2008 US Presidential Election.

WASHINGTON - Democratic Sen. Barack Obama is asking whether he can take money from donors who want him to be president, then give it back later.

The Federal Election Commission said Wednesday that it will look into the novel question.

Obama is indicating that he wants to at least keep the option of using the public financing system for his presidential campaign if he becomes the Democratic nominee. To do so, the Illinois senator could not spend any money from contributors for political purposes, but instead use federal funding that is expected to total about $85 million for next year’s general election.

“Senator Obama has long been a proponent of public financing of campaigns and we are asking the FEC to take a step that could preserve the public financing option for the party’s nominees,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.

The State Journal-Register

Under mounting political pressure in New Hampshire to vote against President Bush’s proposed increase to troop levels in Iraq, U.S. Sen. John Sununu yesterday said he remains uncertain what measures he would ultimately support on the Senate floor.

And the New Hampshire Republican, who has said the United States made significant mistakes after ousting Saddam Hussein in 2003, said he does not know now if his 2002 vote to support the invasion of Iraq was the proper course.

“I can’t answer that question. I don’t know what the answer to that question is or should be,” Sununu said yesterday in a telephone interview. “Knowing what I knew at the time, given what information, and that’s the real issue, given the information that was available at the time, the decision was made to take Saddam Hussein from power.

“I think in the long run the Iraqi people are better off for that, but that doesn’t change the fact that very significant mistakes were made, bad choices were made, that have made the process of establishing security and bringing U.S. troops home more difficult.”

Sununu, a first-term Republican who is up for re-election in 2008, drew Democrats’ ire earlier this week when he and most of his GOP colleagues voted to prevent the Senate from considering a resolution opposing the White Houses plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq.

concord monitor

Congress has no more important function than controlling the nation’s purse strings. That is, of course, when it chooses to fulfill that duty – which recently has been more than a bit haphazard.

Last year it failed to pass nine of the 11 annual money measures, relying instead on a string of temporary resolutions to fund the government.

There is only one problem with this, folks. These measures had become incubators for much of the corruption that has marred the Washington political scene the last few years.

The resolutions were loaded with so-called “earmarks” – anonymously sponsored – that have cost taxpayers billions and billions of dollars for pet projects like the infamous bridge to nowhere in Alaska. This distortion of the budgetary process has reached such embarrassing levels that the Democrats, who now control Congress, have pledged to reform it.

How bad is it?

nashua telegraph

DON’T look now, but the 2008 U.S. presidential election race has bolted out of the starting blocks, almost 22 months before voters head to the polls.

Observers say this could be the longest – and, at estimates ranging up to $1 billion US, most expensive – presidential election campaign in American history. For the first time in 80 years, no incumbents will be running. That means a wide-open field of candidates – front-runners, interesting possibilities, long shots and dreamers – from both major parties are, officially or not, eyeing a run for a seat in the world’s most powerful office.

With embattled President George W. Bush stepping down after two terms, and Vice-President Dick Cheney declaring emphatically that he will not run, Republicans can offer no obvious heir apparent.

The Chronicle Herald

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will be the Democratic candidate for president, according to an online survey.

While the 2008 presidential race remains a wide-open field, many high-profile names, as well as some newcomers are gaining attention. Some of the people listed have formally announced a presidential bid, while others test the waters.

Memphis Business Journal’s unscientific poll, which received 373 responses, found that 41 percent of our online readers think the Democratic Party will pick the former First Lady to run for presidency.

Our respondents were asked to indicate who they think will become the forerunner, regardless of what they think of the person’s qualifications.

Memphis Business Journal

The race for the 2008 presidential election promises to be a long, mud-spattered haul. The early start and crowded gate means candidates will have to raise tens of millions of dollars this year alone just to lift their heads above the hurtling pack.

Are Americans ready for 22 months of campaign jockeying? We asked readers recently if the long contest would benefit the country, or if the intense competition for face time and money is too much, too soon.

courant

WASHINGTON — It’s the question everyone’s asking: are Americans ready to put a woman or a black man in the Oval Office?

If the polls are right, the answers are encouraging for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, frontrunners in the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

In a CBS News poll this week, 92 per cent of Americans said they’d vote for a woman from their own political party if she’s qualified. A smaller number, 55 per cent, said they think the United States is prepared to elect a woman.

The London Free Press

Heritage Foundation | February 8, 2007

In matters of strategy, thought should always precede action. To its credit, the Bush Administration took on drafting a homeland security strategy as one of its first tasks after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. The result has been a national effort that has, for the most part, neither veered into indifference nor careened into overreaction. It has made Americans safer. In particular, the Administration’s commitment to homeland security spending has, for the most part, been responsible and appropriate. The President’s proposed 2008 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) budget follows in that tradition. Congress should give it serious consideration.

frontpagemag

After two days of debate, a bill that details the creation of small school districts passed in the Senate on Wednesday.
SB30 now moves on to the House for approval.
An amendment to the bill also gained the Senate’s approval and will allow constituents to vote on the issue in 2007, rather than in 2008.
“There’s plenty of time for us to have additional bites of the apple on this before this could possibly become effective,” said Sen. Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, who sponsored the amendment.
Senators on Tuesday had approved an amendment by one vote that put the vote in the 2008 election, when bigger items would be on the ballot. The change concerned numerous city leaders, many of whom have moved ahead with feasibility studies to determine if it’s effective for them to split from their current massive school districts and form a smaller, locally controlled district.

Deseret News

Ever since losing the 2000 presidential election, former Vice President Al Gore has been trying to educate the public on “global climate change” and its potential dangers.

He has toured the world giving his presentation on global warming, and in 2006 his presentation was made into a documentary called “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Gore has garnered a lot of attention for his controversial documentary in which he outlines how greenhouse gas emissions have caused the global climate to heat up and, if not addressed, could result in disaster.

The documentary was recently nominated for an Oscar, and last week Gore was nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Daily Reveille

WASHINGTON - The chairwoman of a U.S. Senate committee called on two federal agencies Wednesday to examine the voting machines used in last year’s disputed Sarasota congressional election.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, is asking the General Accountability Office and the National Institute of Standards and Technology to conduct “top to bottom investigation” of the machines in Sarasota County.

St. Petersburg Times