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OBAMA DRAWS RECORD 80,000 TO OREGON RALLY

 

by Associated Press

GRESHAM, Ore. — Hours before being greeted by the biggest crowd of his campaign, Democrat Barack Obama quietly told a small group of seniors Sunday that Republican John McCain would threaten the Social Security they depend on because he supports privatizing the program.

Fire officials estimated 65,000 packed into a riverside park for a spectacular afternoon rally at a sun-splashed scene on the banks of the Willamette River in Portland. They said an additional 15,000 were left outside and dozens of boaters could be seen floating in the river.

“Wow, wow, wow,” Obama said as he surveyed the audience. “We have had a lot of rallies. This is the most spectacular setting, the most spectacular crowd we have had this entire campaign.”

While more subdued, his appearance early in the day before about 130 people at an assisted living facility to talk Social Security was a significant attempt to tie the GOP’s presidential nominee-in-waiting to an unpopular President Bush on a pocket book issue that motivates seniors — and also concerns younger generations worried about their own future retirement.

“Let me be clear, privatizing Social Security was a bad idea when George W. Bush proposed it, it’s a bad idea today,” Obama said. “That’s why I stood up against this plan in the Senate and that’s why I won’t stand for it as president.”

McCain Runs From Bush — but Not Too Far

By RON CLAIBORNE

Sen. John McCain may have joined President Bush in an attack on Democratic front-runner Sen. Barack Obama’s foreign policy credentials today, but the likely Republican presidential nominee has been doing his best on a number of other issues to put some distance between himself and the president.

But not too much distance.

It’s a delicate balancing act for the Arizona senator. He wants to show voters he’s not tainted by being close to an unpopular president and his policies. But he doesn’t want to appear to be repudiating a president who’s still popular with the Republican base.

“[On] the one hand,” said Matthew Dowd, an ABC News political analyst, “he still wants to motivate the Republican base, which still likes George Bush. On the other hand, the majority of voters in this country don’t want another George Bush as president.”

Today, McCain was back on familiar Republican turf, visiting a gun and fishing shop in West Virginia and addressing the National Rifle Association in Louisville, Ky.

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McCain Exceptionalism

By WILLIAM KRISTOL

Last Tuesday, Republicans lost another Congressional seat in a special election — their third such defeat in two months. On Wednesday I received an acerbic e-mail message from a disgusted young G.O.P. loyalist: “I just have to say that Republicans are a dumb party that chooses stupid candidates. With the exception of McCain.” Who says the young lack wisdom? In fact, Republican hopes of denying Democrats complete control of the federal government for the next couple of years may rest on the promise of “McCain exceptionalism.”

The Republican Party is clearly in bad shape — trailing by double digits in party preference among the electorate, very likely to lose House and Senate seats in the fall. But John McCain — despite a rather haphazard campaign so far lacking in thematic coherence — is doing pretty well. In two public tracking polls, by Gallup and Rasmussen, he’s basically even with Barack Obama; other polls have him slightly behind.

What’s more, three developments this past week were promising for McCain — or what amounts to pretty much the same thing, problematic for Obama.

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Obama: ‘George Bush and John McCain Have a Lot to Answer For’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ABC News’ Sunlen Miller, Bret Hovell and Ed O’Keefe Report: Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill, sparred in separate speeches Friday, perhaps a foreshadowing of the tone of the general election race to come. 

At the annual meeting of the National Rifle Association in Louisville, Ky., the presumptive Republican nominee hit hard at Obama, calling him reckless and saying that the American people have a right to question his leadership abilities.

Watch the VIDEO HERE.

“Senator Obama made some remarks I’d like to respond to. I welcome a debate about protecting America. No issue is more important,” McCain said. 

“Senator Obama claimed all I had to offer was the quote ‘naïve and irresponsible’ belief that tough talk would cause Iran to give up its nuclear program.  He should have known better,” McCain told the pro-gun rights crowd. 

McCain went on to echo the tone of the Bush speech, which criticized Obama’s remarks in a primary season debate that he would be willing to meet with world leadersr, including some with whom the US does not currently have diplomatic relations, like Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. 

“I have some news for Senator Obama,” McCain began, “Talking, not even with soaring rhetoric, in unconditional meetings with the man who calls Israel a stinking corpse, and arms terrorists who kill Americans will not convince Iran to give up its nuclear program.”

“It is reckless to suggest that unconditional meetings will advance our interests,” McCain said, to a round of applause at the NRA conference. “You know it would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don’t have enemies. But that’s not the world we live in.  And until senator Obama understands that reality, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment and determination to keep us safe.”

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., fired back at President George W. Bush and presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., earlier Friday, after a dust-up over comments Bush made while speaking to the Israeli parliament Thursday.

Read entire article here.

McCain to Rely on Party Money to Match Obama

By MICHAEL LUO and MIKE McINTIRE

Pivoting toward the general election, Senator Barack Obamais turning again to his history-making fund-raising machine, which helped to anoint him as a contender against SenatorHillary Rodham Clinton and then became a potent weapon in their battle for the Democratic nomination.

To confront the Obama juggernaut, Senator John McCain, whose fund-raising has badly trailed that of his Democratic counterparts — and whose efforts suffered a blow this weekend when a key fund-raiser, Tom Loeffler, resigned because of a new campaign policy on conflicts of interest — is leaning on the Republican National Committee.

Mr. McCain is likely to depend upon the party, which finished April with an impressive $40 million in the bank and has significantly higher contribution limits, to an unprecedented degree to power his campaign, Republican officials said.

To that end, Republican officials said they were enlisting President Bush, a formidable fund-raiser who has raised more than $36 million this year for Republican candidates and committees, for three events on Mr. McCain’s behalf. They will appear together at a fund-raiser in Phoenix on May 27, and the next day the president will take part in a luncheon with Mitt Romney in Salt Lake City and then an exclusive dinner at Mr. Romney’s vacation home in Park City, Utah.

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