Obama, Clinton plan visits this week to North Carolina

Officials with Democratic presidential campaigner Edmund Hillary Rodham Clinton's political campaign downplayed the importance of the North Carolina primary on Monday, as both she and Barack Obama announced programs to tree stump in the state later this week.

Clinton spokesman Leslie Howard Wolfson said the political campaign doesn't see North Carolina a must-win state. He answered a inquiry about North Carolina with a focusing on Pennsylvania, calling it an ethnically, racially and demographically diverse state that is critical to Democrats in the November election.

"I would inquire why the Obama political campaign is having such as a difficult clip competing in one of the most of import states in the nation," Wolfson said during a conference phone call with reporters.

Former President Bill Bill Clinton said last hebdomad during a political campaign halt in suburban Walter Raleigh that the nominating race may come up down to North Carolina. Respective political campaign perceivers have got said the state is a must-win for Clinton.

"It's not good adequate for her to have got a win in Keystone State and then turn around and lose in North Carolina," said seasoned Democratic strategian Bill Carrick, who is not working with either candidate. "She necessitates to basically win everything that's left on the calendar."

Pennsylvania's April 22 primary volition apportion 158 delegates. North Carolina ballots two hebdomads later, dividing up 115 delegates, the last triple-digit draw available to the candidates.

Obama currently takes Bill Clinton by 121 delegates, although neither volition be able to win the nomination without the aid of Democratic superdelgates _ the political party leadership who can vote for whomever they choose.

Obama, who visited Fayetteville and The Queen City last Wednesday, will host a town hallway meeting in Greensboro on Wednesday afternoon. Greensboro Mayor Yvonne Samuel Johnson endorsed Obama on Monday, saying he can convey people together to make change.

The Bill Clinton political political campaign announced just proceedings later that the New House Of York senator would campaign in the state on Thursday, but functionaries did not immediately let go of any details.

Campaign functionaries also said they have got not yet agreed to a projected argument on April 19 in North Carolina, but that they anticipate inside information of planned arguments to come up out soon.

Andy Taylor, a professor of political scientific discipline at North Carolina State University, said Obama's record among blacknesses and in southern states do him the favourite in North Carolina. Because of that, Deems Taylor said the Bill Clinton political campaign desires to set up a narration focusing on their success in big battlefield states, such as as Buckeye State and Pennsylvania.

"They desire to do certain that they deject outlooks in North Carolina," he said. Keep up to day of the month with all the news! Try our , , and our Prime Minister Newscast every weekday at 3:00.

Obama, Clinton plan visits this week to North Carolina

Officials with Democratic presidential campaigner Edmund Hillary Rodham Clinton's political campaign downplayed the importance of the North Carolina primary on Monday, as both she and Barack Obama announced programs to tree stump in the state later this week.

Clinton spokesman Leslie Howard Wolfson said the political campaign doesn't see North Carolina a must-win state. He answered a inquiry about North Carolina with a focusing on Pennsylvania, calling it an ethnically, racially and demographically diverse state that is critical to Democrats in the November election.

"I would inquire why the Obama political campaign is having such as a difficult clip competing in one of the most of import states in the nation," Wolfson said during a conference phone call with reporters.

Former President Bill Bill Clinton said last hebdomad during a political campaign halt in suburban Walter Raleigh that the nominating race may come up down to North Carolina. Respective political campaign perceivers have got said the state is a must-win for Clinton.

"It's not good adequate for her to have got a win in Keystone State and then turn around and lose in North Carolina," said seasoned Democratic strategian Bill Carrick, who is not working with either candidate. "She necessitates to basically win everything that's left on the calendar."

Pennsylvania's April 22 primary volition apportion 158 delegates. North Carolina ballots two hebdomads later, dividing up 115 delegates, the last triple-digit draw available to the candidates.

Obama takes Bill Clinton by 121 delegates, although neither volition be able to win the nomination without the aid of Democratic superdelgates _ the political party leadership who can vote for whomever they choose.

Obama, who visited Fayetteville and The Queen City last Wednesday, will host a town hallway meeting in Greensboro on Wednesday afternoon. Greensboro Mayor Yvonne Samuel Johnson endorsed Obama on Monday, saying he can convey people together to make change.

The Bill Clinton political political campaign announced just proceedings later that the New House Of York senator would campaign in the state on Thursday. And the former president said he would go back Friday to North Carolina. No inside information were released immediately on either appearance.

Campaign functionaries also said they have got not yet agreed to a projected argument on April 19 in North Carolina, but that they anticipate inside information of planned arguments to come up out soon.

Andy Taylor, a professor of political scientific discipline at North Carolina State University, said Obama's record among blacknesses and in southern states do him the favourite in North Carolina. Because of that, Deems Taylor said the Bill Clinton political campaign desires to set up a narration focusing on their success in big battlefield states, such as as Buckeye State and Pennsylvania.

"They desire to do certain that they deject outlooks in North Carolina," he said. Keep up to day of the month with all the news! Try our , , and our Prime Minister Newscast every weekday at 3:00.

Obama takes super-delegate lead - BBC News

Democratic presidential campaigner Barack Obama have overtaken his challenger Edmund Hillary Bill Clinton for the first clip in blurbs from super-delegates.

Four super-delegates - political party and elected functionaries - pledged to back up Mister Obama, including two who previously supported Mrs Clinton.

Mr Obama also have a strong Pb in delegates won in state primary election and caucus votes.

The Democratic super-delegates expression set to make up one's mind who wins the nomination.

Added to the nine who came out in support of Barack Obama on Friday, he now have a slender border of super-delegates.

'Likely nominee'

Mr Obama won a convincing triumph in Tuesday's North Carolina primary; while Mrs Bill Clinton narrowly won in Indiana.

Six more than states throw primary elections before the Democratic Party officially declares at its nominating convention in August who will take on presumptive Republican campaigner Toilet McCain.

The nearly 800 super-delegates automatically go to the Mile-High City convention and can vote for whomever they choose.

Mrs Bill Clinton held a monolithic Pb in super-delegate support before the party's first primary in Ioway in January.

But a twine of wins for Mister Obama have convinced many of them to come up out in his favour.

On Friday, former Democratic United States presidential aspirant Toilet Jonathan Edwards said that Mister Obama is now the party's "likely presidential nominee".

But he stopped short of actually endorsing Mister Obama.

Democrats Debate Republican Talking Points

Toilet Nichols
Marry April 16, 11:19 Prime Minister ET

-- And the victor of the 21st argument of the Democratic presidential race is...

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Right-Wing Talking Points.

At a minute when even Toilet McCain holds that the American economic system is in a recession, when the U.S. trade shortage is breaking records, when the frailty president and the secretary of state base accused of organizing torment political parties in Washington, when the president have gotten us bogged down in two foreign quagmires, and when functionary gambling of globalisation have stirred up nutrient public violences around the world, Barack Obama and Edmund Hillary Bill Clinton spent most of the last argument before the critical Keystone State primary trying to out-FOX 1 another.

Instead of piquant in a needful treatment about economical issues -- especially the trade policies that are annihilating the Keystone State and so much of the remainder of the state -- the Democratic rivals sounded as if they were reading outtakes from a particularly feeble Bill O'Reilly program.

To be fair, this was not entirely the fault of the candidates. The line of questioning from rudiment "News" personalities Charlie Mel Gibson and Saint George Stephanopoulos -- Wednesday night's moderators, who pummeled Obama for most of the nighttime -- almost made a spectator long for a long-winded intercession by the CNN's self-absorbed but reasonably serious Wolf Blitzer. And the inquiries from viewing audience appeared to have got been selected with the intent of raising uncertainties about whether these people may be disbursement just a small too much clip hearing to Haste Limbaugh.

There were, of course, enquiries about the Rev, Jeremiah Willard Huntington Willard Huntington Wright Jr., including a demand that Obama explicate whether he believes an ex-Marine World Health Organization raised legitimate inquiries about U.S. foreign policy should be considered "patriotic." Bill Clinton made a bad minute worse by bringing up Hamas and Curate Joe Louis Farrakhan in an obvious effort to associate Wright -- and by extension Obama -- to groupings and people who make not acquire an especially free drive in U.S. media.

Clinton's trip to Bosnia And Herzegovina was revisited, as was a remark she made 16 old age ago about baking cookies.

Obama got asked why he makes not have on a flag pin.

And both campaigners were prodded by millionaire mass media personalities to speak about "elitism."

But the absolute low point of a argument that rarely left the low route came when former Bill Clinton adjutant Stephanopoulos asked Obama about his meetings with Bill Ayers, a 1960s Weather Underground extremist who went on to go a college professor.

Obama said he did not believe he should be held to account for something person he cognizes did "40 old age ago when I was 8 old age old."

Then, sounding more than like Sean Hannity than a former anti-war activistic from the '60s, Bill Clinton said, "I also believe that Senator Obama served on a board with Mr. Ayers for a clip period of time, the Forest Foundation, which was a paid directorship position. And if I'm not mistaken, that human relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after (Ayers') reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York, and I would trust to every American, because they were published on 9/11, and he said that he was just bad they hadn't done more... I cognize Senator Obama is a good man, and I esteem him greatly. But I believe this is an issue that certainly the Republicans will be raising."

Remarkably, Obama went down the Hannity hole with Clinton, complaining that Clinton's husband, when he served as president, "pardoned or commuted the sentences of two members of the Weather Underground, which I believe is a slightly more than important enactment than me serving on a board with person for actions that he did 40 old age ago."

This was an ugly, unilluminating argument that neglected meaningful concerns because so much clip was spent introducing what had been the cockamamie side issues of the far correct to the mainstream discourse. It was especially unsmooth on Obama. But there was no winner, expect, perhaps, Toilet McCain.

Indiana gets a shot at political spotlight

Indiana's presidential primary happens so late that the nomination for the Democratic presidential campaigner is usually a bygone decision by the clip Hoosiers acquire to vote.

An exclusion was 1968, when Democrat Henry Martin Robert Jack Jack Kennedy won the Hoosier State primary on May 7, 1968, propelling him to a future triumph in Golden State - where Senator Kennedy was assassinated on June 5, 1968.

Another exclusion is happening 40 old age later as Democrats Edmund Hillary Bill Clinton and Barack Obama fighting for the Democratic nomination.

"This is going to be the first important primary in Hoosier State since 1968," said Dan Parker, president of the Hoosier State Democratic Party.

At present, the political human race is focused largely on Pennsylvania, whose 158 delegates will be decided April 22. But the candidates' attempts in the Keystone State have got got not kept them from acknowledging the potentially important function of Indiana, one of 10 states and districts that have yet to take portion in the nominating process.

Senator Obama of Prairie State takes Senator Bill Clinton of New House Of York in the delegate count - 1,638 to 1,501, with 833 to be awarded. The victor necessitates 2,025 to claim the nomination and take on presumptive Republican campaigner Toilet McCain in the fall.

Seventy-two convention delegates will be awarded in Hoosier State based on the May 6 vote. The state also have 12 ace delegates who are not jump by the consequences of the primary.

Eugene Kennedy, 75, a retired car parts mill worker who is Democratic Party president of Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin Von Steuben County across the state line from William Carlos Williams County, Ohio, said the economic system and the warfare in Republic Of Iraq are the large issues.

"The economic system here is poor, very poor. A batch of the manufacturing have got closed up, moved away, consolidated, whatever," Mr. Jack Jack Kennedy said.

As for the war, he said, "A batch of people have the feeling the thing have dragged on manner too long."

He said race would be a factor, though he declined to impute it to racism.

"I believe that probably Edmund Hillary will transport this corner of the state because there's not a batch of blacknesses here," Mr. Kennedy said. "This is a rural community. People be given to be a small more than than conservative, and I believe they'll back up her more than Barack Obama."

Statewide, Indiana's population is 8.9 percentage African-American, compared with 12 percentage in Buckeye State and 21.7 percentage in North Carolina, which votes the same twenty-four hours as Indiana.

Mike Bynum, 54, Democratic president in Woody Allen County where Garrison John Wayne is located, works in the Danu Retention Corp. axle factory. He said employment have shrunk from about 2,000 10 old age ago to about 500 now. That experience, he said, is motivating people to take an involvement in politics, so much so that he's hopeful Hoosier State will vote Democratic in November.

"I believe Hoosier State is going to turn bluish in the general election. I believe people are beginning to recognize if they don't take a stand, then those determinations to be made for them will be not what they want," Mr. Bynum said.

That would look to be a longshot hope. In 2004, President Shrub carried Hoosier State with 60 percentage of the vote.

Mr. Bynum said both campaigners have got established business offices in Garrison Wayne, which have a population of 219,495 and is the 2nd biggest metropolis in Indiana. Both have got campaigned there already.

"It's really too fold to call," Mr. Bynum said.

James McCann, a political scientific discipline professor at Purdue University in Occident Lafayette, said Indiana's Democrats do up a diverse group.

"You can travel to the Lake County and Gary part near Windy City and you see Democrats that are just like Democrats in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York. And then you travel downstate and you see Democrat-leaning counties as well, but those are traditional Democrats, what we used to name old South Democrats," Mr. McCann said.

"I can't state it's solidly pro-Clinton. Certainly, Obama ought to make well around the Gary region. In Indianapolis, the Rachel Carson District is a natural African-American stronghold," he said. "Clinton in Indiana, like Keystone State and Ohio, looks to have got lined up the political party brass pretty well."

He noted that Mr. Obama have picked up some important endorsements, notably former U.S. Rep. Spike Lee Hamilton, who was frailty president of the 9/11 Commission. "Whether such as blurbs will count to Democratic primary electors on May 6 is an unfastened question," Mr. McCann said.

Mr. Parker, the state Democratic chairman, noted that Mrs. Bill Clinton have outstanding support in the state, including Democratic U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, as well as former Gov. Joe Kernan, former First Lady Judy O'Bannon, and Mr. Charlie Charlie Parker himself.

"Indiana's the most interesting state left. We're compensate adjacent door to Illinois, and the northwest corner of the state-supported acquires its telecasting from Chicago, so Senator Obama have some built-in advantage there," Mr. Charlie Parker said.

"The southern and cardinal portion of the state are very much like southern Ohio, so the message that Senator Bill Clinton delivered in Buckeye State will vibrate in a batch of our industrial towns and rural southern Hoosier State towns," he said.

Indiana have been described as "the nation's most manufacturing-intensive state" with 18.2 percentage of all paysheet occupations in that sector, although it is down from 22.8 percentage 10 old age ago.

The Economic Policy Institute in American Capital reported in 2007 that between 1996 and 2006, Hoosier State lost 45,200 occupations because of ill-proportioned trade agreements with People'S Republic Of China and 35,157 owed to the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement, as of 2005.

And the flight to United Mexican States continues. General Electric recently announced programs to fold a icebox mill employing 895 people in Bloomington and unfastened a works in Mexico.

"Free trade makes have got its payoffs, but they're not shared equally by all industries," said Kraut Conover, manager of the Hoosier State Business Research Center at Hoosier State University in Bloomington.

He said Hoosier State exportations outside of some traditional manufacturing such as as car parts are flourishing and that Canada and United Mexican States are the two biggest finishes for Indiana's exports, together accounting for more than than one-half of all Hoosier State exports.

He pointed to local house BioConvergence LLC that's entered into a multimillion-dollar partnership with Indiana-based giant Eli Lilly and Co. The start-up volition supply "global stuffs direction services."

Even some traditional manufacturing is growing. Mr. Conover said steel exportations grew by 15.6 percentage from 2005 to 2006.

John Stafford, the manager of the Community Research Institute at Hoosier State University-Purdue University at Garrison Wayne, said the hit to manufacturing in the Middle West is real.

"It's been a unsmooth few years," he said. "We lost approximately 20 percentage of our manufacturing from 1999 to 2002, and while it's somewhat stabilized, we haven't seen manufacturing employment back to the degree of the late 1990s and we're not going to."

"I'm not as inclined to fault it on NAFTA as others," Mr. Stafford said. "There are other factors. A batch of it is just apparent doing more than with fewer people."

While polls demo Keystone State as tilting very strongly toward Mrs. Clinton, few polls have got been done on Indiana. Those few give her a Pb of between3 and 9 points over Mr. Obama.

And respective political initiates have got set Hoosier State up for grabs.

Larry Sabato, a political expert at the University of Virginia, wrote in Real Number Clear Politics on March 20 that "potentially, [Indiana] can be won by either side."

Contact Uncle Tom Troy at:tomtroy@theblade.comor 419-724-6058.

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03/29/2008

Republicans want Obama as opponent

As a retired UAW autoworker and life-long Democrat, I have got paid stopping point attending to this historical election cycle. I've closely watched the Barack Obama versus Edmund Hillary Bill Bill Clinton race, and happen myself both astonied and amazed as it have got played out.

I'm amazed that a adult male could come up from practical obscureness to front-runner for his party's presidential nomination in lone a small over a year.

I'm stunned that a two-term U.S. senator who have devoted her life to serving people of all chevron and colours cannot addition front-runner position in the race for the White Person House.

I can only deduce from state primaries, that Karl Rove and the Republican Party have had a manus in crossing over votes, giving Mr. Obama wins in the Republican redness states.

Republicans, seeing their ain unelectable campaigners and the powerful Clinton political campaign they can't beat, chose to back up Mr. Obama so as to win November's general election. You necessitate only to look at the states won by Senator Bill Clinton - Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Michigan, Florida, and Golden State - and make the math. These are all states needed to win the White Person House that Mr. Obama will not transport because those Republicans, who voted for him in the primary elections will not back up him in November.

Thus, on Jan. 21, 2009, an old adult male who desires to remain in Republic Of Iraq for another 100 old age and gags about bombardment Islamic Republic Of Iran will go the 44th president of the United States.

Democrats, Karl Rove will once again have got got stolen an election from you, the political party that should have been a shoo-in victor in 2008.

Charles Stuller

Perrysburg

Experience counts and Bill Bill Clinton have it

As I follow the political campaigns of Sens. Edmund Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, experience have at modern times been a topic of debate. Some say it doesn't substance who have the most experience. I implore to differ.

Compare it to a military unit of measurement going into armed armed armed armed combat that is going to be led either by a natural recruit just out of military officers campaigner school with limited military experience and no combat experience at all, or a battle-hardened sergeant, who have combat experience.

When you're in that combat zone, who would you look for to give you guidance, the inexperienced Lieutenant Obama, or the battle-hardened Sergeant Clinton? I cognize who I'd want.

Joseph L. Molnar

Oregon

Obama isn't ready for world's bad guys

I comprehend Sen. Barack Obama to be a genuinely sincere, well-intentioned adult male - a man 1 might wish to assist manager his small conference team. A good guy.

He have stated that he wishes for all the world's leadership to put their card game down on the tabular array of international diplomacy. He longs to ran into and greet the world's most nefarious bosses.

Is he a card crisp of profound perceptivity? Or, is he astonishingly naive? Are he qualified to play high-stakes poker with the likes of Vladimir Putin, Kim Erica Jong Il, Victor Hugo Chavez, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

I'll wager not.

Brett Mentzer

Kimberly Drive

'Isms' just clouding up presidential choice

I am ill and tired of the "isms" in this campain.

Racism. We can't vote for Barack Obama because he is black. Well, he's also half achromatic but you don't hear about that now, make you?

Sexism. We can't vote for Edmund Hillary Bill Clinton because she is a woman. And what is incorrect with that? Bash the name calling Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, or Genus Irena Degutien mean value anything to anyone? There have got got been tons of adult female presidents and premier curates in the world; why can't we have one?

Ageism. We can't vote for Toilet McCain because he is too old. Didn't recognize that a campaigner needed a birth day of the month after 1950 in order to be president. Winston John Churchill was 77 the 2nd clip he became premier curate of the United Kingdom.

I can judge who to vote for by the programs that they suggest for our country, not by the colour of their skin, sex, or age. I am certain that other people can as well. Look at their chopine and see what they believe. Don't just listen to the 20-second sound bites on the news. Bash some reading - that is what I am doing because the campaigner I supported bowed out ages ago.

Let's just look at the person, not tegument color, age, or sex. Get with it, people. We necessitate something to change here. Vote for the individual you believe can assist acquire us out of this mess.

Michelle McGarrity-Pugh

Archbold

We should love U.S., inquire God's blessings

I have got go accustomed to The Blade's soft-ball, politically biased reporting. The Obama-Wright contention have given a focusing to existent racial issues, and rightly so. But where else but in United States can an influential curate base in the dais and screaming an name at United States repeatedly? (An name omitted in The Blade's reporting).

I am proud to be an American and take serious offense at this. We should love our state and inquire for God's approval as we work together to do it better. Hate is not the path. Supreme Being Bless United States and all of us.

Bill Williams

Perrysburg

America not at fault for nuking Japan

I have got no involvement in debating the political or racial issues raised by Rose Charles Taze Russell in her March 22 column in The Blade, only the brave statement of the Rev. Jeremiah Willard Huntington Wright that she quoted. To state that we nuked Nipponese Islands without batting an oculus is to revize history and incrimination United States for World War II.

For 3 1/2 years, our military units fought from island to island, at a cost of one thousands of GIs' lives, until they were on the doorsill of the Japanese homeland. Conventional wisdom was that in an invasion, losings would be 100s of one thousands of Americans. It drop to President Harry Harry Truman to make up one's mind whether to drop the bombs or hazard more American lives. Bashes anyone really believe that this was not an agonising determination for Truman? The 2nd bomb was dropped after the Nipponese still refused to surrender. Finally, the Emperor made the determination to stop the war.

Mr. Willard Huntington Wright is an educated adult male and a former Marine, so it is certain that he cognizes the fortune that led to dropping the bombs, but blaming United States is a popular athletics these days. However, it is too soon to revize World War two history; there are too many witnessers still alive.

A.L. Fisher

Sylvania

Dysfunctional state stops Jan. 20, 2009

If Saint George W. Shrub were really president of the United States, he would reprobate torture. That's what presidents of the United States do. It is unlogical to be the president and excuse torture.

When correct and incorrect don't do sense to us, it disrupts our emotional well-being and causes dysfunctionality. United States is in a dysfunctional state right now. May this dysfunctionality end quickly. Jan. 20, 2009, cannot come up soon enough.

Sarah Maxwell

Archbold

Funding retirement is our responsibility

I read with great involvement a recent commentary in The Blade regarding the failing efforts to privatise Sociable Security, a programme described as "essential to the well-being of billions of Americans." The inquiry is: Why is this programme now deemed essential? The reply is that over the last 50 old age we, as liberated Americans, have got slowly turned over our individual duties to Washington, D.C., to the point now that the idea of being personally responsible for our ain financial well-being looks unfathomable.

I trust that we as a society aftermath up soon and state the authorities "No, but give thanks you. I can take attention of myself."

Tom McLoughlin

Medford Drive

Who plays Jesus Of Nazareth in this Passion play? I'm a small confused. If Bill Henry Hobson Richardson is like Jude for championship Sen. Barack Obama, who's supposed to be Jesus? Bill and Edmund Hillary may both have got messianic complexes, but who is supposed to be the Jesus Of Nazareth in Democratic strategian Jesse James Carville's charade?Doug TabnerGrantwood Drive

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Senate elder urges Clinton to drop out; Obama picks up endorsement of moderate Penn. senator

: A veteran soldier U.S. senator is calling for Democratic presidential campaigner Edmund Hillary Rodham Bill Clinton to abandon the race, for the interest of the party, and competing Barack Obama have harvested an unexpected blurb — winning support from a moderate Keystone State senator, three hebdomads before the state primary.

Senator Saint Patrick Leahy, an Obama supporter, president of the powerful Judiciary Committee and six-term lawmaker from the bantam northeasterly state of Vermont, became the first senior member of the upper chamber of the U.S. United States Congress to publicly urge Bill Clinton driblet out of the race.

"Senator Bill Clinton have every right, but not a very good reason, to stay a campaigner for as long as she desires to. As far as the delegate count and the involvements of a Democratic triumph in November go, there is not a very good ground for drawing this out," Leahy said in a statement issued Friday.

Campaigning in Indiana, Bill Clinton said Leahy was wrong.

"There are billions of grounds to go on this race: people in Pennsylvania, Hoosier State and North Carolina, and all of the competitions yet to come," Bill Clinton told reporters. Today in Americas

Democrats are voicing increasing concern the dissentious Clinton-Obama conflict is leaving the field unfastened for Grand Canyon State Senator Toilet McCain. The presumptive Republican campaigner have stood alone as the political party standard-bearer since March 4, when former Land Of Opportunity Governor Microphone Huckabee left the race.

Leahy said Obama's delegate Pb looks to be insurmountable and noted the blurb by Keystone State Senator British Shilling Casey signaled the race had clearly turned in Obama's favor.

Casey's blurb was unexpected and could hike Obama's standing with Catholic voters, who do up more than than 30 percentage of the state, and among achromatic working-class electors known as "Casey Democrats." Casey is the boy of a former governor known for his resistance to abortion and support of gun rights.

Clinton routed Obama among working-class electors in Buckeye State and Lone-Star State on March 4 and throws a double-digit lead in recent polls of Keystone State voters. A triumph there could confirm her claim of impulse in the race even as she dawdles behind in delegates and the popular vote.

Obama, a first-term Illinois senator, throws a 1,623 to 1,499 border in delegates, including both those pledged as a consequence of state primary elections and caucuses as well as superdelegates — elected and political party functionaries who can vote for whomever they wish.

Campaigning in Pennsylvania, Obama said Friday he would go back United States to the more than "traditional" foreign policy attempts of past presidents, such as as Saint George H.W. Bush, Toilet F. Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

Obama praised Saint George H.W. Shrub — father of the current president — for the manner he handled the first Gulf War: with a big alliance and carefully defined objectives.

"The truth is that my foreign policy is actually a tax return to the traditional bipartizan realistic policy of Saint Saint George Bush's father, of Toilet F. Kennedy, of, in some ways, Ronald Reagan, and it is George Shrub that's been naif and it's populate like Toilet McCain and, unfortunately, some Democrats that have got got facilitated him acting in these naif ways that have caused us so much harm in our repute around the world," he said.

Obama faced unfavorable judgment in January from Bill Clinton and then-challenger John Jonathan Edwards for saying Ronald Reagan had changed the flight of American political relation — and that Republicans had been the political party of thoughts for the last decennary or more.

In one of the more than heated up minutes of the Democratic debates, Bill Bill Clinton challenged him directly on the topic, saying those Republican thoughts were "bad for America, and I was fighting against those ideas."

In his address Friday night, Obama charged that Clinton, for all her unfavorable judgment of the current President Saint George W. Bush, have too often gone along with his decisions.

"I make believe that Senator Bill Clinton would understand that Saint George Bush's policies have got failed, but in many ways she have been prisoner to the same political relation that led her to ballot for authorizing the warfare in Iraq," he said. "Since 9/11 the conventional wisdom have been that you've got to look tough on foreign policy by vote and acting like the Republicans, and I differ with that."

Democratic Party head Leslie Howard Dean said in an interview with The Associated Press that the Obama-Clinton bitterness had go too personal.

"You make not desire to demoralize the alkali of the Democratic Party by having the Democrats onslaught each other," he said. "Let the mass media and the Republicans and the talking caputs on cablegram telecasting onslaught and transport on, fulminate at the mouth. The protagonists should maintain their oral cavities close about this material on both sides because that is noxious to the possible triumph of a Democrat."
1 |

Skirmishes between McCain, Democrats heat up

(CNN) -- Sen. Toilet McCain, the presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee, and the Democratic campaigners are trading shots almost day-to-day in what may be prevue of the general election.

Sen. Toilet McCain computer addresses an event Thursday at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

McCain have got targeted both Sens. Edmund Hillary Bill Bill Bill Clinton and Barack Obama but have focused much of his fire on the latter after he emerged as the Democratic front-runner by winning 11 competitions in a row.

McCain on Friday faulted the Democrats for wanting to renegociate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"I believe that those understandings should be kept,'' McCain said in Round Rock, Texas.

"And I believe that when person -- as Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton have said -- would renegociate a pact which went through old age of dialogues with our prima trading spouse Canada without consulting or without the understanding of our Canadian partners, I believe it directs the incorrect message to the world."

also have taken on McCain, even though his battle with Clinton for the Democratic nomination is far from over.

"I honour and regard the service of Toilet McCain. He is a echt American hero and rates our respect," Obama said Thursday while candidacy in Garrison Worth, Texas.

"But Toilet McCain, he encompasses -- almost whole pig -- Saint George Bush's policies." Don't Miss

Most of the exchanges between McCain and the Democrats -- especially Obama -- have got been over Iraq.

"We are succeeding in Republic Of Iraq when Sen. Bill Clinton and Sen. Obama said the military 'surge' wasn't working. They were wrong," McCain said Thursday at a town hallway meeting in San Antonio, Texas, referring to the addition of military personnel into Republic Of Republic Of Iraq that President Shrub authorized last year.

"So I'm not asking them to apologise because they were wrong, I'm just asking them to fall in with us and support this strategy."

McCain pounced on Obama's comments about Iraq in a Tuesday nighttime argument with Clinton.

In the debate, Obama said, "If aluminum Qaeda is forming a alkali in Iraq, then we will have got got got to move in a manner that secures the American fatherland and our involvements abroad."

Afterward, McCain said, "For Sen. Obama to state he would see going back militarily if aluminum Qaeda was in Republic Of Republic Of Republic Of Iraq when Aluminum Qaeda is in Iraq is probably one of the more than singular statements that have been made on American national security policy."

Obama quickly shot back: "I have some news for Toilet McCain. There was no such as thing as aluminum Qaeda in Republic Of Republic Of Iraq until Saint George Shrub and Toilet McCain decided to occupy Iraq."

Obama denies that he have shifted his focusing to the general election despite the frequent exchanges with .

"It's just that Toilet McCain looks to be talking about me a lot, and obviously I desire to do clear to electors in the Democratic primary that I am very confident about being able to do the lawsuit as to why Toilet McCain is looking backward and we necessitate to take this state forward," Obama said Thursday.

Obama and Bill Clinton human face key diagnostic tests in Buckeye State and Lone-Star State on Tuesday. Clinton's protagonists acknowledge the former first lady must make well in these primary elections if she is to go on to vie for her party's nomination.

Primary electors in Green Mountain State and Rhode Island also head to the polls Tuesday.

have not engaged with McCain like Obama has. Instead she have focused on attacking her Democratic challenger and presenting herself as the campaigner with the experience to convey about the alteration that Democratic electors want.

"I really believe we necessitate a president who on Day One who can be there to get the alteration and recover our leading and and regard .... We obviously necessitate a commanding officer in main who will be able to acquire our military personnel out of Republic Of Iraq but also do it clear we will protect and support our involvements in the world," she said during a mass meeting Thursday in Hanging Rock, Ohio.

Bill Bill Clinton also worked to paint her challenger as an unseasoned commodity.

In an interview Thursday nighttime on ABC's "Nightline," Clinton said Obama aptly described himself in his 2006 book.

"I believe the best verbal description actually is in Barack's ain book, the last book he wrote, 'Audacity of Hope,' where he said that he's a clean screen," she said. "And people of widely differing positions undertaking what they desire to believe onto him. And then he went on to say, 'I am jump to let down some, if not all of them.' "

Clinton's political political campaign said Thursday that she have raised $35 million in February, more than than than doubling the $15 million she raised in January.

The Obama encampment hasn't released its campaign finance sums for February, but "we've raised considerably more than" Clinton's figure, Obama spokesman Bill Richard Burton told The Associated Press.

The races in Lone-Star State and are competitive, polls suggest.

A "poll of polls" calculated by CNN for the Democratic competition in Lone-Star State have Obama at 48 percentage and Bill Bill Bill Clinton at 44 percent, with 8 percentage unsure.

The Lone-Star State "poll of polls" is an norm of five studies -- Fox News/Opinion Dynamics, Belo/Public Strategies, American Research Group, Reuters/C-SPAN/Houston Chronicle/Zogby and CNN/Opinion Research Corp. -- conducted February 22 through Thursday.

A "poll of polls" calculated by CNN for the Buckeye State race shows Bill Clinton ahead 47 percentage to Obama's 40 percent, with 13 percentage unsure.

The Buckeye State "poll of polls" is an norm five studies -- Fox News/Opinion Dynamics, Reuters/C-SPAN/Houston Chronicle/Zogby, American Research Group, University of Cincinnati "Ohio Poll" and Quinnipiac Poll -- conducted February 18 through Thursday.

Uganda: Nothing Wrong With Identity Politics - AllAfrica.com

Anne Mugisha

An astonishing election political campaign have unfolded in United States over the last two months. It have left many African-American women of the Democratic Party lacerate between loyalty to gender and loyalty to race.

The trouble of choosing between Edmund Hillary Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama have given many 'sistas' a batch of grief.

Whether to 'betray' grammatical grammatical gender and favor race have not been an easy determination and at a pre-election mass meeting in California, billionaire talk-show host Oprah Winfrey revealed her ain battles with the issue when she told an audience that she was being accused of betraying her gender by picking Obama and candidacy for him vigorously. Her response: She had to follow her ain truth and her truth led her to Obama.

Oprah is an influential mass media personality and her Midas touching looks to have got swung many open achromatic women in the South where 64% of African American women voted for Barrack Obama in the states of Heart Of Dixie and Georgia. United States Democrats are pensive about a primary election that have personal identity political relation written all over it. The mass media is focusing on ethnicities (Hispanics for Clintons, African Americans for Obama, White aged women for Bill Clinton while little achromatic women with a college instruction prefer Obama).

Barrack Obama's political campaign have got laboured to project him as the campaigner that incarnates alteration because he is a American Capital foreigner and makes not have the luggage of the babe baby boomer coevals (born 1940 - 1960) which have extended their college cabinet room bashes to American Capital political relation for nearly two decades. Obama stands for the novel and had intended to interrupt racial barriers that have got kept achromatic people at the fringe of American Capital politics.

His top failing and one that Bill Bill Clinton have used to maintain a clasp on women electors (especially aged women) is that he misses experience and is not ready for the challenge.

Late last month, as the Democratic conflict for South Carolina heated up up, a new baleful tone of voice entered the political campaign led none other than Bill Clinton - race. Bill Clinton's remarks that drew comparings between Obama's political political campaign and Jesse Jackson's were interpreted as an underhanded effort of making race the issue of the campaign. His innuendoes rubbed the Kennedys the incorrect manner and they endorsed Obama.

The election have also shattered some myths about who acts upon present twenty-four hours vote patterns. The Jack Kennedy dynasty that acclaims from Bay State endorsed Barrack Obama as did Toilet Kerry the former Democratic presidential campaigner from the same state. Well, Bill Bill Clinton took MA.

Maria Shriver (another Kennedy), the Gubernators wife, and First Lady of CA, jumped onto the household bandwagon and endorsed Obama and yes, you guessed it, Clinton took California. So much for dynastic endorsements! Oprah could have got swung more than ballots for Obama than all the Kennedys set together.

But race is indeed is a vote-builder and many Americans are riding the 'feel-good-about-yourself' wave of supporting a coloured adult male running for the peak political office. The campaigners cognize that Hispanics and African Americans volition vote as a block and they place their political campaigns in a mode that will be contributing to those block votes. A strategian who disregards that world makes so at their ain peril.

I reflected on these political kinetics in a democracy that is more than than two centuries old and wondered why anyone wonderments why political leadership of our immature state frisson at the reference of tribal sentiments when personal identity political relation is a world even in the great American thaw pot. There is nil inherently incorrect with associating on the footing of cultural golf course as long as integrity respects co-existence with other personal identities and is for the intent of advancing a legitimate docket of development and self-sustenance.

Our family, clan, national, and even spiritual associations are built along those very principles. Our natural inherent aptitude of self-preservation widens to preserving our personal identities in cultural and spiritual groupings.

Problems get to emerge when one grouping presumes a superior claim for its ain sort over others and hence the demand for norms, regulations and laws to guarantee equality.

Relevant Links

Our battles as a state and as world have got always been about ensuring that no single grouping entrenches itself by ascendant all possible chances -economic, political, social, for their own. Sectarianism as a law-breaking therefore is not the desire for groupings of people to associate in conformity to lineage, culture, or gender, but the desire of one grouping to predominate all countries of human enterprise to the exclusion of others.

Once we see it that way, we will cognize that those who ought to be in the dock for law-breakings of denominationalism are the same 1s promoting the law-breaking and persecuting guardians of our freedom to associate.

The writer is a Particular Envoy, Office of the President, FDC.

Democrats' conflict of conscience

RICHMOND, Va. -- To understand the struggle of scruples that clasps the Democratic Party in Virginia, take short letter that Hugh Oscar Robertson had the audaciousness to have on his Toilet Jonathan Edwards button to the party's large Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner on Saturday night.

Though his campaigner dropped out of the presidential competition last month, Oscar Robertson couldn't convey himself to take the Jonathan Edwards pin from his lapel. So there he stood at a cocktail party, surrounded by other invitees (including his wife, who sported a Edmund Hillary Bill Bill Clinton sticker) who made their commitment to either Clinton or Barack Obama abundantly clear.

Robertson is the kind of Democrat that presidential political campaigns implore to have got in their corner. He is the political party leader in a stretch of suburban area that sprawlings south from Washington, D.C., and which is defined by its amalgamated demographics -- bluish collar, achromatic collar, immigrants, retirees. "It's those same people that Edmund Hillary is trying to get," Oscar Robertson said in describing his neighborhood. "I believe Edmund Hillary probably will win them, but it's not adequate to win in Virginia."

Robertson states he will make his ain judgement based on his appraisal of which campaigner will do the most to turn to growing economical inequality. His determination may not come up until he comes in the vote booth.

Polling in Old Dominion in progress of today's primary elections foretells that Obama is poised to win another convincing victory, besting Bill Bill Clinton in a state where the African-American vote is crucial, where achromatic Democrats be given to be of the upscale, educated assortment who have got got been drawn to his campaigning in droves, and where mugwumps participate.

Such a facile judgement was not so apparent among those Democrats who gathered for the unexpected chance of seeing both Clinton and Obama at their yearly dinner -- a raucous, sold-out affair few could have predicted would play such as a outstanding function in the national presidential sweepstakes. The general agreement among a sampling of the 100s of people who gathered for the cash-bar cocktail political political party -- not the smaller, more than elegant personal business where the party's officers and elite givers gathered -- is that Democrats are divide pretty much down the middle. The statements for one campaigner or the other repeat in the deadlock between Obama and Bill Bill Bill Clinton that have been playing out nationwide.

Kamini Pahuja, who heads a plastics company in the Capital Of Virginia area, back ups Clinton in good measurement because she is a professional adult female who sees in Clinton's campaigning an delinquent opportunity for new leadership. "Why a woman? Because women cognize how to balance," Pahuja says. Noting that other states around the human race long ago elected women heads of state, she says, "How can we be left behind Republic Of India and United Kingdom and Israel? Shame on us."

To Liz Hoefer, a adviser from Alexandria, Obama is a biblical figure. "We have got needed to raise up a leader," Hoefer says. "He's the Joshua. Moses saw the promised land, Joshua led the children into it."

The chanting, squealing greeting for Obama when he entered the sphere long after Bill Clinton had finished her workmanlike address was indeed spiritual in its fervor. Hundreds of immature protagonists filled the upper-tier seats, many of them having traveled to Capital Of Virginia from college campuses around the American Capital area. Obama's hallmark rhetoric lilted with easiness -- he'd just run up triumphs in three states on Saturday -- and lifted his audience.

Earlier, Bill Clinton had given her ain signature performance. When she was elected senator from New House Of York in 2000, she promised her components she would be a "workhorse, not a show horse." She still is, delivering addresses thick on particulars and thin on soaring oratory. Her leaden style have worked so far in her political career. But in Obama she is matched against a glossy thoroughbred who mesmerizes crowds not so much with his path record, but with the possibility of exhilaration to come.

Mary Tycz of Waterfall Church, Va., rematches the statements for both campaigners over and over in her head, still trying to make up one's mind on her vote. "I like Hillary's depth of experience. I like her brain, her intellect. I like that she's a woman, she's quick on her feet." On the other hand, "Obama is inspirational to more than people than me -- to many people. When he states change, people are buying it." As for Tycz, she, too, is resigned to making her concluding pick only when she acquires to the polls.

Economy shapes US Presidential race

The sufferings of the United States economic system dominated the news this hebdomad - and have got the possible to reshape the contour lines of the United States presidential race as it comes in a important phase.

The dramatic intercession of the United States cardinal bank, the Federal Soldier Reserve, which made a large exigency cut in United States involvement rates, and the wild swings on human race stock markets, grade a acknowledgment by policymakers and investors alike that the United States economic system could be swinging into recession.

The public already holds with this evaluation, with the bulk of the population believing that the United States have entered a recession.

A oversupply of mortgage repossessions is blue the United States economy

And since December, sentiment polls have got shown that the economic system is now seen as the most of import issue facing the state - replacing Iraq, which dominated the polls for the last few years.

This could have got major personal effects on the prospects of the Republican and Democratic campaigners running for the White Person House as they attain the important phase the contest, with one-half the state vote in presidential primary elections on 5 February.

Boost for Clinton?

Broadly, the outgrowth of the economic system as the cardinal issue could favor the political campaign of Edmund Hillary Bill Clinton over that of Barrack Obama, and could assist Hand Romney, and to a lesser extent Microphone Huckabee, at the disbursal of challengers Toilet McCain and Rudy Guiliani.

Volition the economic system encouragement Hillary's fortunes?

For Mrs Clinton, the economic system have always been a strong point for her campaign. In the New Hampshire primary, Democratic electors who were most disquieted about the economic system backed her by two to one over Mister Obama.

Mrs Bill Clinton can appeal to electors on the footing of her husband's record in office, when the United States economic system grew strongly and created 20 million new jobs, and she have been speedy to joint a raft of policies to react to the recession by stimulating the economy.

Mister Obama's alone merchandising point to Democratic electors have been his clear and unqualified resistance to the invasion of Iraq, in direct contrast to the lies of Mrs Clinton, who voted to back up the warfare in 2002.

Mr Obama's message have had a peculiar entreaty to younger, better educated electors who felt Republic Of Iraq was the most of import issue.

Older and less well-off voters, and women, have got tended to believe more than strongly that the economical system was the cardinal issue - and may go mobilised by the growth marks of economic trouble to come up out and ballot for Mrs Clinton.

Trouble for Guiliani?

Are Toilet McCain the adult male to screen out the economy?

When the race for the White Person House began, foreign policy experience was seen as the cardinal makings for office, particularly on the Republican side.

So both Rudy Guiliani - the city manager of New House Of York during 9/11, and Toilet McCain, the former Navy circular who was imprisoned during the Socialist Republic Of Vietnam War - have got made their experience of warfare and terrorism the centerpiece of their campaign. But so far neither of them have articulated a clear economical policy with entreaty to voters.

Mr Guiliani have said that dealing with the recession is much like cutting the budget in New House Of York City, while Mister McCain's admittance that nil could salvage the occupations of Motor City auto workers did not travel down well in the Wolverine State primary - which was won by Mister Romney.

In contrast, Mister Romney, who built a private sector consulting house before going into politics, have made much of his experience of concern and finance, and urged unagitated during the recent marketplace turmoil.

He have also made the most direct claim to the economical bequest of Republican President Ronald Reagan, who led the United States economic system into recovery by liberation up the private sector and reducing taxes.

Populist appeal

Mister Huckabee have less economical experience than Mister Romney, but it was his deficiency of foreign policy experience that disquieted many voters, and the Republican Party establishment.

His populist entreaty to electors against Wall Street bankers, and his program for a simplified taxation system, which have got been questioned by many economists, have touched a chord among his alkali of Christian evangelical voters, who be given to be less well-off than other Republicans.

Populism is a subject that is also growing stronger in the Democratic encampment as the economical state of affairs worsens.

In direct contrast to Bill Clinton, Edmund Hillary have got been loath to back free trade deals, and expressed uncertainty about autonomous wealthiness finances investing in the United States - as have all other Democratic candidates.

Mister Romney also deduces one other potentiality advantage from the economical lag - in fundraising.

The long primary season have got strained the finances of all the candidates, even those, like Edmund Hillary Clinton, who have raised more than than $100m so far.

A recession may cut down the figure of subscribers to political campaigns, especially little donors. But Mister Romney is the lone campaigner who is affluent adequate to finance his political campaign himself.

Electoral consequences

The way of the United States economic system next twelvemonth is still not certain.

But if the recession is longer than expected, it will almost certainly intend that Americans will be feeling less well-off side the clip vote narratives topographic point in November.

If the economic system is an even more than salient issue, this could favor the Democrats in two ways.

First, the economical lag will have got occurred on Mister Bush's watch, and inevitably the political party in powerfulness is likely to acquire blamed - especially as the Democrats are likely to reason that failures of authorities ordinance are responsible for the jobs in the mortgage market.

In addition, economical sufferings could assist cement the Democratic alliance by bringing out many less well-off voters who normally are far less likely to vote.

This could change by reversal the natural advantage usually enjoyed by the Republicans in that more than of their protagonists actually turn out at the polling booth.

And looking at some of the cardinal swing states, it is clear that a figure of them, in the Middle West (such as Ohio), the Southwest (such as Arizona) and the South (Florida) are likely to be more than heavily affected by the economical lag than others.

It is no surprise, then, that the Shrub disposal have been pushing so difficult to attain a bipartizan trade to hike economic system recovery.

Clinton shows she can take a punch in Vegas debate

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(11-16) 04:00 Pacific Time Las Vegas --

In a town that's been known to unsmooth up some pretty tough cookies, Democratic presidential campaigner Edmund Hillary Rodham Bill Clinton - battered lately from some well-aimed political shots and self-inflicted wounds - showed she could still grumble with the best during Thursday's debate.

But her Democratic oppositions also made clear that the fighting is far from over.

The argument presumably was about the seven Democratic presidential campaigners on hand, but to most political odds-makers here in Sin City, it was all about Bill Clinton and whether she would emerge from the two-hour bout still the title-holder.

The New House Of York senator appeared to enjoy the challenge when she kicked off the conflict with a wry observation. "This pantsuit, it's asbestos tonight," she told inquirer Joseph Campbell Brown of CNN in her first comment.

Later, she added, "People are not attacking me because I'm a woman. They're attacking me because I'm ahead."

By the clip the argument at the University of Silver State at Las Vegas ended, the audience appeared impatient with verbal attacks, and it was clear Bill Clinton presented a more than relaxed and better-prepared front than in the last Democratic debate, which even she acknowledged "wasn't my best effort."

With just 50 years until the Ioway caucus - the first competition of the 2008 presidential nominating political campaign - the campaigners focused on getting, or keeping, a beachhead in the race. While much of the attending was on Bill Clinton and her top two challengers, Sen. Barack Obama of Prairie State and former North Carolina Sen. Toilet Edwards, the argument provided a drawn-out and elaborate expression at the field, even as it dramatized the increasingly crisp and aggressive border to their contest.

Obama and Jonathan Edwards aimed their shots at Bill Clinton from the gap and threatened to turn the argument into a full-out brawl.

"Sen. Bill Clinton states she will stop the war. She also states she will go on to maintain armed armed combat military personnel in Republic Of Republic Of Iraq and go on combat missionary posts in Iraq," Jonathan Edwards said. "And the most of import issue is she states she will convey alteration to Washington, while she goes on to support a system that makes not work, that is broken, that is rigged and is corrupt."

But Bill Clinton dished it back - with gusto.

"I don't mind taking hits on my record on issues, but when person starts throwing mud, at least we can trust that it's both accurate and not correct out of the Republican playbook," she said to applause. "Because what I believe is of import is that we set forth what we stand up for."

She said such as an onslaught "detracts from what we're trying to make here tonight. We necessitate to set forth a positive docket for America."

Though it threatened to be a three-person show, Delaware Sen. Chief Joseph Biden, Nutmeg State Sen. Chris Dodd, Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, and New United Mexican States Gov. Bill Henry Hobson Richardson provided some of the best minutes of the debate.

Biden, reminding the audience that he have spent decennaries in the Senate dealing with issues ranging from civil rights to foreign affairs, chided his chap Democrats for getting in the clay and forgetting about norm folks facing existent issues. Dodd was forceful on education, and Henry Hobson Richardson spoke eloquently about trying to stop the war.

Kucinich was, again, the title-holder of the party's left, saying he wouldn't even back up the Democratic campaigner unless he or she plights not to utilize warfare as an instrument of foreign policy.

The debate's arrangement in the Silver State, whose Jan. Nineteen caucuses do it the 3rd competition of the 2008 race, emphasized Democratic Party officials' positions about the importance of the Occident in the presidential race.

The scene in Silver State - which is place to the nation's fastest-growing Latino, Judaic and aged populations, and which takes the state in place foreclosures per capita - provided a forum for inquiries on issues such as as water, energy and atomic waste material storage at Yucca Mountain.

But national issues such as as the warfare in Republic Of Iraq and, particularly, illegal in-migration again dominated the discussion.

After Clinton's fiasco in the last argument in City Of Brotherly Love - when she was eviscerated by Democratic rivals for parsing the issue of driver's licences for illegal immigrants - some of her sharpest critics establish themselves on the same dangerously rickety terrain. Moderator Wolf Blitzer of CNN asked each campaigner for a "yes" or "no" reply on whether they supported such as licenses.

Obama, who opened with a shot at Bill Clinton on that very issue, looked shakiest. He acknowledged that as an Prairie State legislator he voted for illegal immigrants to be trained, licensed and insured "to protect public safety." But in what sounded like a reprise of the Bill Clinton wobble, he quickly added, "I am not proposing that is what we do."

His concluding answer, when pressed about support respective times, was "Yes."

Edwards also looked to be straddling when asked if, absent comprehensive in-migration reform, he would back such as licenses. Though in the former argument he had raised his manus to state he supported them, this clip his reply appeared different: "No - but I don't accept the proposition that we won't have got comprehensive in-migration reform," he said. "And anyone who is on a way to citizenship ... should be able to have got a driver's license."

Clinton, apparently, had learned her lesson from last time.

Her one-word answer to Blitzer: "No."

Clinton also was asked if she had been exploiting the "woman card" when her political campaign suggested other campaigners were "piling on" during the last debate.

"I'm not exploiting the grammatical gender card here in Las Vegas," she said. "I'm here to play the winning card."

In the "spin room" after the debate, Bill Bill Clinton political campaign guru Mark William Penn said the progress analysis was that Clinton would be judged on whether she would resile back from the City Of Brotherly Love stumble.

"She is back on track," he said.

E-mail Carla Marinucci at .