Hillary Clinton vows to stay in the race even as political pundits call it all but over. Major takes a look at that story but first Carl sat down with Col. Bud Day and talked about his time sharing a cell with Republican presidential hopeful, John McCain in the Hanoi Hilton.

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Jim Angle starts the reporting on the ongoing Rev. Wright saga. Rev. Wright appeared at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. and by all accounts kept the controversy alive. Major and Carl report on how it is playing on the campaign trail for Democrats and John McCain.

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Youngstown, Iowa:

The latest Gallup poll shows President Bush’s job approval has a hit a new low – 69 percent disapprove, the highest disapproval that Gallup has ever registered for any President, including Richard Nixon.
A tough environment for John McCain who acknowledged in Youngstown Ohio that all the attention to the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania has him just a wee bit overshadowed:

“It’s a big news day in politics, with the Pennsylvania primary and all. And I’ve been left recently in the unfamiliar position of facing no opposition within my own party. As you might recall, it was a different story last year, when I could claim the unqualified support of Cindy and my mother — and Mom was starting to keep her options open. Back then, there were some very impressive frontrunners … there was a very formidable second tier of contenders … and then there was me. As I recall, a few pollsters even declared my campaign a hopeless cause, and there was no margin of error to soften the blow.

But a person learns along the way that if you hold on — if you don’t quit no matter what the odds — sometimes life will surprise you. Sometimes you get a second chance, and opportunity turns back your way. And when it does, we are stronger and readier because of all that we had to overcome.

I bring up all this because the men and women of Youngstown know what it feels like to be counted out. You’ve been written off a few times yourselves, in the competition of the market. You know how it feels to hear that good things are happening in the American economy — they’re just not happening to you.”

Youngstown has been plagued by steel industry job losses and home mortgage foreclosures are the worst in the nation.

McCain called for aggressive job retraining programs & proposed reforming the unemployment system by creating new buffer accounts for each worker using unemployment insurance taxes in case of a sudden job loss.

McCain says tax cuts, less regulation, free trade and investment in new green technologies in the new economy will be a big part of the solution.

Per usual McCain blasted democrats Hillary Clintoin and Barack Obama as out of touch for wanting to raise taxes and curb free trade during a recession, which McCain says proves they don’t understand history or economics.

It’s here! If you missed Carl’s and Major’s stories of the day on Special Report with Brit Hume, you can now see it on Cameron’s Corner!

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Pittsburgh, PA:
John McCain makes a populist economic pitch and offers some relief today at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

The gas tax holiday is part of the short term economic stimulus plan, he will push in Congress as a senator this year, but he has long term plans for his presidency too.

“I will send to Congress a reform to increase the exemption – with the goal of doubling it from 3,500 dollars to 7,000 dollars for every dependent, in every family in America”.

McCain would eliminate the alternative minimum tax entirely.

“I will also send to the Congress a middle-class tax cut – a complete phase-out of the Alternative Minimum Tax to save more than 25 million middle-class families more than 2,000 dollars every year.”

There is help on the way for small businesses too:

“I will send to Congress a proposal to cut the taxes these employers pay, from a rate of 35 to 25 percent”.

Young people can look forward to changes in the student loan program designed to make college more affordable.

To pay for it all McCain would freeze non-military & veteran discretionary spending and begin a “prompt and thorough review” of the budgets of every federal program, department and agency. McCain says it will save $100 billion a year.

He’d reform the Medicare Rx drug benefit by charging more to wealthier patients.

“Those who can afford to buy their own prescription drugs should be expected to do so.”
He’d form a Bipartisan commission on reforming social security and medicare and says all options including privatization are on the table.

He hit both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s plans to let the Bush tax cuts expire which he says would amount to the biggest tax hike since the Great Depression.

” All these tax increases are the fine print under the slogan of “hope”: They’re going to raise your taxes by thousands of $s per year – & they have the audacity to hope you don’t mind”.

He slammed both Democrats for opposing free trade and the Columbian Free Trade Agreement

“We can compete with anyone. Senators Obama and Clinton think we should hide behind walls, bury our heads and industries in the sand, and hope we have enough left to live on while the world passes us by”

But he also criticizes the GOP for congressional pork barrel spending and President Bush for not using his veto pen enough.

“For Republicans, it starts with reclaiming our good name as the party of spending restraint. Somewhere along the way, too many Republicans in Congress became indistinguishable from the big-spending Democrats they used to oppose. The only power of government that could stop them was the power of veto, and it was rarely used.”

More to come as Tax Day 2008 unfolds.

When John Edwards àrrived for the debate he dove right into the demonstrators, supporters and campaign rowdies. A classic retail move. Edwards has serious caucus skills.
Hillary Clinton was heralded by camo wearing law enforcement that appeared seconds before her staff and security laden motorcade pulled in.
Chelsea! was in a car ahead of the NY Senator and former first Lady. Mrs Clinton’s car whipped past the crowd as she stared straight forward, cell phone a fixed to her ear.

St. Petersburg, FL

The Romney- Rudy face off continued in Florida today. The past few days have been full of back and forth between the two Republican rivals and today was no different. Yesterday, Mayor Giuliani told Fox News’ Carl Cameron that Romney was running away from his record. Today Governor Romney responded, 
”I’m very proud of my record and as you can probably tell here today I basically talk about my record everywhere I go. I’m very proud of our health care system that we were able to improve in Massachusetts. I’m proud of the fact that I turned in a 2 billion dollar rainy day fund at the end of my term in office. He turned in a 3 billion dollar budget gap. . . What Peter says about Paul usually tells you more about Peter than Paul. So I’ll be talking about my record and I get a good chance to do that pretty regularly.”

Romney toured a children’s hospital today in Florida and afterwards held a health care forum. At a press conference, he answered questions about Rudy’s attacks and counterattacks on Romney’s record and policies. The former Massachusetts Governor said 
”I think Mayor Giuliani has a fact problem meaning that he makes them up.”

Over the past few weeks, but especially over the last few days Romney has been trying to compare Giuliani to Senator Clinton; trying to peg them as having similar policies. That was no different today even saying that Rudy supported Clinton’s health care plan in 1994, “When it first came out he was all roses and petals for Hillary’s plan. All full of praise.” The campaign sent out an e-mail today backing that statement up citing the New York Times; “In 1994, Mr. Giuliani. . .saluted the Clinton health care plan as ‘doing some pretty good things’ and boasted that New York offered’ universal health care.’

The Giuliani campaign has not responded to those charges yet.

All the Republican candidates are either in Florida or on their way for tomorrow’s debate in St. Petersburg. Will it be a Romney-Rudy Slugfest? We will have to wait and see! Keep checking back for updates.

Concord, NH

Mitt Romney counter-attacked Rudy Giuliani on his judgment today. Much as Rudy questioned Mitt’s appointment of Massachusetts Supreme Court Judge Kathe Tuttman who released a convicted killer, without bail, who then allegedly killed a newlywed couple. Romney compared Rudy to Hillary Clintonsayin g the attack “was a very strange turn of events and suggests a level of desperation may be born out of the polls in New Hampshire.” Romney compared his appointment of Judge Tuttman to Rudy’s Bernie Kerik appointment saying, “He nominated a person who was a very close confidant, a god father to their, parent to their children. An individual he worked with for years. He’s under investigation and this record is a very different setting and one which certainly calls into question his judgment in making that selection and that is why it was such a strange thing for him to attack me.”

Giuliani not only questioned Romney’s judgment yesterday, but also his record on crime while he was the governor of Massachusetts. Romney hit back hard, “He has a real problem with facts. He’s now done this time and again making up facts that just happen to be wrong and facts are stubborn things. The truth of the matter is that during my administration. The F.B.I. crimes statistics showed violent crime was reduced in Massachusetts by 7 percent so he is wrong again on the facts. He needs to go back to school and look at the facts and add up the numbers properly.”

Romney also said Rudy would be the wrong course for the G.O.P comparing him to Clinton several times, “He is pro-choice like Hillary Clinton, he is in favor of civil unions like Hillary Clinton, he is in favor of sanctuary cities like Hillary Clinton and the record of ethical conduct, in this case Bernie Kerik reminds us very much of the administration that Hillary Clinton was part of in Washington.”

Romney added that when the Kerik indictment happened he didn’t attack Giuliani directly, “When the Bernie Kerik story came out I basically kept quiet on it. I said look I have no comment on it. It is sad and disappointing that Bernie Kerik has done this, but I didn’t make an attack on Mayor Giuliani.”
Giuliani responded by again attacking Romney on his crime record, but evading the Kerik question, “This whole appointment of a judge goes to a much bigger point-that governor Romney had a very poor record in dealing with murder and violent crime as governor and I think that’s not just an isolated situation.

Governor Romney commented on Senator Clinton’s most recent television ad today in Amherst, Massachusetts. The ad shows a still picture of Romney and Senator McCain, but doesn’t mention him by name. He was very excited by it saying it was one of the best parts of the campaign so far, “For me I guess it was seeing Hillary Clinton run an ad with my picture in it. Now, I never imagined that would happen. She said, Mitt Romney part of the Republican attack machine. Isn’t that great? I’ve always inspired to be a machine. This is really exciting to have a campaign that is that strong. She hasn’t seen nothing yet of course. “

The former Massachusetts governor addressed government spending and the economy at his speech to a high school in Amherst, NH. He attacked his Republican rival, Mayor Rudy Giuliani saying he had a 3 billion dollar budget gap when he ran New York City but pointing out that it didn’t include 9/11 spending. He began with a compliment as if to soften the blow, ” Mayor Giuliani is a friend of mine. I think he’s a good man and I know he did a good job as the mayor of New York City. But, on spending and fiscal matters they are left with a bit of a problem there. When he came in there was a budget gap. But when he left he left a budget twice as big as the one he inherited, over 3 billion dollars. Mayor Bloomberg has said he’s not going to leave a deficit like that to the person who follows him and by the way that 3 billion dollar deficit doesn’t include the cost associated with 9/11.”

Romney still has a full day of events in New Hampshire including the Derry Holiday parade. Check back for more updates!

**** UPDATE****

Giuliani Campaign Responds to Romney:

From Former Governor of Massachusetts and Giuliani supporter, Paul Cellucci:

“Campaign Trail Mitt Romney is at it again in an effort to cover up his own lackluster record as Governor by attacking Rudy Giuliani”, Cellucci states, “Mitt Romney simply has his facts wrong – not only did Mayor Giuliani turn over a balanced budget to his successor, but the city ended that fiscal year with a surplus.”

Before Governor Romney started his packed day campaigning in Iowa I did a phone interview with Martha MacCallum on the Live Desk. We covered Hillary Clinton’s new ad, the Rudy vs. Romney immigration showdown and even a bit on embed life. Please click below to listen and let me know what you think!

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