PRINCETON, NJ -- According to Gallup Poll Daily tracking, Democratic voters remain closely divided in their presidential nomination preferences, with 48% favoring Barack Obama and 46% backing Hillary Clinton.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/107176/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Yet-Pulling-Away.aspx
At the TIME 100 gala Thursday night, which honors the 100 most influential people in the world, John McCain gave a toast to his fellow presidential candidates and honorees, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Full text of McCain's toast:
"I'm informed that it is the custom to toast someone who has influenced our lives. In that case, please raise your glass to the discernment and probity of the people of New Hampshire. (Laughter)
"Running for President of the United States is an unusual experience: invigorating, fatiguing, flattering and humbling in equal measure. This long and surprising campaign seems to have exhausted reporters as well as your expense accounts. Imagine the effect it has had on the candidates: the strain of constant travel; the stress of never knowing what one of your supporters might say that at least temporarily puts your campaign on defense or in my campaign, what I might say and the terror of knowing that only one of us will be invited to this dinner next year. (Laughter)
"It's a tough business. And though we are rivals, we should respect each other's willingness to hazard it. Senator Obama is a man of unusual eloquence, who has performed the very worthy service of summoning to the political arena Americans who once wrongly thought it of little benefit to them. Senator Clinton has demonstrated great tenacity and courage; two qualities I have always esteemed. I count myself among their many admirers. Please join me, then, in a toast to my opponents and compatriots, Senators Clinton and Obama, and to the noisy, contentious, striving, beautiful country we hope to lead."
"Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the
politicians as a joke." —Will Rogers
"The Democrats are the party of government activism, the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller, and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then get elected and prove it." —P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of Whores
"For seven and a half years I've worked alongside President Reagan. We've had triumphs. Made some mistakes. We've had some sex...uh...setbacks." —George Bush, Sr.
"I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself." —Ronald Reagan
"If ignorance goes to forty dollars a barrel, I want drilling rights to George Bush's head." —Jim Hightower, former Texas Commissioner of Agriculture, referring to the elder Bush
"They don't call me Tyrannosaurus Sex for nothing." —Ted Kennedy
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blclassicquotes.htm
CBS News has called Indiana for Sen. Hillary Clinton. Sen. Barack Obama had already won North Carolina.
Congratulations to both candidates.
John Edwards believes that Hillary Clinton's “tenacity shows a real strength inside her” and thinks Barack Obama needs to show “more substance under the rhetoric”.
On the other hand, he says Mr Obama “really does want to bring about serious change and a different way of doing things”, while Mrs Clinton “um, still [has] a lot of the old politics”.
It was with such heroic equivocation that the former presidential candidate, who could have exercised profound influence before the Democratic primary in his native North Carolina last night, announced that his indecision was final.
Instead, Mr Edwards, the vice-presidential nominee four years ago, declared that he would not be endorsing either candidate.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3883034.ece
Full Interview: Sen. Hillary Clinton
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/05/eveningnews/main4073295.shtml
Strength of mind that enables a person to encounter danger or bear pain or adversity with courage.
And persevere through it all.
INDIANAPOLIS — Evan Bayh was halfway through telling a story about "a steelworker in Northern Indiana" on stage beside his Senate colleague, Hillary Clinton.
"Anybody know what he said?" Bayh asked at the Saturday rally, starting to quote the steelworker: "Our candidate is the one in the race –."
Clinton cut him off with a whisper and an urgent gesture.
"She doesn't want me to go there,” Bayh told the crowd. “OK. I won't. Alright, alright.”
Clinton may not like the story, but her supporters love it: The sheet metal workers union official in Portage, Indiana cited by Bayh had praised her "testicular fortitude" before lighting into unnamed "Gucci wearing, latte-drinking" opponents.
Also last week, a New York Post columnist wrote that she'd won the "cojones primary."
And James Carville, the Clintons' ubiquitous former aide, booster, and informal adviser made the point even more vividly, giving Clinton a two-gonad edge on her primary rival, Senator Barack Obama. "If she gave him one of her cojones, they'd both have two," Carville said.
INDIANAPOLIS - As Barack Obama's campaign for president hit one of its toughest stretches in recent days, his two young daughters made their first appearance on the campaign trail since South Carolina.
"I said, you know, it's just great having you guys here," Obama said, recounting what he told his daughters, Malia and Sasha. "Malia says, 'Yeah, we're here to lighten things up.'"
At times recently, Obama has looked like a candidate who could use it.
Even his advisers conceded that after his nearly 10-point drubbing in Pennsylvania a week ago changes had to be made. Dogged by incendiary comments by his former pastor, and locked in a back-and-forth with Hillary Rodham Clinton over gas taxes, Obama had lost some of his swagger and veered away from the message that brought him this far - change.
LUMBERTON, N.C. -- Bill Clinton swung open the screen door and stepped onto Baxter Williams's front porch, its wooden floorboards creaking beneath him. The former president, a veteran speechmaker used to 50,000-seat stadiums and convention halls, sipped from a bottle of water and took in his latest venue. An abandoned sewage plant to his left. A barking dog to his right. An overturned trampoline in Williams's front yard directly ahead.
Clinton had traveled here, to a dead-end street in a 22,000-person town that no other U.S. president had ever visited, to make the case for his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. But first, as he stared out at the 300-plus people and their various pets lounging in the overgrown weeds of Williams's lawn, he felt it necessary to clarify something.
"They say Bill Clinton's been banished to the backwater, but that's not how it is," he said. "I'm from the backwater. I like it here."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/04/AR2008050401846.html
Indianapolis - The Democratic candidates in the presidential primary are holding events all over the state Monday.
Sen. Barack Obama holds a rally on the American Legion Mall in downtown Indianapolis at 7:30 pm Monday. Stevie Wonder will join him. No tickets are required, but RSVP is encouraged at in.barackobama.com. The event is free and open to the public.
Sen. Hillary Clinton will travel to Merrillville to meet with voters at 4:00 pm. She'll attend a campaign event in New Albany at 8:00 pm. Clinton ends her day in Evansville at a "Get Out the Vote" rally at 11:00 pm. On election night, Sen. Clinton returns to Indianapolis. At 6:30 pm Tuesday, she's scheduled to watch the returns with supporters at the Murat Center downtown.
Chelsea Clinton will campaign for her mother in Brazil, Indianapolis, Goshen, and Notre Dame. Miss Indiana Brittany Mason will join Chelsea for events in Brazil and Indianapolis.
Sen. Clinton's visit to New Albany marks the Clintons' 100th stop in 61 Indiana cities and towns since March 18.
Poll Finds The '100 Year' Ad Is Working
According to a poll released by HCD Research, a controversial ad released by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) using a clip in which John McCain says staying in Iraq for a 100 years would not be problematic has negatively impacted how independents view the presumptive Republican nominee.
The poll, which was specifically taken to view Americans' perceptions of the new ad, showed Mr. McCain's favorability rating dropped 10 percentage points after independents viewed the ad.
Prior to watching the ad, Mr. McCain was viewed as "very favorable" or "mostly favorable" by 57 percent of voters.
After the ad, the number dropped to 47 percent.
The poll also showed Mr. McCain's favorability dropping four percentage points among Republicans, from 80 percent to 76 percent.
DEAN: I would like to have a nominee soon, but there are also some very good things going on. Thirty-five million people have voted. We have all those folks in our voter file.
Hundreds of thousands of Republicans have left their party and come to vote in our primary. We have all those people in our voter file.
I didn't intend this when we started the 50-state strategy, but we're essentially conducting vigorous primaries in all 50 states and in our territories, and that's going to matter in the fall.
We have never had an election season like this, I think, in the last 40 years where the last state made just as big a difference as the first state did. So there are some good things going on.
Yeah, it's tough on the party. It's why I think that the unpledged delegates need to say who they're for by the end of June so we'll know who our nominee is by the end of June.
But there is also enormous merit to everybody in America getting a chance to vote for these candidates in the primaries.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/howard_dean_on_fox_news_sunday.htmlPeace all
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