National News
His diversity a plus, Obama says
USA TODAY - VIRGINIA BEACH — Democrat Barack Obama, looking forward to leading the country at a "difficult, challenging time," says his biracial background and the years he spent as a child overseas will help him be a better president than rival John McCain.
"Being president when things are easy — not to say being president is ever easy — but being president when peace and prosperity already exists is less of a challenge," Obama said in an interview Thursday with USA TODAY. "I signed up to make this country better."
Asked to name some of his assets, he emphasized his upbringing — growing up black with an absent father and a white mother and grandparents. "I come from a diverse background and so I think I understand a lot of different cultures," he said.
That background, Obama said, will allow him to meet "the challenges and threats of the 21st century … more effectively than John McCain."
His grueling, 21-month campaign has brought Obama, 47, to the brink of becoming the nation's first African-American chief executive. In the interview on his campaign jet as he powered through a four-rally, 1,500-mile day, the tired but confident Obama said he's been buoyed by the size of the crowds greeting him at his stops. "Like any politician at this level, I've got a healthy ego," he said.
The campaign has proven that "I'm able to bring a lot of smart people together and get them to cooperate instead of engaging in a lot of infighting," he said. "I think I've done that better than John McCain."
Obama doesn't rule out the possibility, if elected, of seeking an invitation to the international economic summit President Bush plans for November.
"I don't want to make those decisions right now," he said. "I do think it's important to remember we have one president at a time and lines of authority should not blur, especially at a time of crisis."
Obama's schedule this weekend is a marathon of rallies throughout the Midwest and Rocky Mountain states, with a timeout Friday night to join his daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, for Halloween.
Afterward, Obama plans to head to neighboring Indiana for a late-night rally. His Saturday schedule begins in Henderson, Nev., and ends just before midnight in Springfield, Mo.
Confident enough about his Democratic base, Obama is spending the closing days of the campaign in traditionally Republican territory.
Thursday morning, he drew more than 13,000 to a baseball field in Sarasota, Fla., in a county that hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential nominee in 60 years, according to state Rep. Keith Fitzgerald, a local Democrat.
The crowds and long lines of people waiting to cast ballots at early voting places tell Obama that the months spent building a political organization "from the bottom up, from scratch" are paying off.
Obama's biggest worry? "Complacency," he says. "I worry that people start thinking these national polls (showing him ahead) mean something. They don't."
To underscore his concern, he's reminding supporters about New Hampshire, where polls on the eve of the state's crucial January primary showed Obama with a 10-percentage-point lead in a race that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., ended up winning by 2 points. "You never know what's going to happen until people actually cast their ballots," he said.
Obama has been emphasizing the economy in the fall campaign. It's an issue he thinks works in his favor at a time when "the majority of Americans feel like we're on the wrong track, the economy is not working for the middle class."
The Illinois senator insisted his plans to eliminate some of President Bush's tax cuts would affect only "the wealthiest Americans." He said he would be able to reduce the tax burden on 95% of earners.
Obama said McCain, 72, is showing a generational difference by describing the Democrat's economic plans as socialism. "I think he's much more likely to look backwards and use the 20th century as a reference point," Obama said. "The times are different."
For all his critiques of McCain, Obama said he finds much to admire in his rival's record. He said he hopes to work with him after the election on issues such as climate change, immigration and ensuring that terrorism suspects are not tortured.
The two men will appear for brief interviews on ESPN during the Monday Night Football game between the Washington Redskins and Pittsburgh Steelers. Obama, who was criticized for hedging his bets in the World Series, when he expressed support for the Philadelphia Phillies and admiration for the Tampa Bay Rays, had no problems picking a favorite in Monday's game.
"That's easy," he said. Steelers owner "Dan Rooney has been a great supporter."
Palin: 'Far-left wing of the Democrat Party’ could takeover
LAKEWOOD, Ohio (CNN) – With her voice beginning to crack on this final marathon day of campaigning, Sarah Palin promised an audience in Ohio: “We will win!”
“You can just feel it here,” she said at a rally in the Cleveland suburbs. “You can just feel it here in Ohio, victory's coming, we can do this, we can win, we can win Ohio. And we must win for you.”
The crowd chanted “We will win! We will win!” throughout her remarks. At one point, Palin warned with urgency: “We must win.”
“We must win,” she said, “because Ohio, the far-left wing of the Democrat Party, not mainstream Democrat ideology, the values, the planks in the platform of the Democrat Party. It's the far-left wing of the party is getting ready to take over the entire federal government.”
Palin again accused Barack Obama of wanting to bankrupt the coal industry, citing an interview the Democrat gave to the San Francisco Chronicle in January in which he discussed his “aggressive” cap-and-trade proposal to limit carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.
“Just yesterday, revelation, an audiotape surfaces,” Palin argued, despite the fact that the Obama interview has been posted online for nine months. “People are starting to hear in his own words what Sen. Obama’s intention is for the coal industry. You got to hear this tape. You’re going to hear Obama saying it, talking about bankruptcy, bankruptcy there in the coal industry. He’s explaining all this to the San Francisco Chronicle, and he says …”
Palin was interrupted by an audience member who shouted “Liberal!”
She continued: “And there must be something about San Francisco and he because it’s like I heard on Fox News today, it’s like a truth serum where when he’s there, he seems to be more candid, and remember it was there that he talked about, there you go, the bitter clingers, the cling-ons, all of us, I guess, you know holding on to religion and guns and, um, so something about he being there in San Francisco.”
Obama says attacks on wife 'completely out of bounds'
CNN – Looking back at his two-year marathon for the presidency, Barack Obama told CBS he was most angered by "right-wing" attacks on his wife, Michelle, and said many of them were "completely out of bounds."
"I do believe there is a Republican or right-wing media outlet, or set of media outlets, that went after my wife for a while in a way that I thought was just completely out of bounds," Obama told CBS' Katie Couric in an interview that aired Monday morning.
"Frankly, I would never have considered or expected my allies to do something comparable to the spouse of an opponent. I just feel like family are civilians."
Mrs. Obama took particular heat from conservative circles for comments she made during the primary season, when she said that for the first time in her adult life "I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback." Those comments were highlighted by several Republican state party chapters in an effort to paint the potential first lady as angry, leading the Democratic presidential nominee to call on them to "lay off my wife" in an ABC interview in May.
Mrs. Obama was also been labeled "Obama's baby mama," by Fox News and "Mrs. Grievance" by the conservative National Review. Some conservative outlets also buzzed last summer about the possibility of a tape, which has never appeared, that showed her using the word "whitey" from the pulpit of Trinity United Church. The Obama campaign said Mrs. Obama had never uttered the word and that no tape existed.
"I just feel like family are civilians, and they don't sign up for this stuff… They really should be bystanders in this process, even if they're campaigning for you," Obama told CBS in the interview that aired Monday.
Protesters make noise at Biden event
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) – Just two days after completing a three-day bus tour of central and southern Florida, Joe Biden is back in the state for three events Sunday, this time in the north as part of campaign’s final battleground state push before Tuesday’s election.
On the campus of Florida State University Sunday morning, Biden continued to deliver the campaign’s ‘closing arguments’ that include a plea to supporters to reach out to Republicans after the election in order to bridge the partisan divide.
For the first time since being named the Democratic vice presidential nominee, a small group of McCain and Palin supporters tried to interrupt the Delaware senator’s remarks from the public sidewalk about 150 yards from the podium. Their chants inaudible through a megaphone, they took to using the device’s siren to disrupt.
Biden referred to “the people in the parking lot” four times, using them as an example of those that Democrats will have to reach out to after Tuesday.
“I mean it literally. Not a joke. I know you find some of that obnoxious,” said Biden. “We gotta end this. Somebody's got to be big enough to stand up and end this.”
There’s also a practical reason, Biden argued, legislation won't be able to pass without bi-partisan support.
“You think we're going to get education reform? You think we're going to re-establish and end this war and re-establish our place in the world without getting a significant portion of Republicans to agree with us as well? No one party can do this.”
Barack Obama and Biden have been targeting McCain and Palin over the past two days for the endorsement they received from Dick Cheney on Saturday, asking if any more proof is needed that this Republican ticket would be a continuation of the Bush-Cheney administration.
“Folks, John McCain and Sarah Palin can have Dick Cheney’s endorsement,” said Biden, We’ll settle for people like Warren Buffett and Colin Powell.”
After Sunday in Florida, Biden continues the swing state tour in the campaign’s final hours, heading to Missouri Monday morning, Ohio in the afternoon and Philadelphia at night. After voting at home in Wilmington Tuesday morning, he will visit at least one more swing state before joining Barack Obama in Chicago.
