Clinton: Obama Mailings Deceptive

Does this candidate have anything substantive to confront Barack Obama with? She has to resort to waiving mailings in the air? Why doesn't she give up already. I'm sorry, but all of these allegations are just plain petty.

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By BETH FOUHY – 43 minutes ago

CINCINNATI (AP) — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday that a pair of mailings sent to voters by rival Barack Obama's campaign criticizing her health care plan and trade views are false, misleading and a betrayal of his pledge to practice a new style of politics.

"Shame on you, Barack Obama. It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public — that's what I expect from you," Clinton said angrily, waving the mailings in the air.

"Meet me in Ohio, and let's have a debate about your tactics," she added.

The two presidential candidates will meet in a televised debate in Cleveland Tuesday.

Clinton spoke to reporters after an early morning rally at Cincinnati Technical College, one of several events she has held across Ohio this week. After losing eleven straight contests to Obama since Super Tuesday, the former first lady is banking on a strong showing in primaries in Ohio and Texas on March 4 to save her fading candidacy....(Click here for remainder of article).

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Police concerned about order to stop weapons screening at Obama rally

By JACK DOUGLAS Jr.

Star-Telegram Staff Writer

UPDATE: Editor's note: This story was updated at 4 p.m. Friday. » TAKE ME THERE

DALLAS -- Security details at Barack Obama's rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena.

The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security.

Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department's homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order -- apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service -- was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena's vacant seats before Obama came on.

"Sure," said Lawrence, when asked if he was concerned by the great number of people who had gotten into the building without being checked. But, he added, the turnout of more than 17,000 people seemed to be a "friendly crowd."...(Click here for the remainder of article).

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Pressure Mounts on Indicted Rep. Renzi

By PAUL DAVENPORT – 7 hours ago

PHOENIX (AP) — Legal and political pressures on Rep. Rick Renzi are mounting amid federal criminal charges that set off calls for the Arizona Republican to leave Congress sooner rather than later.

Renzi was under a cloud for more than a year before a federal investigation culminated in a 26-page indictment against him and two other men.

The indictment accuses Renzi of engineering a swap of federally owned mining land to benefit himself and a former business partner and stealing from his insurance company's clients.

"Congressman Renzi deprived the citizens of Arizona of his honest services as a United States elected representative," U.S. Attorney Diane J. Humetewa said Friday while announcing the indictment issued a day earlier in Tucson.

Renzi announced on Aug. 23 that he wouldn't seek re-election in Arizona's mostly rural 1st Congressional District, but GOP leadership reacted to the indictment by pressuring him to step down....(Click here for remainder of article).

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The Early Word: Hard Times for Hillary Clinton

By Sarah Wheaton
February 23, 2008, 11:04 am

Friday was a rough day for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as she sought to dispel speculation that her closing debate remarks amounted to a concession amid the death of a police officer escorting her campaign – all while Senator Barack Obama was stumping around South Texas, one of her strongholds in the state.

The Times’s Michael Luo reports on others who are suffering from her campaign’s troubles – small vendors in the New York area worried that their fees will go unpaid.

At The Chicago Tribune, Jim Tankersley writes that Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio could be her “last, best hope” there. The Boston Globe’s Susan Milligan looks at Mrs. Clinton’s firewall of working-class voters in Ohio, “who say they don’t want to hear fancy words about changing Washington; they want to know exactly how the next president is going to bring jobs to their struggling communities and make sure their children have health care.”...(Click here for remainder of article).

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Grateful friend is Clinton's best Ohio hope

Her presidential future may rest on old ties to governor

By Jim Tankersley | Tribune correspondent
9:05 AM CST, February 23, 2008

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- It was all slipping away--the home-county highway project, re-election, his political career--and the congressman saw only one place left to turn. He did not know the number, so he looked it up.

It was past 10:30 on a September night in 1998 when the switchboard operator answered. "I need to speak to the president," he told her. Then he waited, first by the phone, then on a bus, then on a podium and a rope line, and finally, in the corner of a room in Maryland, where Bill Clinton sat down and asked how he could help.

Later, back at the Capitol, an aide to the Democratic House leadership pulled the congressman aside. The White House called, the aide told a man with no seniority and no key committee assignments. The president says he'll veto this bill if it doesn't do right by Ted Strickland....(Click here for remainder of article).

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Opinion: To Those Who Question Obama's "Legislative Accomplishments"

Bob Geiger

Fri Feb 22, 11:41 AM ET

When MSNBC's Chris Matthews lit into Barack Obama supporter (and Texas State Senator) Kirk Watson during Tuesday night's election coverage for not being able to list Obama's "legislative accomplishments," you would have inferred from his ferocity that Matthews was on the verge of cracking a major story.

While Matthews stopped short of waterboarding Watson to get a response, he kept at him no less than eight to ten times over the next few minutes, sneering "You have to give me his accomplishments. You've supported him for president, you're on national television -- name his legislative accomplishments."

Clearly without experience in appearing with Matthews and obviously without sufficient background on the recent dynamics in the United States Senate, Watson did indeed look more nervous than Mike Huckabee at a Planned Parenthood rally and failed to respond both in answering the question and, on behalf of the Obama campaign, shutting down the very premise.

No doubt, Watson -- and anyone acting as an Obama campaign surrogate -- should be able to rapidly list the important issues that the Illinois Senator has championed. This includes the Lugar-Obama legislation that has helped decrease the threat of old nuclear, biological, and chemical weapon in the former Soviet Union and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 which Obama co-authored and that led to USAspending.gov, which keeps Americans better informed on government spending....(Click here for remainder of article).

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Obama Rolls On

IN THE TEXAS DEBATE, CLINTON DOESN'T SLOW THE FRONT-RUNNER.
By John Dickerson
Posted Friday, Feb. 22, 2008, at 7:17 AM ET

How do you stop the progress of a stratospheric object filled with rocket fuel? This was the Navy's task Wednesday and Hillary Clinton's task at Thursday night's debate in Austin, Texas. The Navy hit its mark. Hillary Clinton didn't. She didn't really even take a shot.

Clinton was occasionally aggressive, but not enough to shake up the dynamic that has her nearly tied in polls in the crucial March 4 primary states of Ohio and Texas. Clinton's game plan was to connect with voters, not to tear down Barack Obama. She took pains to show that she understood the concerns of regular folks and that she had plans to address them. She did this well at times, particularly in her final answer of the debate, but Obama turned in one of his strongest performances so far of this campaign. In an even match, the tie goes to the front-runner.

For weeks, Clinton campaign aides have been saying that when voters got a chance to see the two Democratic candidates side by side, it would stop Obama's momentum. Voters would see that Clinton is the more competent and durable candidate. The debates have often helped Clinton. Exit polls after the New Hampshire and Nevada contests asked voters if the debates had been important in helping them determine their vote. Many said yes, and the majority of those voters went with Clinton....(Click here for remainder of article).

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Superdelegates switching allegiance to Obama

Elana Schor in Washington and Dan Glaister in Austin
The Guardian, Saturday February 23 2008

Hillary Clinton is starting to lose her overwhelming lead in superdelegates, the Democratic party officials whose votes she is counting on to help her close the gap with Barack Obama. He has received a steady flow of backers in recent days while building a streak of 11 straight primary victories. After once leading Obama by a 2 to 1 ratio in the superdelegate chase, Clinton now has 241 to his 181, according to the latest Associated Press tally.

Most unnerving for Clinton is the trickle of superdelegates who have defected from her corner to Obama's. The shift comes as she failed to deliver a telling blow on him in their penultimate TV debate before the Texas and Ohio primaries on March 4.

Latest polling shows them separated by two percentage points in Texas, well within the margin of error, and seven points in Ohio. The Clinton campaign had hoped the debate would halt Obama's momentum. Instead she came under fire for allegedly plagiarising part of a speech by former candidate John Edwards. When asked about the potential influence of the superdelegates during Thursday night's debate at the University of Texas in Austin, both candidates appeared to pull back from the brinkmanship that has been developing over the issue....(Click here for remainder of article).

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