DURHAM, N.C. - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama took aim on Monday at his rival Hillary Clinton’s argument that he is less electable than her given his recent series of troubles and because he has not been fully “vetted.”

Amid a flap over comments from his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and other controversies, Obama has seen his poll numbers slide lately against both Clinton and the Republican candidate for November’s election, John McCain.

Obama publicly denounced Wright last week after the pastor moved back into the spotlight and repeated his inflammatory charges that the Sept. 11 attacks were in part retribution for U.S. policy and that the government spread AIDS to harm blacks.

Obama has also faced questions about his association with 1960s radical William Ayres and about why he doesn’t wear a U.S. flagpin.

The Illinois senator said those issues had hurt his campaign but did not “knock us off stride.” The fact that the impact from those problems was not greater was a sign that his candidacy was strong, he said.

“Despite all that, if you look at it, we’re still fundamentally tied with John McCain,” Obama said, responding to a question from an undecided voter who asked him about the electability question.

Clinton has pushed the argument that the party elders and officials known as the “superdelegates” should rally around her as the nominee because, as a former first lady, she has been “vetted” and is better able to fend off attacks from Republicans in a general election.

Obama’s counterargument is that the Wright controversy and other issues have that have come up amount to a “vetting” for him. He also challenged Clinton’s contention that Republicans would not try to dredge up old lines of attack against her.

“Sen. Clinton, despite what she says about being vetted, she hasn’t gone through what I’ve been going through over the last couple of months because she’s not the front-runner,” Obama said.

After Obama spoke, the McCain camp weighed in on the electability question, saying that Obama’s opposition to a summer gas tax holiday and his support for an increase in the capital gains tax would leave him vulnerable in the general election if he becomes the nominee.

“Those are Obama’s pledged positions, and they aren’t popular in North Carolina, Indiana or most anywhere else in America,” said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds. 

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-Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama orders food and coffee in Durham, North Carolina on May 5)
   

 INDIANAPOLIS - Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich says Barack Obama remains the best bet to become the Democratic presidential nominee and would be a formidable opponent for Republican John McCain.
   

Speaking to the French Sunday newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, Gingrich said McCain had benefited from Obama’s recent difficulties, including controversial comments by the Illinois senator’s longtime pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. 

“But Obama remains a formidable opponent. He is also the most probable Democrat nominee, even if he is not as untouchable as he was before,” said Gingrich, who led his party’s takeover of the House of Representatives in what was known as the Republican Revolution of 1994.

Gingrich was eventually forced out of that role and has gone on to become an author. Though he remains a conservative, Gingrich relishes sometimes taking positions that are seen as contrarian to members of his party.

But he likely was toeing a party line to come when he added: “Obama is not just any left-wing politician. … He is a far left-wing politician, but with a beautiful smile.”
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SCRANTON, Pa. - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama kicked off a day of campaigning in Pennsylvania by dropping by a Scranton diner for a breakfast of waffles, sausage and orange juice.
 
But the press corps went hungry — hungry for an answer that is.
 
The Illinois senator brushed aside a question from one reporter on his reaction to former President Jimmy Carter’s description of a positive meeting with leaders of the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas.
 
“Why can’t I just eat my waffle?” Obama replied.
    
Reporters traveling with the Illinois senator, fighting with his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton over Pennsylvania ahead of its vote on Tuesday, are venting frustration over a lack of access to the candidate lately. Obama has not held a press availability in 10 days, though he has given dozens of interviews to local press in Pennyslvania.
    
Republicans have pounced on Obama’s “waffle” comment, suggesting he is evading tough questions.
    
“Today, Obama continued to dodge questions from the media, responding that he just wanted to eat his waffle,” the Republican National Committee said in an email sent to reporters that included press accounts of the waffle incident at the Glider diner.
    
Both Obama and Clinton are far less accessible to the media than presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, known for holding lengthy question-and-answer sessions with reporters on his Straight Talk Express bus.
    
The sessions last so long that some reporters say they run out of questions.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Tim Shaffer (Obama greets Pennsylvania supporter)

Democratic candidate Barack Obama, who has built his candidacy on the promise of a “new kind of politics,” has run up against the old kind of politics in Philadelphia.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Obama’s refusal to pay “street money” to volunteers in Pennsylvania’s largest city may cost him support in the state’s April 22 primary.

Local party leaders in Philadelphia expect candidates to deliver cash to help them get out the vote, the Times says. Teens who hand out leaflets typically get a $10 bill, while more experienced volunteers can get up to $100. The total for America’s sixth-largest city could come to $500,000.

“This is a machine city, and ward leaders have to pay their committee people,” ward leader and Obama supporter Carol Ann Campbell told the Times.

Obama often rails against the influence of money in politics, and his campaign has told Philadelphia officials they should expect no street money.

That could cost him support in an area where he will have to run up large margins to counteract rival Hillary Clinton’s strength elsewhere in the state, the Times said. Local officials expect the Clinton campaign will have no qualms about handing out street money, which is legal and has been a fixture in previous presidential campaigns.

Obama’s stance could also cause resentment among the city’s poor, black voters, who see the black candidate’s well-funded campaign spending lavishly on TV ads but freezing out field workers for whom a $50 bill would be a big payday.

“They view it that the white people are getting all the money for TV,” said state Rep. Dwight Evans, who is neutral in the race.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Frank Polich (Obama campaigns in Gary, Indiana on April 10)

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.”

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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.

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

WASHINGTON - Democratic voters in Pennsylvania are hearing all about presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s views on issues like Iraq and the economy — but where does he stand on those small but all-important, getting-to-know-you questions?

For instance, does the Illinois senator prefer the Beatles or the Rolling Stones? “Rolling Stones,” he answered without hesitation in a Tuesday interview with NBC’s “Today Show.”

And he went on in rapid-fire succession, not shying away even from his recent underwhelming performance in a Pennsylvania bowling alley.

COFFEE OR TEA? — “Tea.”

WHICH PRESIDENT WOULD HE MOST WANT TO BE LIKE? — “Lincoln.”

WHY? — “He never lost sight of the humanity of even those who opposed him.”

IS HE SURE GOD EXISTS? — “Yes.”

HOW OFTEN DOES HE PRAY? — “Once a day, sometimes twice a day. It depends on the day.”

BEST THING HIS MOTHER TAUGHT HIM? — “Empathy, making sure that you can see the world through somebody else’s eyes, stand in their shoes. I think that’s the basis for kindness and compassion.”

WHICH MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM DOES HE LIKE, THE CHICAGO CUBS OR CHICAGO WHITE SOX ? — “White Sox”

BASKETBALL OR BOWLING? — “Basketball.”

NOT BOWLING? — “Not bowling. You saw those gutter balls. But you know what? That shows that I’m willing to try new things.”

WHAT MAKES HIM LOSE SLEEP? — “When I lose sleep at night, it is not because I am worrying about what’s going to happen in Pennsylvania or Indiana or how we’re going to resolve this contest. I lose sleep at night because I think about being president and all the challenges we have to face out there.”

Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Cohn (Obama speaks at a campaign event in Pittsburgh on March 28)