“I’m older than dirt, with more scars than Frankenstein”
John McCain (multiple locations and dates)

84 year old Former President George HW Bush endorsed 71 year old John McCain in Houston today.
In Africa 62 year old current President George W Bush volunteered to help McCain in any way he could.
If 46 year old Barack Obama wins the democratic nomination, the McCain campaign is keenly aware of the age factor.
McCain is old enough to be Obama’s father.
The image in a “change election” could be dicey for the McCainiacs.
It is one of their MAJOR concerns.
BUT McCain is a vigorous campaigner. He thrives on questions about his stamina.
McCain and his inner circle of 5 senior advisers huddled at the senators picturesque Sedona Az ranch this weekend.
AGE was on the agenda.
So was Obama’s liberalism…
The freshman senator from Illinois scored the most liberal voting record in the Senate…watch McCain chalk that up to “Youthful inexperience.”

And where “change” rhetoric is concerned, McCain can argue that he has been going after sacred cows, riling the establishment, and affecting reform since before Obama got out of school.

Gloves off doesn’t cover it. More like knives out and sharpened for the stretch run.

Mitt unleashes another attack ad on Huckabee citing Condi’s “ludicrous” line (though not perhaps as she meant it). One of Huckabee’s new ads calls his “opponents” (wonder who) “desperate and dishonest” but he wants a real debate, you know, for the kids.

http://mitt-tv.mittromney.com/?showid=728418

Romney had a gift under the tree (a grenade?) for McCain in the form of a NH ad on taxes and immigration. But did he bring a knife to a gunfight? McCain ad responds with a blistering recitation of editorial opinions on Mitt (phony? ouch) that the governor thinks is (at least) a step over the line.

http://mitt-tv.mittromney.com/?showid=728416

Huckabee puts Pakistan and illegal immigration together and comes up with a stew that may have a little too much salt. He also defended McCain’s honor in light of Mitt attack ad. Enemy of my enemy?

And Rudy wants to be part of the conversation (didn’t anyone notice the 9/11 ad?) but since he is not a player in the early states he is having a hard time.

Dems still debating Pakistan. Did Axelrod cross the line? Obama says it is HRC’s campaign’s fault. Does HRC know anything more about foreign policy that what she learnt at tea time?

Check out the blow by blows at:

Embed’s Blog

More than 29,000 people showed up to hear Barack Obama, candidate for president in Columbia, SC, Sunday. Of course, they may have been there to see Oprah Winfrey, who introduced the candidate. She is, after all, the “first lady of television,” as described by Michelle Obama.
The South Carolina Obama campaign told FOX that as many as 70% of those who requested tickets to today’s event had not previously been identified as an Obama supporter. This type of high profile event gets people in the door and gives Barack Obama a very large stage from which to appeal for votes (not to mention the number of cameras on the main press riser was expected to top out at 60 – and it looked like more than that from my vantage point).

So why does Oprah support Obama? Why did the typically politics-shy TV personality speak up this time? Watch some of her remarks here:

…there was Wilco, Macy Gray, and Third Eye Blind.

The bands were among those who came to Chicago’s Riviera Theater last night for an Obama fundraiser-rally. Tickets started at $35 – for that supporters/concert goers got to hear each of the bands play several songs (and give a political shout-out to Obama) and a fiery stump speech from the candidate himself, who announced, “It turns out we might win.”

Here’s a sampling from the night – sans, of course, Macy Gray forgetting the lyrics to “Winter Wonderland” and incoherently asking the crowd, “Has anyone ever really met Santa Claus? Not the one in the mall, but have you ever had Santa Claus come to your house and give you a bunch of stuff? Do you have his number?”

Oprah Winfrey is traveling with Senator Obama today through Iowa, and will head to South Carolina and New Hampshire with the candidate tomorrow.

That won’t be the end of Obama’s star-studded campaign schedule. On Monday night, Obama will head to Los Angeles to rally with celebrities Jessica Biel, Taye Diggs, and Scarlett Johansson.

Barack Obama held a foreign policy forum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Tuesday to showcase Obama-friendly foreign policy experts, several of whom worked in the Clinton Administration. They were summoned by the campaign to discuss why they believe the junior senator from Illinois has the experience needed to be the leader of the free world.

Samantha Power, described by the campaign as a “Pulitzer Prize-winning author and renowned professor of human rights and foreign policy,” described Obama’s foreign policy approach as “fresh, unifying, and unbeholden.” Richard Danzig, former Secretary of the Navy under Bill Clinton, said Obama would be able to get away from “that inner-circle mentality” while Gen. Jim Smith (USAF Ret.) pointed out that Obama has “a world view; not just a Washington, DC view.”

Tony Lake, National Security Advisor to President Clinton, noted that Obama would present a “wonderful, new face to the world.” Lake said he didn’t understand why the candidate has been attacked for his lack of experience. “His experience it seems to me is greater, even the classic kind of experience, is greater than Bill Clinton’s when he ran for president, than the current president’s, than Ronald Reagan, than Jimmy Carter – I could go on an on,” Lake stated.

The forum came just a week after Obama was asked about his foreign policy credentials at a Clarion, Iowa, town hall meeting.

(more…)

After a few days of speculation, the Obama camp sent an email to reporters confirming Oprah Winfrey will come out to stump with Barack Obama.

Winfrey and Obama will hold events in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines on Saturday, December 8th, and in Columbia, SC, and a to be determined New Hampshire town on Sunday the 9th.

The campaign will distribute tickets to the Iowa events beginning December 3rd to precinct captains, campaign volunteers, and to supporters and undecided caucus goers (in that order). Volunteers who “either complete a four hour volunteer shift or attend their local caucus training before the event” will be guaranteed admission.

Last week, Obama was overheard telling a supporter at the ropeline that Oprah Winfrey was set to come out on the trail, and one day before Thanksgiving, the senator was asked how the superstar would help his campaign.

Here’s what he said about his most famous supporter last week:

Following a rally in Littleton, New Hampshire, Monday, Obama talked to reporters about Oprah coming on the Obama campaign plane.

Barack Obama often jokes that his family resembles the United Nations. The son of a white mother from Kansas and a Kenyan father whose half-Indonesian sister is married to a Chinese-Canadian told a Berlin, New Hampshire, audience Sunday that he considers himself a proud African American.

“I’ve got family members that look like Margaret Thatcher and family members that look like Bernie Mac,” Obama joked to a multiracial crowd at North High School in Des Moines earlier in the day. The crowd laughed and applauded.

The candidate often cites his diverse family as an asset. It’s because he has a grandmother who still lives in an African village, for example, that Obama can relate to the world, he says on the campaign trail. “Even though I may be African American,” the candidate noted earlier this month in Chariton, Iowa, “I come from a family that has folks of every stripe in it, and so I think I am able to bridge divisions between people.”

But race is something that Obama, who would be the first African American president, must deal with very delicately on the trail. He must appeal to Red State and rural voters who may be hesitant to elect a black president while ensuring African American voters he is “black enough” and electable.

“I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t think I could win,” Obama told a largely African American crowd in Manning, SC, last month. “So the brothers and sisters out there telling folks I can’t win – don’t defeat ourselves. Get that out of your mind that you can’t do something. I don’t believe in you can’t do something. Yes we can do something,” he implored.

That same day he told a Greenville, SC, NAACP group, “You can trust I will fight for you as president because I don’t just talk the talk; I walk the walk. I’ve been there. I’ve been along side you. I have the bruises and the battle scars to show.”

Obama is also sure not to exploit race as an issue. He doesn’t often volunteer his views on race relations in his day-to-day campaigning, probably because he does not want to “play the race card,” as the press is prone to describe such talk.

When he does talk about race in America, it’s a subject of note that only a candidate with Barack Obama’s background can talk about with authority, as he did at his town hall forum focusing on urban issues in Des Moines Saturday.

Obama began, “There is no doubt that the blight of racism and discrimination is less than it was 30 years ago. Anybody who says differently I think is not paying attention. I could not be standing here were it not for the extraordinary efforts that were made on behalf by a previous generation. I stand on the shoulders of people who fought for justice, who fought for equality.”

Here is a montage of the senator’s remarks:

On Tuesday, Lynn Sweet, a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, caught Senator Obama telling a supporter following a policy speech that his most famous fan, Oprah Winfrey, would hitting the campaign trail.

Sweet’s video can be seen here:

The Oprah buzz quickly spread – I mean it’s Oprah. There is no bigger name in U.S. celebrity and her presence could affect Obama’s numbers (for better – or worse according to some polls).

And so when Senator Obama stopped by a Manchester, NH, food pantry to help box some Thanksgiving food up for local families before he headed home for the holiday, it came up as a long line of reporters stood across from the senator as he stood putting canned food and jugs of apple juice into cardboard boxes.

Here’s the exchange:

The candidate for president was in Conway, NH, to hold a town hall meeting Tuesday – His entourage was set to stop by a coffee shop in town prior to the event, but when the motorcade pulled over, the shop was closed. Staffers were unsure if the business closed at 2pm (as some stores in town apparently do), or if the owners shut down early to attend Obama’s town hall meeting.

Instead of ordering a latte in front of a slew of cameras, Obama made his way around the corner to the offices of a small newspaper – the Conway Daily Sun.

The campaign had been asked by the paper to drop in sometime to autograph what’s known as “Refrigerator One,” a plain, white kitchen appliance in the paper’s office that has been signed by several candidates for president (Sens Clinton and Dodd, Rep Tancredo, and Gov Richardson). The 3-month-old fridge will be auctioned on eBay; it’s profits given to charity.

As the lefty candidate (that’s left-handed) sidled up to the fridge he pulled out a sharpie and noted, “I’ve never signed a refrigerator before.” Staffers at the newspaper noted that when Hillary Clinton stopped in, her traveling circus (meaning us press) was not as large as the Illinois senator. “We figured whoever gets here and gets the most attention, I think, this will put us over the top,” Obama joked.

The underdog Democrat scrawled, “Thanks for the great way to help charities. It’s unique,” on the freezer door, next to Tom Tancredo’s message that read, “That wasn’t so painful.”

“What exactly were you guys doing to him?” Obama asked newspaper staffers.

One of the paper’s staffers asked his “traditional” question to Obama. Which three people throughout history would you choose as dinner guests? Obama immediately named Jesus and Gandhi, thought for a moment, and added Lincoln.

“Not a bad list,” Obama noted before heading off to his town hall.

After delivering a speech on his education policy at Manchester’s Central High School, Obama dropped by a study hall class on his way out to say hi to students and take a couple questions. His staff made sure the slew of reporters following the candidate on his bus tour through the Granite State were on hand to watch the candidate address the class. For the most part, the students had intelligent questions about issues like No Child Left Behind and his first objective as president.

It wasn’t until Principal John Rist asked the senator to “give us a human side” when things got interesting.

Obama candidly talked about experimenting with drugs, drinking, and thinking about girls when he was a high school student in Hawaii – all subjects he’s admitted to and written about in his book, “Dreams of my Father,” but topics he doesn’t talk about often in front of cameras.

Take a look: