebraska have decided against running for re-election in 2008.

The first event, at a private home in Los Angeles on Wednesday, drew the $700,000 from 70 attendees all to benefit the Republican National Committee.   

Cheney bounced over to Sin City Las Vegas and Denver on Thursday for closed-door receptions for the Nevada and Colorado state Republican parties before winding up his trip in Wyoming on Friday where he will stop by a reception at a restaurant for the newest Republican member of the Senate, John Barrasso.

Barrasso succeeded Sen. Craig Thomas who died earlier this year from leukemia.

Before that event, Cheney will give a closed-door speech in Utah to the Council for National Policy, a conservative group that keeps pretty mum on its beliefs beyond supporting “a free enterprise system, a strong national defense, and support for traditional western values.”

– Additional reporting by Caren Bohan.

– Photo credit: Jonathan Ernst
 

Surprise! Hillary Clinton is much warmer and friendlier than voters expected and she can even be funny.

That was the reaction among a group of about 1,000 Democratic supporters who packed into a theater in Charlottesville, Va. for a fundraiser with the New York senator and the best-selling novelist John Grisham.

“She was able to connect with the crowd,” said Dick Reppucci. “She personalized it. I thought she did incredibly well. That’s why I came to see what she was like in person. And she’s good.”

However his wife, Chris, said she was still debating whether to vote for Clinton or Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nominee. She said Clinton was “better than she had thought”.

Clinton had the crowd laughing and clapping as she talked about the trials of being a fan of the Chicago Cubs baseball team, which hasn’t won the World Series in nearly a century.

Sitting on the stage in a comfortable chair with Grisham answering his questions, Clinton spent several minutes discussing the Cubs woes and her decision to also become a Yankees fan in hopes of finally supporting a winning team.

She said her decision to support the Yankees as a young girl in addition to the Cubs, who have a history of being “lovable losers”, gives “great psychological insight into me.”

Grisham and Clinton bantered for about 45 minutes on stage, also discussing whether he would become a U.S. ambassador in a Clinton presidency as well as more serious subjects like the Iraq war and health care.

Several audience members said they were surprised at how relaxed and funny Clinton was in contrast to how she appears in debates or at formal speeches.

“She’s not this stern image that you get,” said Lynne Goldman, who brought her 86-year-old mother to the event. “She’s very sincere. Her energy is amazing.”

– Photo credit: Hans Deryk

Hillary might be the Clinton running for president, but it’s Bill that GQ magazine doesn’t want to lose. Washington D.C.’s new chronicler of wonks, the Politico newspaper, reported that the magazine killed a story on Hillary Rodham Clinton , the New York senator and former first lady who wants to capture the Democratic nomination for U.S. president.From the Politico’s Ben Smith:

Early this summer, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign for president learned that the men’s magazine GQ was working on a story the campaign was sure to hate: an account of infighting in Hillaryland.

So Clinton’s aides pulled a page from the book of Hollywood publicists and offered GQ a stark choice: Kill the piece, or lose access to planned celebrity coverboy Bill Clinton.

Despite internal protests, GQ editor Jim Nelson met the Clinton campaign’s demands, which had been delivered by Bill Clinton’s spokesman, Jay Carson, several sources familiar with the conversations said.

Smith notes that there is nothing new about campaigns providing more access to sympathetic reporters. The difference here, he wrote, is “what sources described as a barely veiled transaction of editorial leverage for access.” And in the case of Joshua Green, the Atlantic Monthly editor who reported the GQ story, the campaign didn’t quite consider him sympathetic based on his past stories.

The Clinton campaign did not reply to our request for comment. Green declined to comment. GQ gave us the statement that it gave Politico, attributed to editor-in-chief Jim Nelson:

I don’t really get into the inner workings of the magazine, but I can tell you yes, we did kill a Hillary piece. We kill pieces all the time for a variety of reasons. Other than that, I don’t have a lot more to add about what’s going or not going into the magazine.

A spokesman for Conde Nast, which publishes GQ, would not comment further, leaving us with one unanswered question: How does an editor-in-chief not get into the inner workings of his magazine?

 Three lucky donors to Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign will get a seat on the couch with her husband, Bill, to eat junk food and watch an upcoming debate.

This latest pitch comes just days before the upcoming Sept. 30 quarterly fundraising deadline (see related story). You can contribute any amount, the campaign will select the winners.

 ”We’ll sit down in front of a big TV with a big bowl of chips, watch the debate, and talk about the race,” Bill Clinton said in an e-mail sent to supporters. 

“I’m excited about this idea because it involves three things I really enjoy: watching debates, watching Hillary run for president, and meeting her strongest supporters,” he said, omitting what was arguably one of his other favorite pastimes: eating.

Clinton has fought to keep weight off and gained notoriety on his own campaign trail and as president for dropping by McDonald’s and helping himself to the fast food.

The winners could very well get more of the chips now that the former president had heart bypass surgery in 2004 and is much thinner these days.

Photo credit:  Gregg Newton (Clinton in 1996 having a laugh with waitresses in an Atlanta restaurant)

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has taken fire for playing up his role as New York mayor during the Sept. 11 attacks. Now he’s facing criticism for a pitch for $9.11 to attend a California fund raiser on Wednesday.
 
Giuliani adviser and former Reagan administration official Abraham Sofaer will host a fundraising house party on Wednesday in California and two volunteers he invited sent out their own pitch for $9.11 donations.
  
“These are two volunteers who acted independently of and without the knowledge of the campaign,” said Giuliani spokeswoman Maria Comella. “Their decision to ask individuals for that amount was an unfortunate choice.”
  
Giuliani has repeatedly touted on the campaign trail his experience dealing with the Sept. 11 attacks as mayor of New York City, drawing some criticism from victims’ families that he has been exploiting them and the attacks to win the White House.
 
Giuliani will address so-called “house parties” on Wednesday via Webcast, an effort to draw in new contributors ahead of the upcoming Sept. 30 quarterly fundraising deadline.
 
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut called on Giuliani to reject or return any money raised from the pitch.

– Photo credit: Jim Bourg

The liberal anti-war group MoveOn.org appears to be bouncing back nicely from the Washington smackdown it weathered this week after it leveled a blistering attack against the commander in charge of U.S. forces in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.
    
The grassroots group said it raised $500,000 after it was criticized by both President George W. Bush and the U.S. Senate on Thursday, the highest one-day fundraising total so far this year, according to the group’s political action committee.
    
“The message from MoveOn members was loud and clear: Don’t back down. Take the fight back to the issues that matter,” the group said in an e-mail to supporters.
    
MoveOn has drawn outrage from Republicans for its full-page ad in The New York Times that mocked Petraus as “General Betray Us” for declaring that a troop build-up in Iraq was making progress.
    
Bush termed the ad “disgusting” on Thursday and later in the day the Senate voted 72-25 to repudiate the ad. Twenty-two Democrats joined all of the chamber’s 49 Republicans and one independent in denouncing it.
    
“For all of us on the MoveOn staff, this week was a bit of rollercoaster,” the group said.
    
MoveOn.org, which claims 3.2 million members, has stood by its ad and has continued to press for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. The group has asked its members for an additional $1 million for anti-war ads.
    
 

– Photo credits: Stephen Hird (Petraeus during speech in London) and Larry Downing (Bush during news conference).

Presidential candidates have just nine days until the end of the latest fundraising quarter and they are scouring the countryside to round up dollars in hopes they can announce big numbers that convince voters they have broad support and can win. 
 
 
John Edwards, who has been third in the Democratic fundraising race as well as national polls, issued a call on Friday hoping to raise $1 million online before the Sept. 30 quarterly deadline.

“These additional resources will make a difference over the next three months as we approach the caucuses and primaries,” said his senior adviser Joe Trippi in an email pitch.
 
Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton has trips planned to New York, California and this weekend she will be doing an event with popular novelist John Grisham in Charlottesville, Virginia, her campaign said.
 
 
The presidential campaign for Republican Sen. John McCain, who was seen initially as a top contender but has been lagging in the polls for much of the year, sent its own plea that highlighted the comeback he was making in recent weeks.
 
 
“Your immediate financial contribution is essential in these final days of the quarter to prove our viability and let us continue spreading John McCain’s message to voters,” McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said in an e-mail plea to supporters.
     
 
Clinton led the money race during the first half of 2007 hauling in $63 million, followed by rival Sen. Barack Obama with almost $59 million and Edwards lagging with about $23 million.
 
 
On the Republican side, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani were neck and neck during the first half of the year, each raising about $35 million. However, Romney loaned himself another $9 million from his personal fortune he amassed as an investment banker. McCain has raised about $26 million.
 
 
The wildcard on that side could be the newcomer to the race, Fred Thompson who became an official candidate earlier this month and has seven fundraisers scheduled before the end of the month. While he was raising money as he tested the waters for a White House bid, he was not expected to challenge the leaders in money-raising numbers since his formal campaign did not begin until this month.

Photo credits:  Larry Downing (Edwards delivering a union speech) and Tami Chappell (John McCain and his wife Cindy at an online fundraising event).