CBS News Investigative Producer Laura Strickler reports for CBSNews.com:
Senator John McCain appeared today on the television show “The View” and said Governor Sarah Palin reduced federal earmark spending in Alaska but added that she did not ask for earmarks as Governor of Alaska. That contradicts Palin's record.
When asked by View host Barbara Walters what Palin would specifically reform in Washington, McCain responded, “First of all earmark spending, which she vetoed a half a billion dollars worth in the state of Alaska.”
To which Walters responded, “She also took some earmark spending.”
McCain said, “No, not as governor she didn’t.”
It is well documented that Governor Sarah Palin greatly reduced the state’s requests for earmarks, but she continued to ask for federal money. According to reporters from the Seattle Times who added up Palin’s requests this year, the total is $197 million. The request, on the governor’s letterhead, is here and it is also available on Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens’ home page.
Steve Ellis with Taxpayers for Common Sense said in response to the apparent mistake, “McCain has been a champion of fighting wasteful spending but it’s pretty apparent that even though Palin has reduced the state’s requests, Governor Palin has asked for earmarks.”
(This post was written by CBS News' Ryan Corsaro and Brian Montopoli.)
The Obama campaign released 10 years of Sen. Joe Biden’s tax returns today. You can see them here. As the returns show, Biden makes a relatively modest income compared to his Senate colleagues.
There are a few reasons for this: Neither Biden nor his wife, Jill, with whom he filed jointly, have enormous personal wealth. Jill is a teacher – not a high-paying job. And Biden has been in the Senate for almost his entire working career, unlike many of his colleagues who have worked in the private sector for a larger paycheck.
Joint income between Biden and his wife Jill rose from $215,000 to $249,000 between 1998 and 2006. These numbers reflect the total of Joe Biden's Senate salary, his Widener University School of Law teaching salary, and Jill Biden's teaching salary.
The Bidens give little to charity. 2007, in which they donated $995, was their most generous year, though in other years Biden donated honoraria from talk shows which were valued at higher amounts.
The Bidens make almost no money each year from dividends or interest. They deduct only state/local taxes, mortgage interest and what he donates to charity. 2003 was the last year they claimed a dependent child -- their daughter, Ashley.
Under the Obama tax plan, Biden’s taxes would go up because of his tax bracket. To see how, check out the CBS Evening News video on how the Obama and McCain tax plans differ here.
As Politico notes, the release of Biden's tax returns is at least in part a move to pressure GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin to do the same; Palin has faced some questions about her personal income after reports that she billed the state for nights she spent at home. Republicans, meanwhile, are agitating for Biden to release past earmark requests.
Here’s a breakdown on the numbers from CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris: More...
If our last post didn't sate your appetite for campaign ads, don't worry: There are three more ads out today. One of them, from the Obama campaign, has not been sent around to the national press, though CBS News has confirmed that the spot has begun airing. (No word on where.) Time has the transcript of the spot, which opens with John McCain "it's over for the special interests." Then an announcer chimes in:
"Wait a second," the announcer says. "John McCain’s chief adviser lobbies for oil companies even from Russia and China. His campaign manager lobbies for corporations outsourcing American jobs. The campaign chairman he picked last year — a bank lobbyist. If seven of McCain’s top advisers are lobbyists, who do you think will run his White House? John McCain. We just can’t afford more of the same."
The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, has a new radio spot out called “Change Or More Of The Same?,” which suggests the McCain/Palin ticket represents real change. You can listen to the spot, will air in New Hampshire, here. The script:
Barack Obama? In three short years in the Senate, Obama requested nearly a billion dollars in earmarks. Nearly one billion dollars. That’s over a million dollars for each day he’s been in Washington, D.C. And Joe Biden? Biden has been requesting earmarks for decades. John McCain – Never requested an earmark. Barack Obama – One billion dollars in earmark requests. You decide… Who represents change?
Planned Parenthood has a new spot out saying McCain is "twisting the facts" on Obama's position on sex-ed in this ad. Watch it:
And here's a bonus spot for you: The liberal blog Daily Kos says an anti-Sarah Palin ad called "Brutal" has begun airing in Ohio. Watch the Defenders Of Wildlife Action Fund spot here. From the script: "As Alaska governor, Sarah Palin actively promotes the brutal and unethical aerial hunting of wolves and other wildlife...Do we really want a Vice President who champions such savagery?" More...
There are three new campaign ads out this morning, two from Barack Obama and one from John McCain. True to their word, the Obama campaign is hitting back against McCain in his ads, one of which uses humor and takes a page from McCain’s earlier “celebrity” ads.
In “Still,” the Obama campaign pokes some fun at the Arizona senator. An announcer starts out in the year 1982. “John McCain goes to Washington. Things have changed in the last 26 years. But McCain hasn’t. He admits he still doesn’t know how to use a computer, can’t send an email. Still doesn’t understand the economy, and favors two hundred billion in new tax cuts for corporations, but almost nothing for the middle class. After one President who was out of touch, we just can’t afford more of the same.” Watch it:
McCain’s ad continues to keep the focus on his running mate, Sarah Palin, accusing the Obama campaign of being “disrespectful.” An announcer intones over a picture of Obama, “he was the world's biggest celebrity, but his star's fading. So they lashed out at Sarah Palin, dismissed her as ‘good looking.’ That backfired, so they said she was doing, ‘what she was told,’ then desperately called Sarah Palin a liar. How disrespectful, and how Governor Sarah Palin proves them wrong, every day.” (Factcheck says the spot "distorts quotes" to make its case.) Watch it:
After a one-day respite from lipstick and pigs as the campaigns halted their increasingly bitter battle for 9/11 remembrances, the fisticuffs have begun again in earnest.
We’ve heard over the past few days, and again this morning in the New York Times, that Barack Obama is getting set to go on the attack after a couple of weeks taking punches from John McCain. More and more the “fears” and “concerns” among some Democrats about Obama’s response to the attacks – mostly whispered anonymously – are surfacing in news accounts.
It’s happening again, is the cry from party regulars who remember all too well the last two Democratic nominees who they believe went down after similar GOP tactics were ignored. Fight back, they urge Obama, use their techniques against them, show your outrage and shout from the rooftops. There is a quieter group of Democrats who think the answer is to reclaim the agenda with serious policy speeches and force the debate onto higher ground where they believe Obama holds an overwhelming advantage.
But is it too late? When the McCain campaign began running TV ads mocking Obama’s “celebrity” late in the summer, the campaign all-but laughed it off, safe in the knowledge that their poll numbers remained steady and the underlying dynamics made them a heavy favorite. Casting the McCain campaign as flailing and desperate, they went on their merry march toward victory.
Much has changed over the past month, however. While McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin has generated tons of talk and the Alaska Governor has at times overshadowed everything else, it’s also done something more fundamental. Palin seems to have hardened partisan lines that appeared ready to be blurred in this historic election. Suddenly, Republicans are Republicans and Democrats are Democrats again and that uncommitted voter pool is shrinking.
Her candidacy has triggered the kinds of visceral reactions which seem unlikely to fade – people either like or dislike her, there is very little in-between. More critically, the debate over political figures like Palin tend to be fierce and emotional, with little room for second-guessing. Revelations, flubs or embarrassments are likely to be met with the talking points of each side instead of reconsiderations. More...
ABC News has posted excerpts of Charlie Gibson's interview with GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. The interview is Palin's first since coming onto the national scene, and political watchers will be paying close attention to get a sense of Palin's grasp of the issues and her ability to handle potentially difficult questions.
Palin said during the interview that she favors Georgia and Ukraine joining NATO. Gibson pointed out that "Putin has said he would not tolerate NATO incursion into the Caucasus," and asked Palin if the U.S. would have to go to war with Russia if that country invaded Georgia once Georgia became a member of NATO. Palin responded, "perhaps so."
"I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help," she said.
Added Palin:
What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.
And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.
It doesn't have to lead to war and it doesn't have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.
His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that's a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen.
CBS News’ Jeff Greenfield is kicking off a new series on tonight’s Evening News, called, “The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, and he tells us what it’s all about while providing a sneak peak at tonight’s edition:
No, CBS Evening News is not re-making a famous spaghetti western. Instead, we’re launching a weekly look at the most effective, most depressing and most what-planet-are-we-on events of the political week. The judgments are non-ideological – effective and depressing and weird events happen across the political spectrum – and we don’t have a standard Olympic-style point-scoring standard for this feature.
For openers, we’ve chosen an obvious starting point: Sen. John McCain’s selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. We’ve seen selections in the past change a campaign for the worse: George McGovern’s pick of Sen. Tom Eagleton – whom he later dumped from the ticket, dooming whatever chance he had in 1972. Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Dan Quayle in 1988 proved liabilities for Walter Mondale and George H.W. Bush.
But the selection of Palin changed this campaign all the way to its roots. It fired up the socially conservative Republican base that had regarded McCain with wariness … if not hostility. It made "change!" a mantra that – at least temporarily – applied to McCain’s campaign as much as it did to that of Obama, who had of course made "change" he theme for more than a year and a half.
And it shifted the whole focus form economic issues – a clear Democratic strength this year – to questions of culture and values, where Republicans have been harvesting votes for the better part of 40 years. Palin’s image – the spunky, just-plain-folks, strong family mom who can take on the condescending big-shots – is a staple of American pop culture, and the reaction to her choice is measurable in everything from crowds to poll numbers. Will it fade, or change for the worse? Who knows. For now, it’s been the most tactically effective move of the entire campaign.
Former Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee, who left the GOP after being defeated for re-election in 2006, called Sarah Palin a “cocky wacko,” but admitted that she has told a Washington audience Tuesday that while Sarah Palin has revived a “lackluster McCain candidacy,” the AP reports. (To see the video, click here).
Speaking to the New American Foundation, Chafee was asked about Palin by an audience member and he responded by saying that her candidacy has “thrown this firestorm, this tornado, into the whole presidential election.” Chafee, who is supporting Barack Obama, said that he speech to the GOP convention also energized Democrats. “People were coming into my office, phone calls were flooding in, e-mails were coming in, ‘I just sent money to Obama, I couldn’t sleep last night’ – from the left. To see this cocky wacko up there.”
In an interview with the AP Thursday, Chafee said that he “found much of Palin’s convention speech objectionable, particularly her ‘mocking’ assertion that Obama was overly concerned with al-Qaeda terrorists getting” their rights read to them. That “got to the core of everything wrong with the last eight years,” said Chafee. “I consider that wacky, and certainly her tone was very, very cocky,” he added. More...
Barack Obama and Bill Clinton lunched in New York today and, according to a joint statement released by the spokesmen, “had a great conversation” about politics and “mostly” about “how the world has changed since September 11, 2001.”
The get-together was the first formal sit-down since Obama defeated Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination and comes two weeks after a convention that was rife with intrigue about the Clintons and their role in the fall campaign – not to mention the internal party divisions.
Today’s lunch was all smiles though, as the two appeared in front of reporters before disappearing behind closed doors. When asked what he thought of the state of the race, Clinton said he believes Obama will win "pretty handily" over McCain. “You can take it from the president of the United States,” Obama chimed in. “He knows a little something about politics." And, when asked what he would be doing for the fall campaign on behalf of the Democratic ticket, the former president said, “I've agreed to do a substantial number of things, whatever I'm asked to do."
Here’s the joint statement sent out: “President Clinton and Senator Obama had a great conversation in Harlem today. They discussed the campaign briefly, but mostly talked about how the world has changed since September 11, 2001. Sen. Obama praised the work of the Clinton Foundation around the world and President Clinton applauded Sen. Obama's historic campaign which has inspired millions around the country. They also spoke about what the next President can do to help make the economy work for all Americans, as it did under President Clinton, and ensure safety and prosperity far beyond the coming the election. President Clinton said he looks forward to campaigning for Senator Obama later this month.”
GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin called influential pastor Rick Warren earlier this week to ask for advice on how to handle the criticism that has come her way, The Hill reports.
In a California radio interview, Warren said that Palin had called him to seek help in dealing with the “unfair, unjust” attacks she said she believes had been launched at her since being tapped as John McCain’s running mate. Warren recounted the conversation, saying he responded by saying, “the question I asked her was 'how can I pray for you?'"
Warren said Palin asked him to “send her some bible verses on how do you deal with the unfair, unjust attacks and the mean-spirited criticism that comes in."
Obama Responds To Attack Ads (1:36) As the campaign season enters its final stretch, some Democrats are questioning Barack Obama's response to the attack ads and smear campaigns being lobbed at him. Dean Reynolds reports.
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