Here are seven articles from both the US and international media about the US Presidential race. Highlights of each article provided with a link to the full article.
Obama Leads Among White Independents
By David Paul Kuhn writing for Politico.
Barack Obama has taken a slight lead with white independent voters for the first time in the presidential race, positioning him to capture a key demographic group that has eluded recent Democratic nominees, according to a Politico analysis of independent voting patterns.
According to Gallup’s weekly average of some 6,400 registered voters, Obama now holds a 45 percent-43 percent edge over Republican John McCain with white independents. About eight in 10 independents are white.
Should Obama’s support hold, he is positioned to become the first Democrat to win white independents in a two-man race since the advent of exit polling.
As recently as last week, McCain led within this group by eight percentage points. His lead was as high as 16 points in mid-September, in the week before the stock market’s first meltdown.
Pelosi Predicts 250-seat Democratic majority
By Alexander Bolton in The Hill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says Democrats will expand their majority to 250 seats in the House next year and might have gone further if the party had more money.
Pelosi’s claim to talk show host Charlie Rose — that resources are the only obstacle holding the party back in the fall elections — is surprising given that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has raised $120 million, or nearly $30 million more than the House Republican fundraising committee.
Obama Ahead in Critical Counties
By Alexander Burns writing for Politico.
Sen. Barack Obama holds leads in four key counties that will go a long way toward determining the eventual winner in four important swing states — Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia — according to a new Politico/Insider Advantage survey.
Obama is poised to expand on recent Democratic gains in three populous suburban counties — Pennsylvania’s Bucks County, Missouri’s St. Louis County and Virginia’s Prince William County. In a fourth, Ohio’s Franklin County, home to Columbus and its suburbs, the survey also found Obama with the lead.
Colin Powell Expected to Endorse Obama
By Ewan MacAskill in the UK Guardian.
Powell, a four-star general who worked closely with three Republican presidents, said he would decide between Obama and John McCain, a long-time friend, after watching the presidential debates, the last of which was held on Wednesday.
His endorsement would be the biggest Obama has secured so far. As a prominent member of President George Bush’s administration, he may shift some Republican-leaning voters into Obama’s camp.
McCain’s campaign team admitted privately it would be a blow, not least because it would be another day in which Obama dominated the news. But Democratic strategists are divide about the benefits. One said yesterday he was concerned it could backfire. He suggested that Powell’s decision might be seen as being based on racial solidarity and that could alienate some white voters already reluctant to back Obama on grounds of race.
McCain Forced to Fight for Virginia
By Michael D. Shear and Amy Gardner in the Washington Post.
In his quest to win the Old Dominion, Obama is trying to end 44 years of Republican dominance and become the first Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson to carry the state. McCain’s challenge is more immediate, as he has less than three weeks to reverse polls that show a trend against him.
By every organizational measure, Obama’s campaign appears to have the advantage — it has nearly three times as many offices, has contacted tens of thousands more potential supporters, and has helped register nearly half a million new voters this year, most of whom state officials believe favor the Democrat.
But Virginia remains a state with strong conservative tendencies, and it is unclear whether a majority will pull the lever for a Democrat whom McCain has derided as having “the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate.” A key to a McCain comeback will be whether Republicans have built a strong enough get-out-the-vote operation in a state where none has ever been needed, something many party leaders question.
FBI Investigates Voter Registration Fraud Allegations
By Tom Leonard in the UK Telegraph.
The bureau’s entry into the controversy over the Association of Community Organisations for Reform Now (Acorn) has racheted up the potential electoral mileage that the Republicans can make from it.
Mr Obama had dealings with Acorn in his days as a community organiser in Chicago. He helped it and other organisations register voters in 1992 and last year praised it for being “smack dab in the middle” of increasing voter participation.
Acorn, which endorsed the Illinois senator, has led a campaign to encourage voter registration among poor, young and black people. It has used around 13,000 canvassers to sign up 1.3 million new voters so far – most of whom tend to be Democrats.
But some Acorn employees have been accused of submitting false voter registration forms, including at least one signed Mickey Mouse and others simply made up or taken from the phone book.
Those voter registration cards have become the focus of fraud investigations in nearly a dozen states including Nevada, Connecticut and Missouri.
Without providing details, FBI officials confirmed it had raided Acorn offices in several states and was looking for any evidence of a co-ordinated national fraud.
Hank Williams Jr. Joining Palin for Colorado Trip
By Sarah Burnett in the Rocky Mountain News.
Gov. Sarah Palin will be joined in Colorado on Monday by country music singer Hank Williams Jr., who has retooled his classic “Family Tradition” into an ode to Palin and Sen. John McCain.
Williams Jr. has been performing at campaign events recently, singing the national anthem and then firing up the crowd with the new version of his song, “McCain-Palin Tradition.”
In the original, Williams Jr. took on critics who compared him to his father. The chorus included the lyrics “Why do you drink?” and “Why do you roll smoke?”
The new lyrics take on the “left-wing liberal media” and Democrats, with veiled references to Sen. Barack Obama.
The chorus now includes the lines “John and Sarah tell ya just what they think, and they’re not gonna blink” and “Why do you hunt? John, why do you fish?”