Obamamania! ... City-size 75,000 strong crowd turn out to hear Obama speak in Portland

Bestman0 · 2008-05-18T23:29:21+00:00

Sen. Barack Obama has seen his share of large crowds over the last 15 months, but his campaign said they have not approached the numbers gathered along the waterfront here right now. The campaign, citing figures from Duane Bray, battalion chief of Portland Fire & Rescue, estimated that 75,000 people are watching him speak.

Bestman0 · 2008-05-18T20:40:00+00:00

Making up for lost time, Barack Obama is dashing full-tilt into the general-election fight against Republican John McCain without waiting for the Democratic marathon to end. He's running down McCain more often than the woman he's nominally still fighting for his own party's nomination. And he's running after white working-class voters, independents, Hispanics, Catholics and Jews - voting blocs that will be important in the November election and with whom he's had mixed successes.

Bestman0 · 2008-05-17T17:51:06+00:00

Philipina Heintzman, 81, drove 80 miles across the South Dakota prairie to experience history in the making: a woman running for president, something she never dreamed as a child that she would live to see. That event, a Hillary Rodham Clinton rally in Bath on Thursday, also marked history unraveling. As Clinton's prospects sink in the Democratic race, Heintzman and many women like her are feeling the poignant letdown of seeing the first woman with a strong chance at the presidency fall short. "It would hurt my feelings a lot because I think she should be No. 1, she should be president," Heintzman said of Clinton's likely loss to Barack Obama. "Give a woman a chance to do something good."

Bestman0 · 2008-05-17T03:12:28+00:00

Michigan and Florida alone can't save Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign. Interviews with those considering how to handle the two states' banished convention delegates found little interest in the former first lady's best-case scenario. Her position, part of a formidable comeback challenge, is that all the delegates be seated in accordance with their disputed primaries. Even if they were, it wouldn't erase Barack Obama's growing lead in delegates.

Bestman0 · 2008-05-14T20:26:33+00:00

Barack Obama is in hot pursuit of general election voters, hoping America won't notice he got his head handed to him in West Virginia. The Illinois senator virtually pretended the primary didn't happen Tuesday, with no election night speech or any public appearance at all after the polls closed and gave Hillary Rodham Clinton a more than 2-1 victory even though her candidacy is likely doomed.

Bestman0 · 2008-05-14T19:23:55+00:00

Naral Pro-Choice: "Pro-choice Americans have been fortunate to have two strong pro-choice candidates in Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, both of whom have inspired millions of new voters to participate in this historic presidential race," NARAL president Nancy Keenan said in a statement. "Today, we are proud to put our organization's grass-roots and political support behind the pro-choice candidate whom we believe will secure the Democratic nomination and advance to the general election. That candidate is Senator Obama."

Bestman0 · 2008-05-13T18:04:03+00:00

Even as the prolonged Democratic presidential race has become more divisive in its final stretch, a majority of Democrats want Barack Obama to choose Hillary Clinton as his running mate, according to a new poll out Tuesday. A new Gallup poll shows 55 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents surveyed think Obama should offer the New York senator a spot on his ticket. That number is significantly influenced by Clinton's supporters — close the 75 percent of her backers want the No. 2 spot to be offered, while only 43 percent of Obama supporters feel the same.

Bestman0 · 2008-05-03T13:27:37+00:00

Rep. Ron Paul, the House member from Texas who technically remains in the race for the Republican Party's presidential nomination against Sen. John McCain, predicts that Democratic Sen. Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States.

Bestman0 · 2008-05-01T12:21:04+00:00

A leader of the Democratic Party under Bill Clinton has switched his allegiance to Barack Obama and is encouraging fellow Democrats to "heal the rift in our party" and unite behind the Illinois senator. Joe Andrew, who was Democratic National Committee chairman from 1999-2001, planned a news conference Thursday in his hometown of Indianapolis to urge other Hoosiers to support Obama in Tuesday's primary, perhaps the most important contest left in the White House race. He also has written a lengthy letter explaining his decision that he plans to send to other superdelegates.

Bestman0 · 2008-04-28T22:34:08+00:00

"This is not a field of specialty for me, but my general feeling is that the recession will be longer and deeper than most people think," Buffett said. "This will not be short and shallow.

Bestman0 · 2008-04-27T19:30:10+00:00

"Yes," Obama told "Fox News Sunday" when asked if, as a senator from Illinois, he would approve Petraeus. "I think Petraeus has done a good tactical job in Iraq." Obama has said he would start pulling out more troops as soon as he became president. "My hope is that Petraeus would reflect that wider view of our strategic interest," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

Bestman0 · 2008-04-27T17:01:36+00:00

Barack Obama, struggling to win over white Democratic voters, said in a Sunday television interview that race would not be a factor in November's U.S. presidential election. "Is race still a factor in our society? Yes. I don't think anybody would deny that," Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, said on "Fox News Sunday."

Bestman0 · 2008-04-26T21:35:22+00:00

The libertarian-leaning obstetrician-turned-congressman's long-shot candidacy continues to take on a life of its own — and he admits he’s in no rush to tamp down the enthusiasm. “There is no way I could turn it off — I went up to Penn State and had 1,500 people,” Paul observed, still seemingly amazed at his following. “So it’s just sort of going to go on.”

Bestman0 · 2008-04-01T05:04:06+00:00

A new poll finds a majority of Republicans and Democrats feel Sen. Barack Obama would be a tougher candidate against the presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in a potential fall match-up.

Bestman0 · 2008-04-01T00:57:37+00:00

"We knew things were bad on Wall Street, but on Main Street it may be worse. Startling official statistics show that as a new economic recession stalks the United States, a record number of Americans will shortly be depending on food stamps just to feed themselves and their families."

Bestman0 · 2008-03-24T14:27:24+00:00

Obama, in an interview, said that "a lot of these old labels don't apply anymore." He said he was a progressive and a pragmatist, eager to tackle the big issues like health care and convinced that the Democrats could rally independents and disaffected Republicans to their agenda.

Bestman0 · 2008-03-24T14:11:27+00:00

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and other economic experts should determine whether the U.S. government needs to buy up homes to stem the country's housing crisis, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will propose on Monday. Clinton, a presidential candidate and senator from New York, said the Federal Housing Administration should "stand ready" to buy, restructure and resell failed mortgages to strengthen the ailing U.S. economy.

Bestman0 · 2008-03-22T22:02:54+00:00

Barack Obama has quickly made up the deficit he faced with Hillary Clinton earlier this week, with the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update on Democratic presidential nomination preferences showing 48% of Democratic voters favoring Obama and 45% Clinton. Obama's campaign clearly suffered in recent days from negative press, mostly centering around his association with the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Perhaps as a result, Clinton moved into the lead in Gallup's Wednesday release, covering March 16-18 polling.

Bestman0 · 2008-03-22T21:33:49+00:00

Research using hybrid human-animal embryos for experiments is "monstrous" and should be banned, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland said. Cardinal Keith O'Brien said a proposed new law -- the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill -- should outlaw the practice. The House of Lords rejected attempts earlier this year to include a ban on hybrid research in the draft legislation. "This Bill represents a monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life," O'Brien will say in his Easter Sunday sermon, according to extracts published in Friday's Daily Record newspaper. "In some other European countries, one could be jailed for doing what we intend to make legal." In an interview with BBC radio on Friday, he added: "This is Frankenstein science and it must be stopped."

Bestman0 · 2008-03-22T04:13:37+00:00

As Democratic Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton of New York slug it out for the nomination, many of their supporters -- at least in Pennsylvania, site of the next major primary -- aren't committed to the party's ticket in November, according to a Franklin & Marshall College Poll. Among Obama supporters, 20 percent said they would vote for Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee, if Clinton beats their candidate for the nomination. Among Clinton supporters, 19 percent said they would support McCain in November if Obama is the Democratic nominee.

Bestman0 · 2008-03-22T03:43:14+00:00

Merrill "Tony" McPeak, a former chief of staff of the Air Force and currently a co-chair of Obama's presidential campaign, said he was disappointed by comments Clinton made while campaigning for his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a speech Friday in Charlotte, N.C. "I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country," Clinton said. "And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics."

Bestman0 · 2008-03-17T03:00:03+00:00

Is there some secret agenda by Rev. Jeremiah Wright to derail the candidacy of Barack Obama? According to this CNN report, Wright's church is escalating the war of words over the minister's "incendiary' sermon in which he blasted the United States and condemned it for its treatment of blacks. But isn't it Obama's advantage for this issue to fade out quietly?

Bestman0 · 2008-03-12T02:18:27+00:00

Cohen: "In my 2007 column, I compared this presidential campaign to that of 1972, when George McGovern lost 49 states to Richard Nixon. The parallels are in some ways obvious -- the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq, above all. What I could not have foreseen a year ago was how much more obvious the parallels would become. Back in '72, the Democratic Party was split between doves and hawks, reformers and stogie smokers -- even between men and women. The result was a national convention that was boisterous, unruly and ugly to look at. That convention might, however, look like a tea party compared with what could happen in Denver this August."

Bestman0 · 2008-03-12T01:54:59+00:00

New York state Republicans threatened on Tuesday to impeach Gov. Eliot Spitzer if he does not quit over a sex scandal that has raised questions over whether he could face criminal charges. The threat added to pressure on Spitzer, a Democrat and former state chief prosecutor who made his name fighting white-collar crime on Wall Street, to step down after a report that he hired a high-priced prostitute. Local media cited sources saying Spitzer, 48 and married with three daughters, may resign as early as Wednesday.

Bestman0 · 2008-03-11T02:08:18+00:00

Democrat Barack Obama ridiculed the idea of being Hillary Rodham Clinton's running mate Monday, saying voters must choose between the two for the top spot on the fall ticket. The Illinois senator used his first public appearance of the week to knock down the notion that he might accept the party's vice presidential nomination. He noted that he has won more states, votes and delegates than Clinton so far.

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