Talk show host Oprah Winfrey's campaign appearances with Barack Obama are sparking extensive, and largely positive, media coverage this morning. Winfrey's appearances yesterday morning in South Carolina and last night in New Hampshire follow up on a day of campaigning on Iowa on Saturday. In general, most reports focuses on the larger rally in South Carolina. NBC Nightly News led its broadcast with the story. NBC (Cowan) said the "Oprah/Obama three-state swing" has generated "the biggest crowds that Obama has ever seen." The one "down in South Carolina was the biggest of them all." Winfrey was shown saying, "South Carolina, I do believe he is the one to bring us the audacity of hope, Barack Obama!" And Obama said, "Oprah and I share something, and that is nobody could expect that we would be on this stage here today."
ABC World News reported Oprah drew "enormous crowds for...Obama" in South Carolina. Obama was shown saying, "I've got to say this, is the biggest crowd we've had during this campaign." Winfrey said: "I think it's just amazing grace that I get to stand here on this South Carolina stage, to talk about the man who is going to be the next President of the United States." ABC added, "Oprah's message about Barack Obama evoked the legacy of the civil rights struggle." Winfrey: "There are those who say that it's not his time. That he should wait his turn. Think about where you'd be in your life if you'd waited when the people told you to."
The AP reports, "Obama's campaign said more than 29,000 attended the event at the University of South Carolina's football stadium. It had the feel of a rock concert, with bands playing for early arrivals and campaign supporters yelling 'fire it up' to the crowd." Obama, during his address, "criticized the Bush administration and took several veiled swipes at Clinton, though never referenced his rival by name. 'I'm tired of Democrats thinking the only way to look tough on national security is to act like George Bush,' he said. 'We need a bold Democratic Party that's going to stand for something, not just posture and pose.'"
The New York Times reports, "It was a staggering sight. Upwards of 29,000 people at a political rally. And the Democratic primary in South Carolina is not until Jan. 26. The Double O Express - Oprah for Obama - drew what is easily the biggest crowd at a campaign event, for any candidate, so far this season. It may have helped that the day was unseasonably warm, above 70 degrees, and gorgeously sunny. But this size crowd is rare even for a general election in the fall."
New Hampshire Event Drew 8,500 The New Hampshire Union Leader focuses its report on the rally in Manchester, reporting Winfrey "made her first visit to Manchester and her first foray into politics on behalf of Barack Obama one of near rapture for thousands of fans last night. After a rock star's welcome, Winfrey settled into her new role and delivered several veiled shots at Democrat Hillary Clinton, one of Obama's main rivals, for her vote to authorize war in Iraq." The Union Leader adds, "The double shot of pop culture and politics at the Verizon Wireless Arena combined to produce one of the largest campaign events in the history of the New Hampshire Presidential Primary. The Obama campaign said the crowd was 8,500 strong. The star power was clearly a draw; the crowd huddled outside in the cold for more than an hour to get into the arena." The Concord Monitor adds, "Even New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch, whose wife, Susan Lynch, endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton, got into the spirit, calling Winfrey an inspiration and praising Obama for his service."
Turnout Also Massive For Saturday Rally In Des Moines Today's coverage followed similar coverage yesterday. Winfrey's debut on the campaign trail in Iowa in support of Obama on Saturday received saturation coverage, leading all three Saturday evening broadcast network newscasts and appearing on the front pages of several major newspapers Sunday morning. ABC World News asked, "She can turn a book into a best seller, but can she turn a politician into our next president?" ABC (Wright) added, "A remarkable event, more than a pep rally, more than a celebrity endorsement, this had the flavor of old-fashioned tent revival and the preacher tonight may be the famous woman in America. We heard a political sermon, the Gospel according to Oprah, the atmosphere more like a rock concert than a political rally."
The CBS Evening News called it "a whistlestop tour with a showstopping co-star. ... Winfrey's endorsement is guaranteed to draw a lot of attention, less certain to sway a decisive number of votes." CBS (Reynolds) added, "The Obama campaign hopes this event could break the virtual tie that exists here in Iowa." CBS chief political consultant Marc Ambinder: "Oprah Winfrey is incredibly popular among working class, older, white women, the exact profile of the average Iowa caucus-goer." Reynolds: "Mix in the facts that 54% of those Iowa caucus-goers were women the last time around in 2004, that 80% of Democratic women in general view Oprah favorably, and that her show's daily audience of nearly nine million viewers is 75% female, and you get the idea why she's such a catch."
The Des Moines Register says Winfrey said to a crowd of about 18,500 in Des Moines, "I am not here to tell you what to think, I'm here to ask you to think." The Washington Post reports on its front page that without mentioning Hillary Clinton by name, Winfrey "made a vigorous case against her. Winfrey said she is concerned that 'if we continued to do the same things over and over and over again, I know that you get the same results.'"
The AP reports the GOP candidates met last night for a Univision sponsored Spanish-language debate at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. The candidates "sought to embrace Hispanics in a Spanish language debate Sunday, striving to mark common ground with a growing voter bloc while softening the anti-illegal immigration rhetoric that has marked their past encounters." The candidates "avoided the harsh exchanges and name-calling of their most recent debate, while still emphasizing the need for border security and an end to illegal immigration." The AP adds, "The questions were posed in Spanish by Univision anchors Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas and simultaneously translated into English for the candidates. Their responses were then simultaneously translated into Spanish for broadcast."
The New York Times also says "Republican candidates toned down their rhetoric" but still said "they would take strong measures to close off the country's borders to illegal immigration." The GOP candidates "were forced into a difficult balancing act by the debate, broadcast on Univision, as they tried to offend neither the Hispanic audience nor the Republican base many of them have tried to appeal to by taking a hard line on illegal immigration. The topic has led to some of the fiercest rhetoric in past debates." The Miami Herald also says Republicans "soft-pedaled their hard-line stances on immigration and sidestepped questions about the estimated 12 million undocumented workers already living in the United States."
The Washington Times reports John McCain and Rudy Giuliani "stood alone among the Republican presidential candidates in last night's Spanish-language debate in calling for some illegal aliens to be granted a path to citizenship." Palm Beach Post reports Giuliani, Romney, and Huckabee "said that the borders should be secured but in general did not say what they would do with the 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country. They did little to elaborate on their previous stances on the issue but avoided the sniping that took place during the previous GOP debate."
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As his campaign gains momentum, Mike Huckabee's political record is coming under scrutiny. The latest revelation: he called for those with AIDS to be isolated back in 1992. This morning, however, he's not backing off that statement. The AP reports Huckabee "said Sunday he won't run from his statement 15 years ago that AIDS patients should have been isolated. Huckabee acknowledged the prevailing scientific view then, and since, that the virus that causes AIDS is not spread through casual contact, but said that was not certain. He cited revelations in 1991 that a dentist had infected a patient in an extraordinary case that highlighted the risk of infection through contact with blood or bodily fluids."
Huckabee said on Fox News Sunday, "I didn't say that we should quarantine. I said it was the first time in public health protocols that when we had an infectious disease and we didn't really know just how extensive and how dramatic it could be and the impact of it, that we didn't isolate the carrier. The headlines yesterday started saying that I called for quarantines, which if you'll go back and read my comments, I did not. I had simply made the point, and I still believe this today, that in the late '80s and early '90s, when we didn't know as much as we do now about AIDS, we were acting more out of political correctness than we were about the normal public health protocols that we would have acted -- as we have recently, for example, with avian flu. ... I don't run from it, don't recant from it. Would I say it a little differently today? Sure, in light of 15 years of additional knowledge and understanding, I would."
The LA Times reports on its front page about Hillary Clinton's "sizable pork barrel," saying since "taking office in 2001, Clinton has delivered $500 million worth of earmarks that have specifically benefited 59 corporations. About 64% of those corporations provided funds to her campaigns through donations made by employees, executives, board members or lobbyists. ... All told, Clinton has earmarked more than $2.3 billion in federal appropriations for projects in her state since her election to the Senate, much of it for public works projects funded in conjunction" with New York Sen. Charles Schumer. Clinton "is not the biggest earmarker in Congress," but she "does significantly more earmarking than most others with her relatively low level of seniority."
A new set of polls out today from McClatchy and MSNBC shows Hillary Clinton holding narrow leads in three key early states. In Iowa, Clinton leads with 27%, followed by Barack Obama at 25% and John Edwards at 21%. In New Hampshire, Clinton leads with 30%, followed by Obama at 27% and Edwards at 10%. In South Carolina, Clinton leads with 28%, followed by Obama at 25% and Edwards at 18%. The polls were conducted from December 3-6 by Mason-Dixon and surveyed 400 likely Democratic caucus-goers or primary voters in each state. The AP also reports the numbers.
Obama Up By Six In Iowa in Newsweek Poll A Newsweek poll of 395 likely Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa, conducted December 5-6, has Obama leading with 35%, followed by Clinton, 29%; Edwards, 18%; Bill Richardson, 9%; and Joseph Biden, 4%. NBC Nightly News reported on the poll's numbers, saying the "margin of error is bigger than we're used to seeing."
Romney Still Leads In New Hampshire A new set of polls from McClatchy and MSNBC shows Mike Huckabee opening a wide lead in Iowa and edging ahead in South Carolina, while Mitt Romney still holds a solid lead in New Hampshire. Huckabee leads in Iowa with 32%, followed by Romney, 20%, and Giuliani, 11%. In New Hampshire, Romney leads with 25%, followed by Giuliani at 17% and John McCain at 16%. In South Carolina, Huckabee leads with 20%, followed by Giuliani with 17% and Romney with 15%. The polls were conducted from December 3-6 by Mason-Dixon and surveyed 400 likely GOP caucus-goers or primary voters in each state.
On NBC Nightly News (12/9, story 2, 3:15, Holt, 9.87M), Chuck Todd, NBC News political director, said, "Republican primary voters seem to still be searching for a savior. They haven't fallen in love with anybody yet. They are moving around. They are still up for grabs."
Huckabee Up 22 In Iowa In Newsweek Poll A Newsweek poll, posted on the magazine's website Friday afternoon, shows Mike Huckabee surging to a 22-point lead in the Republican presidential race in Iowa, leading Mitt Romney by more than two to one. The poll of 275 likely Republican caucus-goers, conducted December 5-6 has Huckabee at 39%, followed by Romney, 17%; Fred Thompson, 10%; Rudy Giuliani, 9%; Ron Paul, 8%; John McCain, 6%; and Tom Tancredo, 2%.
A new poll out from American Research Group shows Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton leading their respective primaries in Nevada, which holds it caucuses on January 19 under the 2008 schedule. Clinton holds a wide lead, backed by 45%, followed by Barack Obama with 18% and John Edwards with 14%. Bill Richardson, who had planned to make the state a focus of his campaign, pulls just 2% support. On the GOP side, Romney leads with 29%, followed by Mike Huckabee, 23%; Rudy Giuliani, 17%; John McCain, 7%; and Fred Thompson, 5%. Huckabee appears to be drawing his support mainly from Giuliani a similar poll in October had Giuliani leading Romney 31%-30%, with Huckabee at 2%. ARG surveyed 600 likely caucus-goers from each party from December 1-6.
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The disclosure last week that the CIA destroyed videotapes of the interrogations of some terrorism suspects has the Washington scandal machinery working in full gear once again. The tapes, which were apparently destroyed about the time of the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq, are now the subject of a Justice Department investigation. And at least one Democratic Senator, presidential candidate Joe Biden, has called for a special counsel investigation of the matter. The AP reports the Justice Department and "the CIA's internal watchdog announced Saturday a joint inquiry into the spy agency's destruction of videotaped interrogations of two suspected terrorists as the latest scandal to rock U.S. intelligence gathered steam." The Washington Post says the announcement "follows congressional demands Friday for an investigation into the CIA's action despite warnings from the White House and congressional leaders to preserve the tapes." The Los Angeles Times reports a Senate Judiciary Committee aide "said the CIA's actions could amount to obstruction of justice and false testimony to Congress -- both federal crimes -- because the agency did not turn over requested interrogation tapes to the congressionally appointed Sept. 11 commission."
On Sunday, ABC World News reported Sen. Biden is "now calling for an independent investigation into the CIA, after the agency admitted that it destroyed videotapes of Al Qaeda prisoners being interrogated." Biden: "I think this is one case where it really does call for special counsel. I think this leads right into the White House. There may be a legal and rational explanation. But I don't see any on the face of it."
The New York Times says the "announcement comes amid new questions about which officials inside the CIA were involved in the decision to destroy the videotapes, which showed severe interrogation methods used on two Qaeda suspects, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri." The Wall Street Journal reports White House spokesman Tony Fratto declined to comment, citing the pending reviews." The Christian Science Monitor says "a meeting between Justice Department officials and the CIA Inspector General's Office is expected early this week to determine if further investigation is warranted." The Chicago Tribune, meanwhile, reports GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the intelligence panel, "disagreed with the appointment of a special counsel."
USA Today /AP reports Rockefeller said on CBS's Face the Nation, "I don't think there's a need for a special counsel, and I don't think there's a need for a special commission." Rockefeller also said on CBS's Face The Nation, "Were there things on those tapes that they didn't want to have seen, that didn't conform to what the Attorney General would allow them to do? Were they just trying to bury the general subject?" The Financial Times notes "Michael Hayden, the CIA's director, has defended the tapes' destruction, saying it protected agents' identities."
Reyes Praised Rodriguez As Hero ABC World News reported "some who worked for" CIA official Jose Rodriguez, who ordered the destruction, "think he did the right thing, but many in Congress disagree." NBC Nightly News reported the "former Director of the CIA, Porter Goss, did not authorize the destruction of the videotape and wasn't happy to learn that it has happened."
But the New York Times noted that at a conference in El Paso in mid-August, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes "hailed Mr. Rodriguez's three decades of undercover work for the Central Intelligence Agency, where he recently stepped down as head of its clandestine service, and called Mr. Rodriguez an 'American hero.'" The Wall Street Journal reports Rodriguez, "who is slated to retire from the agency at the end of the year, has become a focal point in the debate over the destruction of the tapes. According to several former colleagues, his goal likely was to protect the officers who conducted the interrogations from criticism and litigation. They also described him as a cautious operator who probably would have ensured that top CIA managers knew of the plan."
Congress Didn't Object To Waterboarding Over the weekend, the Washington Post reported on the front page on a September 2002 CIA briefing for a "bipartisan group" of "four members of Congress" including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "For more than an hour, [the Members] were given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk," including waterboarding. With "one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003."
Gitmo Detainee Claims CIA Torture The New York Times reports Majid Khan, the "first of the so-called high-value Guantánamo detainees to have seen a lawyer, claims he was subjected to 'state-sanctioned torture' while in secret C.I.A. prisons, and he has asked for a court order barring the government from destroying evidence of his treatment." Khan is "a former Baltimore resident."
The Washington Post reported on its front page over the weekend that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Democrats may complete a war funding bill "without the timelines for the withdrawal of combat forces that President Bush has refused to accept" as soon as Monday. In a "complicated deal over the war funds, Democrats will include about $11 billion more in domestic spending than Bush has requested, emergency drought relief for the Southeast and legislation to address the subprime mortgage crisis, Hoyer told a meeting of the Washington Post editorial board." In a front-page story, the New York Times says an agreement "would avert the threat of a shutdown of federal agencies and end a dispute that has lasted months."
Cheney Blasts Congress On Spending Bill The AP reported Vice President Cheney "used a speech Friday at a military museum on the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack to criticize Congress for its 'irresponsible' approach to war funding." The Kansas City Star also said Cheney "called the Democratic-led Congress 'irresponsible' for its failure to pass a wartime defense bill."
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Unable to pass many of the 13 appropriations bills needed to fund the Federal Government, congressional Democrats are instead planning to consolidate the remaining bills into one "omnibus" package. While the maneuver would allow the Democrats to finally end the appropriations cycle, the White House has objected to the estimated $522 billion funding level. In addition, omnibus packages are notorious for becoming vehicles for "pork barrel" projects.
The Wall Street Journal reports that after "weeks of negotiations, the House takes up tomorrow a single government-wide spending bill that represents Democrats' last, best shot at avoiding a repeat of the budget collapse last year under Republican rule." The measure "reflects $10.6 billion in cuts from earlier House-passed spending bills," even as "new emergency funds are added for the State Department and to ease a budget strain on the Army, given the continued impasse over funding for the Iraq war." But the White House "was quick to threaten a veto even before reading it."
Roll Call, meanwhile, reports "Democrats are weighing a series of compromises that they hope will yield breakthroughs on energy, a farm bill, the alternative minimum tax and a massive omnibus spending package that seems destined to include significant war funding." The "appropriations endgame is starting to coalesce around a plan to trade funding for the war for domestic spending, although the plan still faces significant obstacles and remains far from a sure thing."
The Washington Post reported Senate Democrats "are planning a vote on a retooled energy bill late next week after they failed to muster enough support yesterday to prevent a filibuster of ambitious legislation passed by the House on Thursday." The 53-42 vote Friday fell short of the "60 votes needed to permit a vote on passage."
The Wall Street Journal reported Republican senators said the "measure's $21 billion tax package will have to be modified or removed" before 60 votes can be reached. The Washington Times called the failed vote "a blow to one of the Democrats' major priorities this year."
The Politico says Vice President Dick Cheney set Capitol Hill abuzz on Thursday when he claimed that House Democratic leaders have been 'surprisingly supine: 'They are not carrying the big sticks I would have expected.'" Cheney added "that when he served in the House, 'We would not have had a Speaker who, from my perspective, is that far out of the sort of mainstream - she is a San Francisco Democrat, certainly entitled to her views, but able to dictate policy as effectively as she apparently does to the rest of the caucus.'" Pelosi said, "It's so beneath the dignity of his office - and mine - that I don't even want to address it."
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The late night shows continue to be in reruns due to the ongoing writers' strike.
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