Rev. Arnold Conrad, in delivering an invocation at a rally today for John McCain in Davenport, Iowa, apparently didn't get the word from the candidate about elevating the tone at such gatherings.
Conrad, who appeared before the crowd before McCain had arrived, offered a prayer that seemed to urge divine intervention to prevent Barack Obama from winning the presidential election -- and cast the outcome as a referendum on differing religions.
The Times' Maeve Reston was at the event, and she passed along the key passage from Conrad's words:
I would also pray Lord that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their God -- whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah -- that his [McCain’s] opponent wins for a variety of reasons.
And Lord I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you would step forward and honor your own name in all that happens between now and Election Day.
Oh Lord, we just commit this time to you, move among us, make your presence very well felt as we are gathered here today in Jesus's name I pray.
Some in the crowd greeted the prayer with applause.
Amid the torrent of coverage of the heretofore obscure Sarah Palin, there comes today a classic clash -- via dueling columns -- from two noted commentators on whether John McCain hit a home run by tapping her to be his running mate or struck out.
From the right, making the case for the round-tripper (with a caveat), is the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol. Says he in an editorial for his magazine:
Millions of Americans -- mostly but not only women, mostly but not only Republicans and conservatives -- seemed to get a sense of energy and enjoyment and pride, not just from her nomination, but especially from her smashing opening performance.
Palin will be a compelling and mold-breaking example for lots of Americans who are told every day that to be even a bit conservative or Christian or old-fashioned is bad form. In this respect, Palin can become an inspirational figure and powerful symbol.
Kristol's one caution is summarized by the piece's headline -- he opines that the McCain camp must "Let Palin Be Palin" if it's to fully benefit from her.
From the left comes the alternative take by Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, and the headline and subhead for his piece make his view clear: "McCain's 'Hail Sarah' Pass ... His choice for veep is all but set up for failure in the fall."
Alter writes that for all the initial excitement Palin's selection sparked within the GOP, "there's a reason that rookies" usually flail about on the main stage of U.S. politics. In predicting that fate for the former mayor of a small Alaskan community (referenced in this passage), he writes:
It's not her lack of name recognition; America loves a fresh face, especially one that's a cross between a Fox anchor and a character on "Northern Exposure," the old TV show about an Alaska town about the size of Wasilla.
The problem is that politics, like all professions, isn't as easy as it looks. Palin's odds of emerging unscathed this fall are slim.
On election day, one of these pundits will be able to pat himself on the back; the other will hope folks forgot what he wrote.
DENVER -- Barack Obama began his campaign day in Eau Claire, Wis., surprising most of the congregation at the town's First Lutheran Church by attending service there. But Pastor John Kerr had been tipped that his listeners might include the almost-official Democratic presidential nominee, and he was ready with an on-point message.
Obama brought his own Bible and settled into an aisle seat in the fourth row. Kerr's then offered as his first reading Romans 12:1-8 -- which preaches humility.
Indeed, according to pool reporter John Broder of the New York Times, Kerr summarized its thrust as counseling against cockiness because one is a good singer or public speaker. And the passage urges one "not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”
In his 13-minute sermon, Kerr refrained from any mention of Obama or politics. But Kerr, a former Minnesota resident, afterward told reporters he hadn't had "this much excitement since Jesse Ventura was elected" that state's governor in 1998.
After the services, Obama campaigned at the nearby Rod and Gun Park, where he decried the current state of the economy and stressed his commitment to improve it (a message many have been urging him to focus on).
But before seguing into candidate mode, he offered reporters definite thoughts about what does and does not constitute a barbeque -- as the gathering at the park was advertised.
“If you’re not barbequing, it’s not a barbeque,” he said. “It’s a cookout. It’s a picnic. It’s a bratfest. It’s not a barbeque.”
-- Don Frederick
And just a reminder that you can join the growing throngs preparing for the rest of this political season and beyond by having every Ticket item -- plus special offline Tweets from The Ticket's writers starting with the party conventions -- sent directly to your cellphone.
The agreement calls for three 90-minute presidential showdowns and one vice presidential (players to be named later) debate. The full list with details is below (all begin at 6 p.m. Pacific time). But what's most interesting to note is where the debates will be held -- none in the West.
In fact, only one, at Washington University in St. Louis, will be west of the Mississippi -- and that just barely. So much for the fight for the heart and soul of the Western voter. And expect the announcement to spur some complaints from fringe candidates Bob Barr, Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney, who must get 15% or better in national polls to wrangle an invite under rules established by the commission -- which, incidentally, was set up in 1987 by the Democratic and Republican parties.
The list and details from the release are:
First Presidential Debate: Date: September 26 Site: University of Mississippi (Oxford) Topic: Foreign Policy & National Security Moderator: Jim Lehrer Staging: Podium debate Answer Format: The debate will be broken into nine, 9-minute segments. The moderator will introduce a topic and allow each candidate 2 minutes to comment. After these initial answers, the moderator will facilitate an open discussion of the topic for the remaining 5 minutes, ensuring that both candidates receive an equal amount of time to comment
Vice Presidential Debate Date: October 2nd Site: Washington University (St. Louis) Moderator: Gwen Ifill Staging/Answer Format: To be resolved after both parties’ Vice Presidential nominees are selected.
Second Presidential Debate Date: October 7 Site: Belmont University (Nashville) Moderator: Tom Brokaw Staging: Town Hall debate Format: The moderator will call on members of the audience (and draw questions from the Internet). Each candidate will have 2 minutes to respond to each question. Following those initial answers, the moderator will invite the candidates to respond to the previous answers, for a total of 1 minute, ensuring that both candidates receive an equal amount of time to comment. In the spirit of the Town Hall, all questions will come from the audience (or Internet), and not the moderator.
Third Presidential Debate Date: October 15 Site: Hofstra University (Hempstead, Long Island, New York) Topic: Domestic and Economic policy Moderator: Bob Schieffer Staging: Candidates will be seated at a table Answer Format: Same as First Presidential Debate. Closing Statements: At the end of this debate (only) each candidate shall have the opportunity for a 90 second closing statement.
Many of the comments — including from some Focus on the Family adherents — were unfavorable. The video was nixed from its website, and Shepard responded with a new one, "Mea Culpa" (see below), which is worth watching to the final scene.
On the other hand, Shepard's hope for divine meteorological intervention as Obama prepares to speak before a huge outdoor crowd in Denver has been taken up by another.
Wiley Drake, a one-time official with the Southern Baptist Convention, earlier this week posted a release on ChristianNewsWire.com, expressing regret that Shepard's first video had been pulled and urging prayer "to ask God to bring on the rain."
One thing we can count on — every cloud that drifts across the typically azure Rocky Mountain sky on Obama's speech day will get carefully scrutinized.
Well, the verdict on Saturday's much-watched Saddleback Forum is in from the online voice of the conservative evangelical organization, Focus on the Family, founded and headed by James Dobson.
And in the eyes of one of the nation's largest evangelical organizations the clear-cut winner, despite all the rumors that the Arizona senator is toying with the idea of picking a pro-choice running mate, was Republican Sen. John McCain over Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.
In an e-mail blast to millions of members and followers today, CitizenLink.com urged readers: "Values voters should look closely at what the presidential candidates had to say on the issues that matter.'
The article, by Jennifer Mesko, editor, said many wondered if Saddleback's pastor Rick Warren would ask about marriage and abortion.
Here's the website's summary:
Warren: "At what point is a baby entitled to human rights?"
Obama: "Answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade."
[Jim] Daly [president of Focus on the Family Action] said Obama stumbled on that one.
"When you come down to the life question, it is so core to what we believe, and what we believe God's heart is about," he said. "When a person fumbles on that question, it really gives us a clue as to what their worldview is about.
"He's contending for the most powerful seat in the world -- president of the United States -- and for him to equivocate on that issue, there's really not a lot of room for that."...
Obama continued: "I am pro-choice. I believe in ...
As it has turned out, John McCain was not entirely confined in the type of hermetically sealed environment that Rick Warren suggested when the pastor referred to the "cone of silence" surrounding the Republican before his appearance Saturday at Saddleback Church in Orange County.
But Warren, in interview segments posted earlier today on the God-O-Meter at Beliefnet.com (yes, that's the blog's moniker), takes great umbrage to claims that McCain got tipped to some of the queries he would face when he followed Barack Obama onstage at the much-anticipated event.
McCain was headed to the church -- in a motorcade supervised by the Secret Service -- when Warren's interview with Obama began. Upon arriving at the church, he was taken to a so-called "green room" to await his turn.
God-O-Meter Editor Dan Gilgoff asked Warren (who is much in demand after his turn as candidate inquisitor) about assertions by Obama backers that McCain got the heads-up, meaning he wouldn't have to think as fast on his feet as his rival.
"They're dead wrong. That's just sour grapes..." Warren responds.
Gilgoff presses the matter, saying: "A source at the debate tells me that McCain had access to some communications devices in the few minutes before he went on stage with you and that there was a monitor in his green room, in violation of the debate rules."
Responds Warren: "That's absolutely a lie, absolutely a lie. That room was totally free, with no monitors -- a flat out lie."
Warren's answer, of course, doesn't cover the possibility that McCain got wind, while in his motorcade, of what....
To the surprise of many, John McCain seemed in his element Saturday at the candidate forum Rick Warren conducted at Orange County's Saddleback Church.
As Peter Hamby notes today at CNN.com, McCain's supposed reluctance to discuss his faith was not evident; indeed, he told the evangelical audience that he had been "saved and forgiven" by Christ. Adds the MSNBC political shop: "We seriously underestimated how Saturday’s religious forum was made to order for McCain, despite the perceptions that McCain rarely talks openly about his faith. On all the questions regarding hot-button social issues, the Arizona senator didn’t have to depart from GOP orthodoxy one bit, except on stem cells."
To the surprise of no one, McCain was definitely in his element this morning as he spoke to the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
He returned, with relish, to the theme he had stressed during Barack Obama's overseas trip last month: that he was right in strongly advocating last year's surge in U.S. troop deployment in Iraq, while his rival was wrong in strongly opposing it and is having a hard time admitting that.
McCain didn't quite reprise the charge he made while Obama was stopping in Iraq -- that his foe would rather win the White House than win a war. But he walked right up to that line, saying: "Behind all of these claims and positions by Sen. Obama (on Iraq) lies the ambition to be president."
Our colleague Mark Silva at the Swamp has more on McCain's speech; Michael Muskal and Maeve Reston have a story at LATtimes.com.
As Barack Obama returns from vacation and catches up on his mail, awaiting him is a letter signed by more than 140 clergy members urging him to reject conventional wisdom -- as well as his own drift to the center of late -- and steer hard to the political left.
Rabbi Michael Lerner initiated the missive. From his home base in Northern California, he heads the Network of Spiritual Progressives and serves as editor of Tikkun (defined on the magazine's website as a word meaning "to heal, repair, and transform the world").
A bio on Lerner on the same site notes that during the early stages of President Clinton's administration, the rabbi's "ideas received national attention when Hillary Clinton adopted his notion of 'the politics of meaning' and called for the country to respond to these ideas. Lerner was described by the Washington Post as 'the guru of the White House,' and he became the subject of intense national debate."
Ultimately, the bio continues, Lerner "found that though the Clintons were using his words, they were actually following policies that were antithetical to his core ideas."
Not surprisingly, given that background, he was a strong Obama backer during the Democratic primary battle. An e-mail sent out earlier this week describes the Lerner letter as an appeal to Obama "to retain the ethical and spiritual vision that won him the [Democratic presidential] nomination in the first place. Rejecting the 'inside-the-Beltway' wisdom that a Democrat must 'move to the center to win the election,' the clergy disputed the very notion that this is an accurate understanding of American politics."
Lerner, in the e-mail, offers the following quotes:
"The central dichotomy in American politics is not Left/Right but fear/hope. When Senator Obama positioned himself as the prophet of a new kind of politics, he energized millions of young people, and even older Republicans and people who had become so cynical about politics that they have not voted in recent years.
"But that depended on him being the voice of peace against war, social justice against capitulation to the rich and the large corporations, and ecological sanity.
"If he now moves to what the inside-the-Beltway crowd calls The Center, he ends up in an election campaign in which he will be trying to prove that he is a better general for wartime than [John] McCain, and a better mini-manager of the same old system -- and that will undermine the hopefulness that was the ticket to his political success and the Republicans will become Republicans again, the youth and the cynics will return to their other concerns, and Obama's political possibilities will be worse, not better.
"Still, we approach Obama not as his political strategists but as religious, ethical and spiritual leaders to challenge him to put forward a fundamentally new ethical vision, which is actually the oldest vision -- the vision of our various religious and spiritual traditions and of the wise humanistic values that pervade all religions but can be accessed without being religious.
"We hope that Senator Obama will allow himself to be Obama again, rather than be swallowed up by the ethical visionless-ness of business-as-usual American politics."
Along with Lerner, the guiding forces behind the correspondence are identified as Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister, the Rev. Tony Campolo, Father John Dear, Rabbi Arthur Waskow,Imam Zaid Shakir andthe Rev. Graylan S. Hagler.
The full text of the lengthy letter is available by clicking on the "Read more" line ...
(UPDATE: C-SPAN has also announced it will broadcast the forum live.)
For those who don't look at nonfiction bestseller books or frequent bookstores, Warren is the author of the mega-selling "The Purpose Driven Life" and pastor of the 22,000-member Saddleback Church.
The candidates won't appear together, but CNN notes that this is the first time both candidates have been within hailing distance of each other since they locked up their parties' nominations. And the appearances signal how important faith communities are to each campaign.
On the agenda: "compassion, faith, values and leadership." Warren will ask all the questions, and a coin toss determined Obama goes on first.
Having racked up an impressive number of overseas travel miles (about 16,000, The Times' Doyle McManus noted in an analysis piece on the trip), Barack Obama today turned his attention to what polls show is the main concern on the minds of Americans -- the economy. After his focus last week on international matters, he met with an array of economic experts in Washington.
This sort of balancing act likely will continue -- proving he's up to the task on both foreign and domestic matters remains high on Obama's "to do" list. But in another reflection of his relative newness on the national political scene, so too is filling in some basic biographical blanks, as illustrated by a little-noticed question in last week's NBC News/Wall Street Journal national poll.
The poll's core result found Obama ahead of John McCain among registered voters by 6 percentage points, 47% to 41.% But among a plethora of other questions, the voters were asked about Obama's religion. The answers showed greater awareness than in March that he is a practicing Protestant (perhaps the one positive for him out of the Jeremiah Wright controversy?), but also that work remains for the Obama campaign in fleshing out who he is.
In the new poll, slightly less than a majority -- 48% -- correctly identified Obama as a Protestant. That's up from 37% four months ago, which should please his staff. Another positive for him: 8% identified Obama as a Muslim, down from 13% in March.
Still, fully 39% put themselves in the not sure/refused to answer category on the query (#27 in this detailed report on the survey). In March, that number was 44%.
Obama, speaking to the Unity convention of minority journalists Sunday in Chicago, discussed his campaign's challenge in responding to Internet-fueled rumors that he is a Muslim.
"This is a classic example of a no-win situation," Obama said. "I have repeatedly said I'm not a Muslim, but this whole strategy of suggesting that I am is indicative of anti-Muslim strategy that we have to fight against."
It was a day of unusual contrasts for Sen. John McCain. He began it with martial music playing, striding to the podium at a veterans’ convention in a downtown Denver hotel, and painting a dire portrait of how Iraq would have been lost if his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, had his way and ended the war there prematurely.
McCain finished his day hours later in the mountain air of Aspen, standing at the side of the Dalai Lama and praising the Tibetan exile’s lifelong commitment to nonviolence. (See video below.)
Here’s a sampling of what McCain had to say to the national convention of the GI Forum, a Latino veterans' group:
"The surge has succeeded and we are, at long last, winning this war."
He noted Obama opposed the surge. “If Sen. Obama had prevailed, American forces would have had to retreat under fire. The Iraqi army would have collapsed. Civilian casualties would have increased dramatically. Civil war, genocide and wider conflict would have been very, very likely.
"Above all, America would have been humiliated and weakened.”
Then, in Aspen: "I am very pleased and honored to meet with his holiness the Dalai Lama, a man of peace. His holiness represents the profound desire of millions of Tibetans for basic dignity and human rights.
"His nonviolence approach and his lifelong approach of seeking common ground around cultural and religious divides are an inspiration for all of mankind and to millions of Americans."
The Arizona senator did call on China to improve its treatment of Tibetans and release Tibetan political prisoners. Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama stressed that the appearance was not an endorsement -- an aide said he’s also spoken to Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton.
"My basic commitment," the Dalai Lama said, "is promotion of human values. That means human compassion, human affection."
Barack Obama paid a solemn visit this morning to Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum, laying a white flower wreath on a memorial to Jews killed by the Nazis.
“Let our children come here and know this history so they can add their voices to proclaim never again,” Obama wrote in the Jerusalem museum’s guest book.
Obama’s second visit to the museum — his first was in 2006 — came after he met privately with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the leader of the Labor Party, and Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud Party. Both are former prime ministers.
This afternoon, Obama will travel to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian leaders, then fly by helicopter to the southern Israeli town of Sderot, the target of frequent Palestinian rocket attacks fired from the Gaza Strip.
At the Jerusalem museum, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president wore a yarmulke for a brief ceremony before a flame commemorating those who died in Treblinka, Buchenwald and other Nazi concentration camps. Obama laid the wreath on a stone slab that covers the ashes of Holocaust victims.
A Wall Street Journal opinion piece, provocatively headlined "Why Jesse Jackson Hates Obama," argues that Jackson pursued equality through the manipulation of white guilt.
The reason that Obama bothers Jackson so much, contends author Shelby Steele, is that the Illinois senator takes another tack to promoting civil rights.
Steele, of Stanford University's Hoover Institution, portrayed Obama's approach as "give up moral leverage over whites, refuse to shame them with America's racist past, and the gratitude they show you will constitute a new form of black power. They will love you for the faith you show in them."
But Frank James, writing for our colleagues at The Swamp, says that Steele is missing an obvious motive: jealousy.
"Black America has seen this movie before. There was the rivalry between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois at the start of the 20th Century. That contest was based partly on ideology as to the best way for African Americans to advance in a racist nation. But it was also personal," James writes.
Tomorrow, Dobson is going to say: "I never thought I would hear myself saying this. ... While I am not endorsing John McCain, the possibility is there that I might."
"Barack Obama contradicts and threatens everything I believe in about the institution of the family and what is best for the nation. His radical positions on life, marriage and national security force me to reevaluate the candidacy of our only other choice, John McCain."
That's quite a turnaround for Dobson, head of the influential nonprofit ministry Focus on the Family, which supports traditional family values.
Dobson, who has repeatedly noted that he speaks only for himself and not his organization, had previously attacked McCain for his views on embryonic stem cell research and his opposition to a federal constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage. (The fact that the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation put a crimp in the way nonprofits like his communicate with their supporters about political issues also played a role in Dobson's dissing of the Arizona senator.)
Now, Dobson will say on his radio show, McCain's anti-abortion stance and his support for smaller government could win him over. In addition, he'll add, McCain "seems to understand the Muslim threat."
"There's nothing dishonorable in a person rethinking his or her positions, especially in a constantly changing political context," Dobson said in his statement to the AP. "If that is a flip-flop, then so be it."
(UPDATE: Sure enough, as reported here Sunday, Dobson made his broadcast statements strongly criticizing Obama and sort of praising McCain. "Neither of the candidates is consistent with my views," the influential family leader said. "But Sen. McCain is certainly closer to them than Sen. Obama by a wide margin." For a video report from Dobson's organization, click here.)
This space is supposed to be reserved for serious political material like foot-tapping senators, planted public forum questions, broken candidates' buses -- or make that candidates' broken buses -- satirical magazine covers that most people don't get and Rep. Ron Paul's chances of stealing the Republican nomination from John McCain.
We're going to make an exception under popular demand and publish late the latest JibJab cartoon video. It's just great. Wonderful. Don't miss it if you can.
The best part is what Hillary does toBill when he says a certain word.
We hope you die laughing. If you need more information on this stuff, our colleague Mark Milian over at Web Scout has more than you need. Go there. But do come back; they don't know anything about the electoral college over there.
The mystery has been cleared up about what else Jesse Jackson said last week when he made his crude remarks about Barack Obama.
The previously unreported comment, disclosed Wednesday morning by the TVNewser blog, was:
“Barack ... he’s talking down to black people ... telling [black people] how to behave.” Only Jackson used the plural form of the “n-word,” not “black people,” in the second part of his comment.
Initially, the firestorm was over comments Jackson made to a guest before a July 6 interview on "Fox & Friends."
The civil rights leader whispered that Obama was "talking down to black people" and that Jackson wanted to "cut his nuts off."
The comments went unnoticed in the control room, Fox News said. But, as reported by The Times’ Matea Gold in a story published Friday, an employee working the overnight shift transcribed the tape, and the remarks that first caused the stir were reported several days later on Fox’s "The O’Reilly Factor." Then, as The Ticket reported, there was a controversy over exactly what Jackson said he wanted to do.
At the time, host Bill O’Reilly told viewers the network had decided to air only portions of what Jackson had said, adding there was "more damaging" material, too. That gave rise to rumors that Jackson had used the “n word” –- and aimed it directly at Obama.
In a Wednesday afternoon interview with fellow Fox host Shepard Smith, O’Reilly said he had withheld the “n-word” remark because, “I’m not in the business of creating some kind of controversy that’s not relevant to the general subject -- one civil rights leader disparaging another over policy.”
But why did O’Reilly mention in the first place that he had “more damaging” material?
In a one-sentence statement offered as a reply, O’Reilly said Wednesday: “We tell the audience the full breadth of everything we report on.” There was no elaboration on why the “full breadth” didn’t include the actual comment.
As for how the “n-word” comment eventually got out, O’Reilly told Smith that “some weasel leaked it to the Internet.”
This week's provocative New Yorker magazine cover featuring Barack and Michelle Obama as armed and Muslim calls attention to a variety of myths floating around the country these days, mainly online, but also openly voiced.
To check on what you hear, the website snopes.com is valuable. It tracks and debunks urban legends of the e-mail variety. It could be the first place you go when that unexpected message pings into your inbox from another e-mail chain.
You can also search Snopes for more myths or alleged truths about others such as Sens. John McCain (he did tell a story once about a fellow POW in Hanoi who got beaten for sewing a U.S. flag on his prison shirt) or John Kerry (his photo does hang in a Vietnamese Peace Museum for being a war protester).
According to the site, here are the top myths about Barack Obama:
He is a "radical Muslim" who will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
He was sworn into office on the Koran.
Obama's church has a "nonnegotiable commitment to Africa" that is covertly Muslim and excludes non-blacks.
Obama has been endorsed for president of the U.S. by the Ku Klux Klan.
Obama's presidential campaign is being funded by Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez.
For the rest of the mythical Obama list, check out our colleague James Oliphant's intriguing story over at the Swamp.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Photo: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Credit: Associated Press
As Barack Obama and John McCain take their sweet time settling on running-mate choices, one result is that the net cast in the inevitable guessing game gets wider and wider.
As The Times' Doyle McManus aptly put it in a recent overview on the plethora of vice-presidential prospects: "Never in modern memory have so many eminent people been mentioned for a job that has been compared -- unfavorably -- to a bucket of warm spit."
In the spirit of such speculation, veteran political journalist Paul West this weekend spotlighted two possibilities -- one for Obama, the other for McCain -- who definitely would be surprise picks.
For the Democrats, West offered up Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
In a definite understatement, West writes that Reed "isn't flashy, and he wouldn't upstage the star." But here's the core of the case he makes for the lawmaker with virtually no national profile:
"He's a Catholic with working-class roots (his father was a school janitor) and could enhance the ticket's appeal to those swing voters. He has expertise on issues at the center of the campaign debate: economics and the housing crisis.
"More important, he would offset Obama's lack of national security experience. Reed, 58, has a reputation as a serious thinker and is a respected voice on defense matters. He's a West Point graduate and Army Ranger with views that are right in line with Obama's. He voted against the 2002 Iraq war resolution and became an early critic of the way the war was fought while working to increase the size of the Army."
For the Republicans, West goes one better in the obscurity department -- dropping the little-known name of Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. He notes:
"On a personal level, Huntsman and McCain both have adopted children from Asia. (Huntsman's are from China and India; McCain's is from Bangladesh.) Their moderate-conservative political views are in sync, and Huntsman has gone out of his way to praise McCain's stance on immigration reform."
West's complete piece, in which he also says that Bill Clinton's 1992 selection of Al Gore "is widely regarded by strategists in both parties as the best vice-presidential pick in at least 20 years," can be read on The Swamp blog.
But John McCain is getting better news from the right -- signs of a real push by conservative Christian leaders to coalesce on his behalf.
First, a taste of the reaction to the Obama speech in Ohio.
During an appearance Tuesday night on MSNBC, Pat Buchanan said that although Obama wouldn't "win over the evangelicals," his embrace of the federal program that aimed to make it easier to funnel tax money to religious-based charities would "diminish some of the hostility" toward him among social conservatives.
Added Buchanan: "It looks like he's reaching out to them. ... It's a win for him."
And David Brody, senior national correspondent for the Christian Broadcast Network, said on CNN today that the reaction to Obama's speech within the community he covered was "relatively positive." Obama, he added, "has seemed to be one step ahead when it comes to this faith and politics intersection."
Brody, meanwhile, details on his website a huge step that a major figure on the religious right has taken to build support for McCain.
Phil Burress, head of the Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values, not so long ago said of McCain: "We don't like him and he doesn't like us." But, as Brody relates, Burress is now in McCain's corner, following a sit-down with him. Indeed, the evangelical honcho sent out a note to allies which wraps up by saying:
"I was once one of those people who said 'no way' to Senator John McCain as President. No longer. The stakes are too high. And if Obama wins I need to able to get up on November 5th, look at myself in the mirror, and when I pray, say, 'Lord, I did all that I could.' "
Burress also was among about 100 conservative Christian leaders who met in Denver on Tuesday and "agreed to unite behind" McCain's candidacy, Time magazine's Michael Scherer reports.
In a comment comparable to the concluding line in Burress' missive, one of those at the get-together explained the backing for McCain partly as a reaction to Obama.
Mat Staver, head of a group called Liberty Counsel and a former Mike Huckabeesupporter, told Scherer: "Collectively we feel that [McCain] will support and advance those moral values that we hold much greater than Obama, who in our view will decimate moral values."
Our colleague Dan Morain chatted up American Values' Gary Bauer Tuesday about gay marriage and Barack Obama's letter stating his opposition to a California ballot initiative (John McCain supports it). Morain points out that two other states will have similar measures on their fall ballot -- Arizona and Florida. While polls show California pretty safe for Obama and Arizona similarly so for McCain, a gay-marriage fight in Florida could have scale-tipping consequences.
Bauer, founder of the conservative Campaign for Working Families political action committee, said he hasn't decided whether to donate to California's "incredibly important" measure. "If the pro-same-sex marriage forces cannot win in California and Florida, it means that the people of this country still are resistant to radical social change," Bauer said.
Bauer said he was "somewhat heartened when Barack Obama said … that it should be a state decision" but that given Obama's recent statements opposing the California measure, "the idea that he is agnostic about this question doesn’t hold up any more."
"It is a major difference between the two candidates," Bauer said. "Before it is all over, we’ll have a great debate on tax policy, on foreign policy and on this fundamental question of what is the status of marriage."
Bauer said that John McCain and Barack Obama "did not seem far apart a few months ago" on gay marriage. "Now they are quite at odds with each other. It is something that voters in other states are looking at. When you have a significant number of other states that have voted to preserve marriage, it is the sort of thing that could hurt Obama."
Most significant: Obama "has very much been making a play for evangelical voters, suggesting that there would be no reason that an evangelical should vote against him. It becomes harder to make that case."
Well, we'll admit it, we're suckers for polls, and a recent one that our cousins at The Swamp tipped us to is interesting -- showing that Barack Obama is tapping a potentially rich vein in trying to tie John McCain to George Bush.
The Gallup/USA Today poll found that 68% of voters said they were concerned when asked whether they thought McCain would pursue "policies that are too similar to what George W. Bush has pursued." Of those polled, 49% said they were "very concerned."
As the poll analysis points out: "It is clearly a delicate balancing act for McCain, as Bush remains relatively popular with the Republican base. While only 28% of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing as president, a majority of Republicans (60%) still do. Bush's approval rating among current McCain supporters is slightly lower, at 55%."
Dive deeper into the poll and something else interesting emerges -- people aren't all that keen on change, either. Some 49% said they were concerned when asked whether "Obama would go too far in changing the policies that George W. Bush pursued." Of those polled, 30% said they were "very concerned."
So the advantage for the moment goes to change -- in moderation. Which might help explain Obama's embrace Tuesday of the concept behind the Bush administration's faith-based initiative program.
While John McCain was jetting south, Barack Obama went to Ohio today and chatted up his belief in the Bush Administration's
faith-based initiative. Our colleagues at Countdown to Crawford delve into it here.
The unusual thing is that Obama has made a point of saying a first McCain term would be little more than a third Bush term, but then he goes and gloms onto a signature issue of the Bush years (admittedly of less note than some otherissues from the Bush years).
And Obama accented his support for the program in a session with reporters, with our colleague Peter Nicholas in the scrum. Obama was asked whether he would elevate the faith-based initiative to the cabinet level:
"I want this to be central to our White House mission. Just as I want a White House office on poverty to be -- which I've already discussed previously, and urban policy -- to be part of high level discussion in the White House.
"So whether we're actually creating a new cabinet position or we're simply making sure this person has a direct line to me and is working with all the cabinet officers to coordinate faith-based initiatives, we'll figure out the organization as we move forward in the context of our overall White House organization. But the important principle is that using the talents and the gifts of the kinds of folks who are here at Eastside Community Ministries -- their passion and commitment to empower the community -- making sure they can compete for the resources that are made available by the federal government to reduce poverty or help children or feed the hungry or house the homeless -– that we are getting those resources on the ground so that the people who are closest to those in need are able to access them. That is going to be a central principle of our administration.''
McCain addressed the issue in an interview in April, saying that he believed Bush's faith-based initiatives had "done very well," our colleague Maeve Reston reports. But he said he was less glowing, saying he would assess the program's effectiveness before making any decision on changes to it. But McCain cited the faith-based response to Katrina as particularly note-worthy:
"They didn’t get a heck of a lot of government help, but they got some government help, and some of the people that I talked to in those neighborhoods said they [the groups] were very effective in helping the people of New Orleans restore their daily lives."
"So I think there’s many examples of where faith-based organizations have been very successful," McCain continued. "There are times when they haven't -– so you learn the lessons. But I think the overall experiment has probably been good for America."
--Scott Martelle Photo credit: Jae C. Hong/Associated Press
MONTREAT, North Carolina -- Sunday morning, John McCain made a (relatively) last-minute stop in North Carolina to pay a visit to the world’s best-known evangelist, the Rev. Billy Graham, and his son, the Rev. Franklin Graham, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. There was also a cameo appearance by a country music star, which we’ll get to in a moment.
McCain planned the stop to pay homage to the man who has counseled every American president for the last half century. To say that the Graham retreat was out of the way is an understatement -- about a 45-minute drive from the airport, up a very windy road that did not look entirely suitable for a motorcade of brawny SUVs. The homestead, high atop a forested hill, was quite modest, at least from the outside (reporters were not invited in). The house is a large brown shingled cabin with a tall rough-hewn stone chimney, a screen door and an old iron wheel at the front door.
The visit came at the behest of the presumptive Republican nominee, who has had a somewhat rocky relationship with Christian evangelicals. We know McCain asked for the meeting because about 15 minutes after it ended, his campaign released a statement from Franklin Graham saying just that:
"Sen. McCain’s office had requested a meeting …and we appreciate the effort he made to travel to my father’s home," the younger Graham said. "I was impressed by his personal faith and his moral clarity on important social issues facing America today."
Graham added that both he and McCain have sons in the military and both have a common interest in aviation. The Grahams, as ministers, do not endorse candidates. And McCain didn't even ask for their vote, he told reporters later during an impromptu press conference on the tarmac in Asheville.
"We had an excellent conversation," said McCain, as five reporters put their voice recorders about three inches from his face to catch what he was saying, since his Gulfstream jet had already fired up its engines. "Bill Graham recalled that during the Vietnam War when I was in prison, he visited my parents in Hawaii twice and he and my mother and father prayed together for me, and I expressed my appreciation for that a long time ago.…I am very grateful for the time they spent with me."
The meeting generated no news but McCain got a handy souvenir photo of himself sitting between the Grahams, and that certainly won’t hurt him with evangelicals, some of whom don’t find him suitably conservative and are still offended by what some believe was his calculated attempt to garner moderate votes in 2000.
McCain then condemned Pat Robertson and the Rev. Jerry Falwell as "agents of intolerance" during the campaign. By 2006, however, with his eye on the White House again, he’d changed his tune, telling Tim Russert that he no longer would apply that label to Falwell. A short time later, McCain gave the commencement speech at Falwell’s Liberty University.
Oh, about that country music star. A half-hour into the senator’s visit, singer Ricky Skaggs -- a bearish middle-aged guy with gray hair -- pulled up the driveway and made his way into the house. He was scheduled to have lunch with the Grahams. A short time later, Franklin Graham and Skaggs stepped onto the small porch to bid the senator goodbye.
Mike Huckabee says that while he'd love to be asked -- and would accept -- he doubts John McCain will pick him for his running mate. And on the other side, he figures Barack Obama isn't likely to ask Hillary Clinton, either.
Huckabee gave his predictions to Reuters during a trip to Japan (the video is below), and it could be he's just warming up, spring training-style, for his new gig as a political commentator for Fox News. But a voice from the trenches is always worth a listen.
On McCain, Huckabee sounded like a true loyal party figure. "I want him to define how he's going to win, and I want to help him win," Huckabee said. "That may not involve me [as a running mate]. And I'm not sure that I'm the right fit for him. That's something only he can know."
Huckabee, you'll recall, was the last speed bump McCain hit on his way to sealing the Republican nomination-- well, except for Ron Paul. And Huckabee was the favorite, for a time, of the party's once-powerful social-conservative wing, despite some misgivings over his tax-and-spending policies as governor of Arkansas.
So why doesn't Huckabee think Obama will pick Clinton? "There's some real tension, not just between the two principals, but between their inner circles and down in the ranks of their supporters that would be very hard to overcome in a short period of time," Huckabee said. "People who voted for Hillary will end up voting for Obama generally, but I'm not sure that they're ready to just have the wedding and, you know, cut the cake."
-- Scott Martelle
Photo credit: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times
As the first African American to secure a major-party presidential nomination, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama has understandably been the subject of much analysis across the country that focuses on race.
But overlooked is another potential political first: Americans have never sent a Chicagoan to the White House.
And one intriguing question posed by the freshman Illinois senator's candidacy is whether they are ready now.
For all his talk elsewhere about change and his national image as a fervent reformer, Obama on the contrary remains fundamentally a product of a Chicago and Illinois political culture renowned for corruption and filled with curious characters who range from felonious to just outrageous.
Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, Obama's political mentor in the state capital of Springfield, is about as old-school as they come. Just last month, the Chicago Democrat publicly ridiculed an attempt to block another pay raise for state legislators by sarcastically declaring: "I've got to get me some food stamps."
Obama's stable of political friends is broadly populated with others like Jones and the recently convicted Tony Rezko. Revealingly, whenever the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has dabbled in Windy City and Cook County politics in recent years, he has frequently failed to come down on the side of political progressives and reformers.
This little-known side of Obama's political life may well surprise many across the country who see in the well-spoken candidate an entirely different person. Bob Secter and John McCormick have the full story at the Swamp.
