Democrats looking to win over battleground states in the November 2008 election can kiss some key Midwestern voters goodbye if they put current front runner Sen. Hillary Clinton at the top of the presidential ticket, a group of elected leaders from Missouri, Texas, Indiana and elsewhere said on Friday.

A better choice, they say, is former North Carolina senator and second-time presidential hopeful John Edwards.

In a conference call aimed at touting his appeal, Edwards’ campaign rounded up officials from Missouri, Texas, North Dakota, Indiana, Oregon and Maine who said he held enough appeal with low-income and middle-class families to give Democrats not only the White House, but advantages in gubernatorial and state legislative races next year.

“We think he stands up for ordinary folks,” said North Dakota Agriculture Commission Roger Johnson. “He is one of us.” (The state last voted for a Democratic president in 1964 but has had an all-Democratic congressional delegation for more than a decade.)

Calling themselves part of Edwards’ “true blue majority,” Edwards’ supporters said his focus on health care, poverty, middle-class wage stagnation, and restoring America’s reputation internationally appealed to mainstream voters.

Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate, according to national polls, was too divisive with too many voters, the state leaders said.

“If Hillary comes to a state like Missouri we can write it off,” said Missouri House minority whip Connie Johnson, who said Democrats were “hanging on by a thread” to a slim majority in Missouri’s state house. “Mr. Edwards is the only way Democrats can regain the White House… particularly in a state like Missouri.”

Indeed, recent polling data has showed Edwards doing as well or better than Clinton in Missouri, Ohio and elsewhere. Her campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

A late September SurveyUSA poll in Missouri had Edwards besting Republican front runner Rudy Giuliani 47 percent to 42 percent, and beating Republican contender Mitt Romney 56 percent to 32 percent. Clinton, meanwhile, in the same poll, garnered 45 percent against Giuliani’s 48 percent, and 51 percent over 40 percent for Romney.

Ohio polling data from mid-October showed Clinton over the former New York mayor 46 to 40 percent, while Edwards beat Giuliani by a wider margin of 46-36 percent.

And though Edwards has trailed Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in national polls, he also was doing well in the key Iowa battleground. A recent Des Moines Register poll put Clinton’s favor with voters at 29 percent, Edwards at 23 percent and Obama at 22 percent.

When Edwards’ campaign was asked why he couldn’t seal the deal in 2004, they said they didn’t want to “get into second guessing” the strategy then, but said the Edwards ground game for 2008 would be key.

In Iowa, for example, Edwards has been in 91 of 99 counties meeting with voters.  “He is the strongest candidate out there,” said Edwards’ deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince.

A new CBS News poll of white evangelicals has some data that may worry Republican presidential hopefuls.
 
Some 40 percent of white evangelicals who are registered voters say they are less excited than usual about voting in the 2008 presidential election, a further sign of dissatisfaction with the field of candidates. Some 43 percent say they have the same level of enthusiasm.
 
The white evangelical voting bloc represents about 20 percent of the electorate and were key to Republican President George W. Bush’s ascendency to the White House.
 
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has been leading national polls and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has led state polls in Iowa and New Hampshire but their past support of abortion rights has raised concerns among some conservatives.
 
The CBS poll found evangelicals largely support Fred Thompson in the Republican primary, 29 percent to the 26 percent who back Giuliani. Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain was in third with 15 percent and Romney in fourth with 7 percent.
 
CBS also said its survey found that half of those white evangelical Republicans who were not backing Giuliani for the nomination said they would consider voting for him or would definitely vote for him if he won the nomination.

Photo credit: Rick Wilking

Lagging 2008 presidential candidates pulled out poll data on Thursday to show they are moving up in popularity and are the ones who can come from behind to win their party nomination and beat frontrunners Democrat Hillary Clinton and Repulican Rudy Giuliani. 
 
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain’s campaign pointed out that a poll by Fox News/Opinion Dynamics showed he was the only Republican who was “neck and neck” in the race against Clinton, coming in three points behind her which is just inside the margin of error. 

Rival Giuliani trails Clinton by four points while Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney are lagging by 12 points, according to poll conducted last week.
 
Meanwhile, the campaign of Democrat Joe Biden, a senator from Delaware, sent a brief email to reporters alerting them that he had moved up two points in Iowa to 6 percent in a Strategic Vision poll. However, that same survey found Clinton edged up four points to 28 percent. 
 

President George W. Bush isn’t running again in 2008 and his brother Jeb, the former governor of Florida, isn’t seeking the presidency either.
 
So their family members are being courted for endorsements. Republican presidential front runner Rudy Giuliani managed to snag Jeb’s youngest son, Jeb Bush Jr., to work on his campaign and head up the Florida Young Professionals for Rudy.
 
Jeb Jr.’s day job is in the commercial real estate business but he will spend some time recruiting younger supporters across the pivotal state of Florida.
 
“As someone who grew up around politics and candidates, I know that Rudy has the leadership qualities and unmatched experience to be the next president of the United States,” Jeb Jr. said in a statement released by the Giuliani campaign.
 
Last week, rival Republican White House hopeful Fred Thompson announced Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter was advising his campaign on foreign policy matters.

Call it the Democrats’ Dean syndrome?
 
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who has seen the front runner Hillary Clinton increase her lead over him in recent weeks, is hoping she will follow Howard Dean’s path in 2004 of falling from the top hard and fast.
 
Wednesday night on “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno, Obama took a shot at Clinton’s status at the top, reminding voters that Dean was the top man in early 2004 only to see him self-destruct as the primaries got underway. 
 
“Four years ago, you know, President Howard Dean was coronated, and that didn’t work out. And so really until those folks start going into the polling place, these races end up being very fluid,” Obama said.
 
He seemed unconcerned that Clinton was in the lead and pundits are considering her a shoo-in for the party’s presidential nominee: “Hillary is not the first politician in Washington to declare ‘Mission Accomplished’ a little too soon,” he said, a reference to President George W. Bush’s declaration that major combat operations in Iraq were over in 2003.
 
And in a typical front-runner move, Clinton’s campaign was mum on any response.

– Photo credit: Jim Young

Something doesn't seem to add up right here. Religion is a key factor in U.S. politics. Leading Republican contenders in the White House race are trooping to the Values Voter Summit in Washington this Friday and Saturday. The summit is hosted by the Family Research Council, an influential lobby group with strong evangelical ties. This group of (mostly) white evangelical Protestants, often referred to as the "religious right", is a key base of support for the Republican Party. And they have yet to rally around any single Republican candidate, leaving the race on the right wide open.

But you wouldn't know the Republican field is trying to win this crowd over if you glanced at the offiicial biographies posted on their campaign web sites. These mini-bios suggest, perhaps revealingly, that the Republican hopefuls are reluctant to draw attention to their religious affiliation -- at least on their campaign web sites, the portal where voters often get aquainted with them.

Let's start with Mitt Romney. His web site bio says he has served "extensively in his church..." But it never mentions that he is a Mormon and his church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints. The closest it gets is mentioning that he got his B.A. at Brigham Young University (without saying this is a Mormon institution). That may be just as well because many white evangelical Protestants -- the base Romney will address in Washington this week -- view Mormonism as a heretical sect. Among U.S. white evangelicals who attend church at least once a week, 45 percent say the Mormon faith is not Christian, according to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center.

That Rudy Giuliani's website fails to make any reference to his Roman Catholic faith is absolutely no surprise. There has been conservative talk of backing a third-party candidate if the former New York mayor -- who has been playing down his earlier positions for abortion rights and gay rights -- wins the Republican nomination. At least one Catholic bishop has said he should not receive communion. Rudy's site has two heavy hints from his school days -- Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School and Manhattan College -- but avoids saying they're Catholic. Hizzoner initially turned down an invite to address the FRC summit -- but will be there for what will be a keenly watched session on Saturday morning.

Former Tennessee Senator and Hollywood actor Fred Thompson is mum about his current church affiliation. But his web site bio does mention that he attended the "First Street Church of Christ" when he was growing up. At least that's clear.

John McCain's approach is more complex. He's been trying to rebuild the bridges to the religious right after dousing it with fuel and setting it ablaze during the 2000 campaign. Back then, he called Jerry Falwell "an agent of intolerance." He recently started saying he was a Baptist, even though he had long identified himself as an Episcopalian. His own web site avoids mentioning religion at all (and also doesn't say that he attended Episcopalian High School in Alexandria, Virginia, according to The Christian Century). And he has kicked up a storm on Baptist blogs by saying he is Baptist but hasn't taken that church's trademark full-immersion dunk. This won him the tag "semi-Baptist" from the Washington Monthly's Political Animal blog .

Sam Brownback is often seen as a darling of the religious right, so why doesn't he flaunt his church-going habits or spiritual affiliation on his campaign web site ? His bio quotes the New York Times as saying that he is "one of the most conservative, religious, fascinating ... politicians in America today." But which religion, please? Is the Kansas senator hesitant to advertise the fact that he is a former evangelical Protestant who converted to Catholicism? Might not go down too well at the VVS.

Only one significant contender from the Republican field, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, makes the kind of explicit reference to his faith that you might expect from someone planning to press the flesh at the Values Voter Summit. His web bio says: "A significant part of his adult life was spent as a pastor and denominational leader. He became the youngest president ever of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, the largest denomination in Arkansas."

Is this religious transparency because he has nothing to hide from the religious right -- or sees them as his best shot at glory?

New York may be Rudy Giuliani’s home town, but the local Conservative Party has little time for the former mayor.
 
The state’s small Conservative Party hosted Fred Thompson this week, in what was seen as a snub to Giuliani whose support for such issues as abortion and gay rights rubbed many members the wrong way. 
 
Thompson is “not a panderer,” said supporter Al D’Amato, a former U.S. senator from New York. 
 
Asked if he meant Giuliani and Mitt Romney were “panderers,” D’Amato replied: “You’re in the media. You know what they said before they were running for office and what they say today.” 
 
Observers trace conservatives’ dislike back to Giuliani’s stint as a federal prosecutor in New York in the 1980s through his terms as mayor. Giuliani famously endorsed liberal Democrat incumbent  Mario Cuomo over challenger Republican George Pataki, a D’Amato protege, in the 1994 governor’s race. 
 
“It’s visceral. They don’t like the guy,” said Doug Muzzio, a professor of public affairs at New York’s Baruch College. “It’s not only political. It’s personal.” 
 
The head of the Conservative Party, Mike Long, said if his party were to hear a speech by Giuliani like they did by  Thompson, “We would have to have another event.”
 
“We don’t have another event until after the end of the year,” he added with a grin. His group throws its weight behind candidates with shared values like fiscal restraint and oposition to abortion – often Republicans but not always.

“We invited someone who more closely identifies with us, OK? Is this ‘anti’ any candidate in the Republican circle? No,” he said. “But it seems to me I would want to dance with the person who knows the kind of dance I do, and it’s more comfortable dancing with that person. 
 
The state Conservative Party has not yet endorsed anyone for the 2008 race. 

 – Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst

– Photo credit: Jason Reed

Kansas, traditionally seen as one of the reddest of red states and a lock for Republicans in U.S. presidential races, appears to have hit a bit of a blue streak in the last quarter, according to the latest fundraising data.

Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, the Democratic front-runner for the 2008 presidential nomination, raised more than $60,000 in Kansas in the third quarter, beating out all other contenders from both parties in funds raised from Kansas. In all, Clinton has taken in more than $90,000 from the state since the campaign began.

The money raised in the historically conservative farm state is a drop in the bucket in Clinton’s campaign war chest, which now totals about $35 million. But Clinton’s apparent appeal in the home state of Sen. Sam Brownback, who is seeking the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, has to hurt.

Brownback, who bills himself as a conservative Christian defender of family values, brought in just $54,581 from his fellow Kansans, records show. Brownback spent more than he raised during the last quarter, ending September with just $94,000 in the bank.

Brownback has said if he does not finish fourth or better in the Iowa caucus, one of the first contests of the 2008 primary season, he will drop his bid.

Reuters, with its partner Zogby, will release its latest 2008 presidential poll on Wednesday morning, but in the meantime CNN has a new survey out showing that Republican and Democratic front runners Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton have built on their leads.

Clinton, the former first lady and now a senator from New York, grew her lead to 30 points over rival Barack Obama among registered Democrats, 51 percent to 21 percent since September. She had a 23-point lead in September.

Giuliani, the former New York mayor, expanded his lead over the new presidential hopeful Fred Thompson to eight points, 27 percent to 19 percent among registered Republicans. He had a one-point lead in September  when Thompson officially entered the race.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll had a margin of error of plus or minus five points and was conducted Oct. 12-14.

Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton has returned the most in campaign contributions so far among the White House hopefuls, giving back $1.78 million which includes $850,000 that was tied to the Democratic fund-raiser Norman Hsu who has since been charged with fraud and campaign finance violations.

Thanks in large part to Hsu, Clinton returned almost $1.24 million in the third quarter of the year alone.  

But she wasn’t the only one giving back huge amounts of donation money according to the quarterly reports by candidates that were filed on Monday with the Federal Election Commission.

Rivals Barack Obama returned $195,375 in the third quarter and $309,637 year-to-date while John Edwards gave back $75,706 in donations in the last reporting period and $186,536 during his 2008 candidacy, according to the FEC filings.

The Republican who has returned the most contributions during the third quarter was Mitt Romney, giving back $270,009. The former Massachusetts governor, who has led polls in early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire but lagged in national polls, has refunded almost $784,000 during his campaign so far.

In comparison, the Republican front runner and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani gave back nearly $225,000 during the last reporting quarter and $466,605 overall, according to his FEC filing. Arizona Sen. John McCain has returned a total of $338,000 during his 2008 bid, including a large chunk refunded in the third quarter, $231,236

Candidates often have to return contributions because donors gave too much ($2,300 maximum for the primary campaign and another $2,300 for the general election) or did not qualify to give (donations cannot come from a foreign national, for example).  

– Photo credit: Paul Sakuma (Hsu in court last month).