WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says Harry Truman, the common sense everyman from Missouri, was one of his favorite presidents. On Monday, he took a few minutes on the campaign trail to soak up some Truman history.

After Obama delivered a speech on the meaning of patriotism at an auditorium in the Truman presidential library complex in Independence, Missouri, he strolled over to Truman’s old house a few blocks away.

He stopped to visit well-wishers along the way, shaking hands and joking with supporters, who poured out of neighboring houses to say hello and stopped on the street to cheer him.

When one man yelled that his wife thought he was cute and he had her vote, Obama laughed and said “I like that.” Looking at the woman, he jokingly asked: “Does he always embarrass you like that?”

Later he admired a t-shirt given him by Tootie Williams, 68. It said “Obama in the House” over a rendering of the White House.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Obama said.

Once he reached the Truman house, where the 33rd president lived from 1919 until his death in 1972 (except for the years when it served as the summer “White House”) he received a tour from Norton Canfield, a gray-haired, bearded park ranger with a braided ponytail.

When he saw a portrait of Truman’s daughter, Margaret, he sympathized with the president’s threat to punch a newspaper critic who had panned her singing.

“I would have done the same thing if someone had said something mean about my daughter,” Obama said.

Obama also admired a 1972 Chrysler Newport purchased just six months before Truman’s death. “I wonder what kind of mileage this gets,” Obama said. His personal assistant, Reggie Love, pondered its fuel efficiency.

When Canfield showed Obama a hat and coat belonging to Truman hanging beyond the foyer, the Illinois senator sounded positively nostalgic for the days when he could wander the streets without a tailing crew of media and security.

“The thing that I envy most about Truman was that when he was in the White House, he could go out and take a walk. He could put on that fedora and take a stroll, without someone following him,” he said — as the milling crowd outside waited to swarm him when he left the house. 
   

WASHINGTON - The presidential campaign trail took a side trip down memory lane today when the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth re-surfaced.

The Swift Boat group was responsible for raising doubts about Democrat John Kerry’s war record in Vietnam, where the Massachusetts senator had served on a small combat vessel known as a swift boat.

The group’s charges were so contentious — it said Kerry did not deserve the combat medals that he subsequently tossed on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to protest the war — that the slogan, “the Swift Boating of John Kerry” became a metaphor for the 2004 campaign that George W. Bush won.

Against that backdrop, one of the Swift Boat veterans turned up on a conference call that Republican John McCain’s camp held to defend McCain’s war record after retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a supporter of Democrat Barack Obama, said just because McCain’s plane was shot down over Vietnam does not make him qualified to be president.

The Swift Boater was retired Col. Bud Day. A reporter on the call asked Day how the current flap over Clark’s comments compared to the Swift Boat flap.

Day said that, well, the charges against Kerry were accurate and the ones against McCain were inaccurate.

“The Swift Boat attacks were simply a revelation of the truth,” Day said.

This prompted the expected outrage from Democrats, including Kerry himself.

“John McCain condemned these kinds of attacks in 2004 when he called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ‘dishonest and dishonorable.’  Senator McCain should condemn these remarks and cut ties with the colonel and anyone else connected to SBVT (Swift Boat Veterans for Truth),” Kerry said in a statement.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo: Reuters/Joshua Roberts - Sen. John McCain speaks to National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials at a Washington, D.C. conference on June 28, 2008. 

MONTREAT, N.C. - Billy Graham is as close to a religious icon in American politics as anyone, so it’s no surprise that a U.S. presidential candidate would seek his blessing.

On Sunday Republican John McCain did just that, essentially, traveling to the ailing evangelist’s mountaintop home to meet and pray with him and son Franklin, who heads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

“They’re great leaders in this nation and I appreciate the opportunity to visit with them and I am very grateful for the time they spent with me,” McCain said after their meeting.

The Arizona senator had requested the appointment.

“They’ve known my family, they’ve known of me for many years,” he said, adding the elder Graham recalled meeting and praying with McCain’s parents while their son was held captive in Vietnam.

Franklin Graham issued a statement that highlighted what he had in common with McCain: sons serving in the military and a shared interest in aviation.

But he did not offer an endorsement.

“I was impressed by his personal faith and his moral clarity on important social issues facing America today,” Graham said of McCain.

“I encourage people to vote for the candidate at every level who best represents their values and convictions, and then to pray for those in authority over us as required in Scripture.”

McCain, who attends a Baptist church in Phoenix but is often circumspect about his faith when asked about it on the campaign trail, said he had not sought the pair’s political backing.

“Oh, I didn’t ask for their vote,” he said.  

Photo: Reuters/Chris Keane -   Evangelist Billy Graham (L) walks with his son Franklin Graham before the Billy Graham Library Dedication in Charlotte, North Carolina, May 31, 2007.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Can people trust what Barack Obama says?

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Saturday that, at least in some instances, they shouldn’t.

Campaign finance was the issue at hand. McCain, speaking at a Republican fundraiser that netted some $2 million, slammed the Illinois senator and presumptive Democratic nominee for going back on a promise to take public funds during the general election if his Republican counterpart did the same.

“This election is about trust and trusting people’s word,” McCain said. “Unfortunately, apparently on several items, Senator Obama’s word cannot be trusted.”

Harsh stuff. Obama, who broke fundraising records during his victorious primary fight against New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, said he made the decision to forego public funds because the Republicans had become masters at gaming the “broken” public finance system.

Sticking to his original promise would have limited Obama to spending $84 million in the two months between the Democratic convention and the Nov. 4 election and barred him from taking additional donations.

McCain does not expect to match Obama’s fundraising success.

A spokesman for Obama said the Republican candidate had a history of his own when it came to changing stances. “Senator McCain’s path to the nomination required repeatedly changing his positions to appeal to the Republican base,” Tommy Vietor said.

“From supporting Bush tax breaks for the rich that he once voted against, to saying he’d now vote against his own immigration reform legislation, the John McCain of 2008 is completely different from the man we knew just a few years ago.”

Photo credit: Reuters/Steve Marcus - Republican presidential candidate John McCain speaks at the University of Nevada Las Vegas on June 25.

WASHINGTON — In his most controversial television ad yet, Republican John McCain calls for more domestic oil drilling.

“We went to the moon, not because it was easy, but because it was hard,” the ad’s narrator says. “John McCain will call America to our next national purpose — energy security.”

Domestic drilling is not a popular option in states like Florida and California that have oil reserves offshore. McCain also promises to work for lower gas prices and alternative energy sources, tapping into an issue that’s uppermost in voters’ minds.

Democrats said the ad misrepresents McCain’s track record, and dug up several Senate votes where he opposed spending on renewable energy research.

“In his 25 years in Washington, Senator McCain has been a part of the problem, not the solution on energy independence,” said Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Karen Finney.

DALLAS - A modern U.S. political ritual that accompanies elections, “the battle of the bumper stickers,” is gearing up again.

In an e-mail to its membership on Friday, the Republican Party of Texas said it had received over 1,300 submissions to its call for a 2008 election bumper sticker slogan.

It said it had narrowed the field down to five and that Texas Republicans had until high noon on July 3rd to vote for one of them. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is unsurprisingly the explicit target of four of them.

The five finalists?

Obama for Change? That’s all you’ll have left in your pockets!

Obama won’t change me — I’m voting GOP

High gas prices? Thank a Democrat this November

Barack Obama? Liberal like McGovern, Prepared like Carter

Barack Obama — The Audacity of HYPE

But with many Americans driving less because of sky-high gas prices, it remains to be seen how much “air-time” bumper stickers will get on the roads this election year.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo: Reuters/Jim Bourg - Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama  and Senator Hillary Clinton appear on stage with Clinton endorsing Obama in person and campaigning with him for the first time in the town of Unity, New Hampshire, June 27, 2008.

One of the themes at the annual "Christian Scholars Conference" at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, is "faith and politics in the current political climate" -- subjects that readers of this blog will know we often touch on.

The conference, which kicked off on Thursday and ends on Saturday, features an impressive academic line-up. A link to the abstracts can be found here.

Keri Thompson of the University of Texas has what looks like an intriguing presentation on "Progressive Christianity in Election 2008: The Rhetorical Strategies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama."

The abstract says "The Democratic Party's strategic insertion of religious rhetoric ought to shed light on new trends in progressive Christianity and its future role in American politics."

Saturday morning's line-up will feature the faith advisor for Barack Obama's presidential campaign, Shaun Casey, in a one-on-one discussion with Stephen V. Monsma, author of "Healing for a Broken World: Christian Perspectives on Public Policy." They will discuss how their faith has led them to opposite ends of the political spectrum.

It is all great grist for the big U.S. religious mill.

NEW YORK - Michelle Obama won a standing ovation on Thursday when she paid a campaign visit to gay and lesbian Democratic activists to promote her husband Barack Obama’s presidential quest.

Obama, appearing at a dinner meeting of the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Council of the Democratic National Committee, cited her husband’s efforts to fight discrimination and promote equal rights for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people.

She said he supported a complete repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which only recognizes marriages between men and women and upholds states’ rights not to honor same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. He also opposes a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward gays in the U.S. military and was against a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, she added.

He supports full family and adoption rights for gay and lesbian couples and believes the federal government should not stand in the way of states that opt for domestic partnerships, civil unions or civil marriage, she said. The Illinois senator opposes same-sex marriage.

“Barack believes that we must fight for the world as it should be, a world where together we work to reverse discriminatory laws like DOMA and ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’” she said. “The world as it is should be one that rejects discrimination of all kinds.”

Her husband also has called for a renewed effort to fight HIV and AIDS and has said the African-American community should overcome homophobia, she said.

“Nothing we have to do over the next four or eight years is going to be easy. There will be powerful forces who believe that things should stay just as they are, that everything is fine, and that’s where you all come in,” she said.

“Your voices of truth and hope and of possibility have got to drown out the skeptics and the cynics,” she said.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo Credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas (Michelle Obama at campaign event this week in Washington)

CINCINNATI - The plate was heaped with a pile of spaghetti, covered with spicy chili, and layered over with a thick blanket of grated cheddar cheese, and it sat in front of Republican John McCain.

Refusing a bib to wear around his neck to catch the fallout, the presidential candidate dove into the plate of “three-way” chili, an early lunch at Skyline Chili, a Cincinnati institution.

He only made it about half-way through the ample serving, and then it was on to Xavier University for a town hall meeting.

After taking questions from the audience for an hour there, he retreated to a side room where he was interviewed by a couple of half-pints, a brother-and-sister team, Spencer and Piper Macke.

The favor was granted because Spencer, 6, had raised $4,000 for a military veterans fund. He and Piper, 5, were shy but got through five questions, including:

Have you ever driven a tank? McCain said he has sat in one, but could not be trusted to drive one.

Has he ever fired an M-16 rifle? No, but he carried a pistol as a Navy flyer.

Is the president like a king? “These days king have very little if any power.”

Was he served food as a prisoner of war in Vietnam?  Yes, often a soup with cabbage and “other things in it that I am happy to say I’ve never identified.”  

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Steve Marcus

Barack Obama found himself surrounded by Hollywood stars at a Los Angeles fundraiser on Tuesday that raised $4 million to more than $5 million for Democrats and the Illinois senator's presidential campaign, according to a press pool report and the Los Angeles Times.

Obama told the crowd he knew his long campaign against former Democrat presidential rival Hillary Clinton "caused some heartburn and some frustration." But he added, "we were allies then and we're allies now."

Clinton had enjoyed strong support in Los Angeles and among Hollywood's stars, who first warmed to her when her husband Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992.  But many in her camp are now joining the Obama bandwagon in a sign of party unity against presumptive Republican nominee John McCain.

Obama spoke to an audience that included actors Samuel L. Jackson, Dennis Quaid and Don Cheadle, as well as Sherry Lansing, the former CEO of Paramount Pictures. British-born singer Seal performed his ballad "Kiss from a Rose" and the Sam Cooke soul classic "A Change is Gonna Come," an apparent reference to Obama's campaign theme of change.

Seal was introduced by Quaid, who told the crowd: "He's here tonight to sing for the superman for everyone -- Barack Obama." Rapper Will.i.am of the group the Black Eyed Peas and retired boxer "Sugar" Ray Leonard also were in attendance.

The event was held amid glass chandeliers at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, a performance venue that in years past hosted the Oscars.

Money raised at the fundraiser will be split between the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Tickets to the reception cost $2,300 per person, and VIP tickets cost $28,500 per couple, which allowed those VIPs to attend a dinner with Obama.