The Swamp

McCain: Love to speak in Germany but ...

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:27:00 -0500

(AP Photo/Chris Russell/Columbus Dispatch) by Frank James Campaigning in Columbus, Ohio today, Sen. John McCain took a shot at Sen. Barack Obama for giving a big speech in Berlin, Germany. Here's a snippet from the Associated Press story: "I'd love to give a speech in Germany. But I'd much prefer to do it as president of the United States rather than as a candidate for president," McCain told reporters after a meal of bratwurst with local business leaders at Schmidt's Sausage Haus...

Hoyer: Dem election outlook 'scary good'

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:51:56 -0500

by Matthew Hay Brown On Wednesday, Rep. Chris Van Hollen and Sen. Charles Schumer, the chairmen of the Democrats' House and Senate campaign operations, warned supporters against "irrational exuberance" over the party's prospects in November. Today, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer also hesitated over predicting the number of seats he expects Democrats to gain in the House elections - but for the opposite reason. He says his guess may be too good to be true. "The environment in which...

McCain gains on Obama in swing states

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:14:00 -0500

Sen. John McCain with fellow Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina at a news conference in front of Schmidt's Fudge Haus in Columbus, Ohio, Thursday, July 24, 2008. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) by Frank James While Sen. Barack Obama, the all-but-official Democratic nominee, was in Europe trying to shore up his foreign-policy credentials, Sen. John McCain, his Republican counterpart, was plugging away stateside where the U.S. voters are. And it appears that many of those voters are...

Hispanic voters supporting Obama

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:20:29 -0500

by Katie Fretland Hispanic registered voters prefer Democratic Sen. Barack Obama over GOP opponent John McCain by 66 to 23 percent, according to a study just released by the Pew Research Center. The presidential candidates have battled for the Hispanic vote, which could play a key role in four expected battleground states. Hispanic voters seem to have easily transferred their support from Sen. Hillary Clinton to Obama. The nonpartisan research organization found that more than three-fourths...

Barack Obama urges stronger alliances

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:18:09 -0500

by Mike Dorning BERLIN--Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama came to a city once divided by the Cold War and sustained in crisis by the Atlantic Alliance to call today for a strengthened commitment to international alliances for an era of new threats. In a setting that evoked historic addresses by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, Obama came not as the leader of the free world but as a candidate for the office. The speech offered an opportunity for him to demonstrate...

Obama to run ads during Olympics

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:05:44 -0500

by John McCormick Amid swimming and sprinting and gymnastics, there will be $5 million of "Change We Can Believe In." There is no word yet on the exact spots that will run, but Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is planning to run commercials on the NBC network during its broadcast of the Summer Olympics next month, AdvertisingAge is reporting. Obama has already done some advertising on national cable channels, but his campaign has kept most of its focus on television spending in...

U.S' Afghan challenges daunting: expert

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:36:00 -0500

by Frank James Both Senators Barack Obama and John McCain have recently talked of surging U.S. troops to Afghanistan in order to beat back the Taliban and al Qaeda. But adding more troops is the least of what the U.S. needs to do in Afghanistan, according to Anthony Cordesman, a national-security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. After reading Cordesman's latest analysis, it's easy to come away wondering if it won't actually be a much longer and more...

Barack Obama gets a workout at Ritz gym

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:38:47 -0500

by Jill Zuckman A Republican friend of the Swamp helpfully points out that Sen. Barack Obama seems to have time to visit the gym for a workout today, but not to visit the troops during his stay in Germany tomorrow. According to Spiegel Online, which is tracking Obama's every move, at 1:42 p.m. it learned that "Obama has cancelled a planned short visit to the Rammstein and Landstuhl US military bases in the southwest German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The visits were planned for...

Obama v. McCain: 'Devil' v. 'devil?'

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:20:44 -0500

by Mark Silva Barack Obama isn't traveling alone in Europe - anchors of the network evening news shows are traveling, too. And Brian Williams, anchor of NBC Nightly News, sat with Obama in Berlin before a long-anticipated public address there. Williams asked Obama about Republican rival John McCain's remark, at a town hall-styled meeting, that Obama, calling for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq, "would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.'' "Yeah, I was disappointed by...

Voters as ignorant as ever: book

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:19:00 -0500

by Frank James Good piece in the Washington Post Style section about a new follow-up to an almost 50-year old book called The American Voter which found way back then in that black-and-white TV era that American voters were ignorant about many important policy issues and political candidates. Guess what? On average, our brains are still pretty much virgin territory when it comes to important political facts, according to the political scientists who produced the new volume titled The New...

Obama worries peace movement

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:47:00 -0500

by Frank James Members of the peace movement who saw Sen. Barack Obama as their candidate, presumably after the ardently anti-war Representatives Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul exited the primaries, don't like what they're hearing from the senator from Illinois and are issuing a warning: Don't assume you've got our votes. This from a press release issued by Kevin Zeese, executive director of Voters for Peace, whose board includes the nation's most famous anti-war activist, Cindy Sheehan. ...

Senators support limited Iran diplomacy

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:30:48 -0500

by Katie Fretland Seven senators, including Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), sent a letter to President Bush today endorsing a limited diplomatic presence in Iran. Durbin joins Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in support of opening an interests section in the country that has been at odds with the West over its nuclear weapons programs. "We know that a hands-off approach has...

Barack Obama v. John McCain: Lead holds

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:06:48 -0500

by Mark Silva Democrat Barack Obama's apparent advantage over Republican John McCain has held steady in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released today. The relatively modest advantage for the junior senator from Illinois - who drew the support of 47 percent of those surveyed in this poll, compared with 41 percent for the senior senator from Arizona - is unchanged from a month ago, NBC News reports. "We're starting to see a hardening of his support,'' NBC Political Director Chuck...

McCain, Obama in anti-Semitic cartoons

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:50:00 -0500

(Cartoon published in at least two Arabic newspapers.) by Frank James Cartoons in the Arab world often depict Israel and Jews in anti-Semitic ways. Now, with the world's attention on the U.S. presidential race, the same Arab cartoonists are interpolating Senators John McCain and Barack Obama into their anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and ant-Jewish cartoons. The Anti-Defamation League has collected some of the cartoons in an alert it produced this week. Many of them make the New Yorker's...

RNC ad attacks Obama on war spending

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:35:24 -0500

by Katie Fretland John McCain will reach out to the residents of the mini Berlins today -- the cities named Berlin in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and New Hampshire -- with a new radio advertisement to coincide with opponent Barack Obama's speech in Berlin, Germany. McCain has worked to attract some of the spotlight during Obama's highly-publicized trip overseas. The new ad will also air in the towns named Paris in Maine, Michigan and Missouri, when Obama travels to Paris, France. The ad...