Archive for November 2007

McCain Calls for End To Alternative Minimum Tax

SALEM, N.H. — A relaxed Senator McCain, campaigning Barack Obama-style without a necktie, is offering New Hampshire voters a recipe that combines a morsel of the maverick, a bit of the bipartisan, a hint of the hawk, and a tablespoon of the tax-cutter.

Mr. McCain added to his campaign today a call to eliminate the alternative minimum tax and to make the research and development tax credit permanent along with a ban on taxes on the Internet and cell phones.

Aiming to outdo Mitt Romney, who as the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts is ahead in polls to win the Granite State's January 8 primary, Mr. McCain announced his economic proposals at the offices of the Andover Corporation, a manufacturer of optical devices that employs 47 people here.

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Former N.H. House Speaker Calls Giuliani Strategy "Horrible"

New Hampshire’s former Speaker of the House says Rudy Giuliani is ignoring his state and believes the campaign will suffer from the lack of attention.

77 year-old Marshall Cobleigh, a veteran figure in New Hampshire politics, tells CBS News that Giuliani is ignoring New Hampshire and Iowa – a plan he has seen fail in the past.

“I think he’s the most qualified guy running for president, and I think he’s got horrible national strategy.”

Cobleigh, who retired from formal office in 1996, is still active in politics. His home in Manchester is lined with political cartoons from the past forty years – many depicting him – as well as photos of Cobleigh with former presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

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MySpace users likely to vote in presidential election, poll finds

MySpace has kicked off a series of monthly polls to get the views of its users on the upcoming presidential election. The first poll revealed that users of the social network tend to register as independents, are likely to vote in presidential elections and are very concerned with the state of efforts to thwart terrorism.

The results of that first "Impact Presidential Poll," released Thursday, showed that MySpace users are 139% more likely to have visited an online chat room featuring public officials or political candidates in the past 30 days than the general adult online population. MySpace members are also 29 % more likely to have looked up campaign information online within the past day than other adults.

In addition, 86% of the voting age MySpace users polled said that they are "extremely likely" or "likely" to vote in the 2008 presidential election. About 27% of those over age 18 defined their political affiliation as Independent, according to the poll. In addition 25% of MySpace users who voted for Bush in 2004 said they will vote Democratic in 2008, while 18% of John Kerry voters in 2004 said they will vote Republican in the next election.

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Giuliani to give key speech in Florida

JOHNSTON, Iowa - After tumbling into a tie for first place with Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani will gave what the campaign is billing a key speech in Florida on Saturday seemingly aimed at re-energizing the campaign for the homestretch and re-focusing Republicans on why they liked Giuliani all year.

The campaign refused to offer details of the speech, except to say it would focus on Giuliani's top themes -- national security and a strong economy.

It's no accident that Giuliani is picking Florida for the speech. That state's Jan. 29 primary looms ever larger in Giuliani's calculus as he is flirting with fourth place in Iowa and failing to overtake Mitt Romney in New Hampshire.

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A little snow doesn't stop Dodd's wife

DES MOINES -- Neither sleet nor snow nor iced-over roads kept Jackie Clegg Dodd from her campaign rounds today in Iowa, where severe winter weather led many presidential candidates to cancel their entire schedules.

Former President Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama canceled appearances on behalf of their spouses, Senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois. Ann Romney canceled her scheduled meeting with voters in Creston, but walked through a skywalk mall -- adjacent to a hotel -- with her husband Mitt. Former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina canceled what would have been a heavy day of campaigning in eastern Iowa, while former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee disappointed fans in the western part of the state, canceling plans to campaign from early morning until evening.

But Dodd, wife of Democratic Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, climbed into an ice-covered van and went out to visit shelters for homeless youth.

Without a coat.

"I'm from the Rocky Mountains. I'm not afraid of a little ice or snow,'' she said, joking about the "wimps'' too afraid to venture out in the storm.

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Kucinich Picks up a Huge Endorsement-From Sean Penn

As the Iowa Primary comes closer, candidates are starting to pick up significant endorsements that could raise their popularity ratings. For example, Oprah Winfrey's endorsement of Barack Obama is viewed as a major factor in the Democratic Primary, especially considering their pending joint appearance in South Carolina, which has now been switched to a venue capable of accommodating 80,000 people-certainly bad news for Hillary.

Not to be outdone, Dennis Kucinich, hereto considered the cellar dweller of the Democratic pack, has picked up a giant endorsement from........none other than Hollywood's Sean Penn! As Lawrence Welk used to say, "Ah wonderful, ah wonderful-ah!"

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Mike Huckabee believes strange things

It’s probably fair to say that Mike Huckabee has had a strange week. On the one hand, he’s been surging in the polls, picking up religious right endorsements, and is now considered the frontrunner in the Iowa caucuses. On the other hand, he’s been caught lying about the Wayne Dumond scandal, he’s proven that has no idea what the National Intelligence Estimate is, he’s completed a dramatic flip-flop on immigration policy, and he’s presented himself as literally God’s own anointed presidential candidate.

It’s created an odd political dynamic — a folksy Baptist preacher who can charm radical Christian fundamentalists and DC media establishment types like David Broder and David Brooks with equal ease.

There’s one detail, though, that the prior group appreciates and the latter group ignores: Mike Huckabee has some very odd beliefs. He rejects modern biology; he’s argued publicly that Roe v. Wade may have created an immigration problem; and he’s said that if a man and a woman live together outside of marriage, they’re engaging in a “demeaning … alternate lifestyle.”

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Obama's Oprah Problem

When they put that little "Oprah's choice" sticker on the cover of a book, it instantly becomes a bestseller. It's not yet clear what happens when they put the sticker on a presidential candidate.

The impact of celebrity endorsements, of course, is usually overstated. Such endorsements are more likely to turn a citizen away from a celebrity than toward a candidate. But Oprah Winfrey isn't just a celebrity--- she's a lifestyle, a school of thought, an era. To speak of Oprah is to speak in superlatives: she's the richest this, the most influential that. What Caesar was to geography, it would seem, Winfrey is to turn-of-the-century middlebrow American culture. From her base camp on daytime television, she launches her sorties into every nook and cranny of public communications.

This could eventually be trouble for Senator Obama. In spite of the fact that he is seeking the highest office in the nation, he runs the serious risk of being upstaged by her. It's already hard to find a story about the Senator that doesn't include at least a mention of Winfrey, a situation that will continue as they go on tour together.

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Biden: Bush compulsive liar

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden says he does not believe that President Bush hasn't known about the NIE report for months.

Senator Biden said the US President is not truthful on the Iranian issue, or he has been incompetent on the case, which makes him 'the most incompetent president in the modern American history'.

"Are you telling me a president that's briefed every single morning, who's fixated on Iran, is not told back in August that the tentative conclusion of 16 intelligence agencies in the US government said they had abandoned their effort for a nuclear weapon in '03?" the Delaware senator said.

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Who's Behind The Mystery Political Phone Spam?

To file in the Department of Unsolved Mysteries: Some auto-dialing service is calling apparently random people up in the middle of the night and spamming them with recorded 2008 presidential campaign speeches from both parties.

Complaints are surfacing on telemarketing-tracking sites like Who Called Us and 800Notes. The calls are appearing with the Caller ID (616) 980 2604 -- a Grand Rapids, Michigan number served by a small regional telco called Lucre, Inc.

Details are sketchy, but various recipients of the calls say that they've heard recordings of political rallies, the voices of Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, Democratic candidate Chris Dodd, New York senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

The recordings apparently don't ask for anything.

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