John McCain

Early Voting Exit Polls 2008: See Full Results on Presidential Election

Posted by Iflove Featured Stories on November 4, 2008 at 8:25 pm

Early Voting Exit Polls 2008: See Full Results on Presidential Election. For those looking to get details on the early voting exit polls in 2008 and the U.S. Presidential election results, then you have come to the right place.

What are Exit polls? These are surveys that are taken when a voter leaves their voting place; it’s taken from just a small percentage of voters and as such can only be taken lightly. With the actual result in elections taking hours to count, these polls help voters get news on how things are shaping.

In a matter of hours, you are going to start hearing talk of exit polls. We are going to post them ourselves, right here, in this entry.
But, before you get ahead of yourself, there’s a question that needs to be asked: Should you trust the exit polling data? The short answer is: No. The longer answer is: Noooooooooooo. Right now, if there’s one memory that remains — stinging.

A lot of people in here are very…ummm…. passionate.
I do agree with Dave par on the point that some of Obama’s ideas are socialist. However, I think Obama’s heart is in the right place, and the things he wants to accomplish are good things. The reason I did not vote for Obama is because having hopes and dreams is not a qualification to become president. You need to have the knowledge and experience to fulfill Americans hopes and dreams.

I too, want to see fewer people losing their homes. But I do not believe in taking money from someone who has more wealth, via luck or hard work, to pay for someone elses poor luck or poor choices. I do not believe anyone has the right to decide who is and who is not worthy to suceed in life.
Obama’s ideals are just that…IDEAL. They would work in a perfect world full of perfect people, but this world is far from perfect, and we people are full of flaws.

This is why I voted for McCain, not because I believe no one else in the world could do a better job, but because I believe he can do a better job than the Obama of today. Should Obama run again, with more experience under his belt and a better understanding of humanities limitations I may just vote for him.

Early Voting Exit Polls 2008: See Full Results on Presidential Election. For those looking to get details on the early voting exit polls in 2008 and the U.S. Presidential election results, then you have come to the right place. Editing by Bob Jones

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Paid GOP Employees Complain they misled Wisconsin voters

Posted by Iflove Featured Stories on November 4, 2008 at 9:40 am

Paid GOP workers say they misled Wis. voters. News from MADISON, Wis. – Four employees hired by a temporary staffing agency to encourage absentee voting for Republican presidential candidate John McCain say they were instructed to tell people they were GOP volunteers.

Kevin Kennedy, director of the state’s Government Accountability Board, said he received complaints that the workers were told to mislead voters into believing they were volunteers. The complaints have been forwarded to local district attorneys, he said, but it’s unclear whether the alleged deception would be a crime.

The employees told The Associated Press on Monday they were hired by Allstaff Labor Group to go door to door in the Milwaukee suburbs locating McCain supporters and distributing absentee ballot request forms. Allstaff recruited them under a contract with a consulting firm hired by the Republican Party of Wisconsin to run its absentee ballot program.

The workers claim they were told to say they were GOP volunteers even though they were getting paid $10 an hour. They were required to sign agreements stating they would not publicly discuss their work but said they decided to speak out because they were angry they had not been paid for the last few days. They claim they are owed between $200 and $300.

GOP spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski confirmed there was a dispute over how many hours the employees worked and said the party’s vendor was working to resolve it.

She said the workers spent three weeks distributing the forms to McCain supporters around the state. The program’s managers were instructed to “accurately represent the program” to the workers, Kukowski said.

The paid employees, who were working at GOP offices alongside volunteers, may have picked up scripts intended for volunteers, she said.

“We did not instruct them to misrepresent themselves,” Kukowski wrote in an e-mail.

Allstaff representatives did not return phone messages seeking comment.

The agency was only one of many hired by GOP consulting firm Lincoln Strategy Group to run the party’s absentee ballot request distribution program.

“I told the Republican Party and Allstaff I wanted to know why we were lying to these residents,” said Loyalty Dixon, 26, who worked in Waukesha for about two weeks. “I said, `Isn’t that fraudulent?’ They didn’t give me a good explanation. They said, `You guys know you’re getting paid. Don’t worry about it.’”

She recalled getting praised by people for being a McCain supporter. Some even asked whether she was getting paid, she said.

“We had to lie to these people and say we were volunteers,” she said.

Three other employees shared similar stories.

“They had us say, `I’m volunteering for the Republican Party of Wisconsin,” said Marquis Mayes, 23. “I asked them, why would we say we were volunteers and we’re not? They didn’t have an answer for that.”

Paid GOP workers say they misled Wis. voters. News from MADISON, Wis. – Four employees hired by a temporary staffing agency to encourage absentee voting for Republican presidential candidate John McCain say they were instructed to tell people they were GOP volunteers.

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Obama votes as voters line up to cast ballots

Posted by Iflove Featured Stories on November 4, 2008 at 9:24 am

Obama votes as voters line up to cast ballots. News details: Democrat Barack Obama joined the nation’s earliest voters Tuesday as people around the nation began lining up to cast ballots in a historic election pitting Republican John McCain against the man seeking to become the first black president in U.S. history.

“I voted,” Obama said, holding up the validation slip he was handed after turning in a ballot at his Chicago neighborhood’s precinct. Accompanying the Illinois senator for the trip from their home to the polling station were his wife, Michelle, and their two young daughters. He planned a final campaign event in nearby Indiana before speaking to a massive evening rally in Chicago.

In Delaware, Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden went to the polls with his elderly mother.

McCain was expected to vote later in the morning in Arizona before taking a last-minute trek to Colorado and New Mexico.

McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, arrived in Anchorage overnight to wait for polls to open in her hometown of Wasilla. She was to return to the airport to fly to Phoenix to join McCain in time to watch results come in.

Although the path to an Electoral College triumph appeared narrow for McCain — polls showed Obama with an advantage in many of the battleground states they have contested in the campaign’s final weeks — the Arizona senator remained hopeful for a surprise victory.

“I think these battleground states have now closed up, almost all of them, and I believe there’s a good scenario where we can win,” McCain told CBS’ “The Early Show” in an interview broadcast Tuesday.

“Look, I know I’m still the underdog, I understand that,” McCain said. “You can’t imagine, you can’t imagine the excitement of an individual to be this close to the most important position in the world, and I’ll enjoy it, enjoy it. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.”

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said he was confident that new voters and young voters would fuel an enormous turnout to benefit the Illinois senator.

“We just want to make sure people turn out,” Plouffe told “Today” on NBC. “We think we have enough votes around the country.”

Standing in line in one of the battleground states, Ahmed Bowling of Alexandria, Va., said the election “will mark a significant change in the lives of all Americans, and so we do have to come out as early as possible to cast our votes.”

In Brooklyn, N.Y., 49-year-old Venus Kevin said the line at her precinct was “already down the block and around the corner” when she arrived shortly before 6 a.m. EST.

“Obama is the man,” said Kevin, who is black. “His message and his vision has reached a lot of people, not just African-Americans.”

The contest put the 47-year-old Obama, a first-term Illinois senator who rocketed to stardom on the power of his oratory and a call for change, against the 72-year-old McCain, a 26-year lawmaker whose mettle was tested during 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

“I’m feeling kind of fired up. I’m feeling like I’m ready to go,” Obama told nearly 100,000 people gathered for his final rally Monday night in Virginia.

“At this defining moment in history, Virginia, you can give this country the change it needs,” Obama said to voters in a state that hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential nominee in 44 years.

The Illinois senator’s final day of campaigning was bittersweet: He was mourning the loss of his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who helped raise him. She died of cancer Sunday night, never to see the results of the election.

Obama votes as voters line up to cast ballots. News details: Democrat Barack Obama joined the nation’s earliest voters Tuesday as people around the nation began lining up to cast ballots in a historic election pitting Republican John McCain against the man seeking to become the first black president in U.S. history. Editing by Christina Charles

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Presidential Debate: Barack Obama and John McCain in denial about National Debt, Economists say

Posted by Iflove Featured Stories on October 23, 2008 at 1:41 am

Presidential Debate: Barack Obama and John McCain in denial about National Debt, Economists say. Barack Obama and John McCain gesture toward moderator Bob Schieffer at their third and final debate, at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. on October 15.

The nation faces massive shortfalls over the next several years no matter who is elected president, experts say. A bipartisan watchdog group says both candidates’ plans would add to the national debt.

Reporting from Washington — Despite harsh scrutiny from economic analysts, Barack Obama and John McCain remain reluctant to admit what is becoming obvious — that the nation’s economic crisis will take a heavy toll on their ambitious tax and spending plans.

On his website, Obama says the nation’s debt is a “hidden domestic enemy” that he pledges to combat. But in recent days, the Illinois senator and his economic advisors have begun to gingerly inch toward an acknowledgment that the rising costs of the Wall Street rescue plan and his promises of middle-class tax relief and other initiatives are likely to lead to a spike in deficit spending over the next several years.

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During the final presidential debate, Obama repeated his analogy of using a “scalpel” to offset his spending initiatives with budget cuts. But the Democrat warned of the limited choices facing the next occupant of the White House.

Obama’s chief economic advisor, Jason Furman, was more explicit during a conference call this week. “The top priority would be to avoid a deep recession,” he said — suggesting a strategy that could require costly efforts to jump-start the economy.

McCain has not budged from his insistence that he can balance the budget within four years. The Republican Arizona senator has said his plans for new corporate tax cuts would be offset by an across-the-board spending freeze.

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But a growing number of economists, including some free-market-oriented experts, say the nation faces massive deficits over the next several years no matter who is elected president.

“Both candidates have a deficit problem that neither of them wants to admit,” said J.D. Foster, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington. “They’re relying on an awful lot of hand-waving to get budget-neutral, but I think it’s pretty clear that either of them will be constrained at least over the next two years by pressure to fix the economy.”

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated recently that the $700-billion economic rescue plan aimed at salvaging the troubled U.S. banking system would push the nation’s deficit to more than $1 trillion in the coming fiscal year.

That would be a huge increase from the $482 billion that the White House projected this summer, which itself would be a record.

Facing such a steep wall of debt at the same time the economy is teetering would hamstring any immediate efforts to balance the budget, leading economists predict.

“It’s highly likely we’re already in a recession,” said Alan J. Auerbach, director of the Robert D. Burch Center for Tax Policy and Public Finance at UC Berkeley.

“That suggests policies aimed at short-term help for the economy will have much greater importance than concern about the deficit.”

Free-market advocate Alan D. Viard, a former senior Federal Reserve Bank economist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, agreed that “in either case you will have demands on government resources that will crowd out the amount of money available — whether it’s for reducing tax rates, as McCain wants, or adding programs, as Obama wants.”

And even long-term prospects appear bleak that either McCain or Obama could easily regain control over the deficit — assuming they hold fast to the tax and spending proposals they continue to defend on the campaign trail.

The Congressional Budget Office predicts a deficit of $147 billion in 2013.

That estimate does not account for the massive bank rescue package and the earlier bailouts of investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. and insurance firm American International Group Inc. — deals that could provide a healthy return to U.S. taxpayers or could worsen the nation’s long-term debt.

In a recent study, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget laid out how much the presidential candidates’ spending and tax-cut proposals would add to the federal deficit in 2013.

McCain’s proposals for major new corporate tax cuts and other expenditures would add $211 billion to the $147-billion projected deficit, said Maya MacGuineas, president of the watchdog group.

Obama would raise the CBO’s projected deficit by even more — by $286 billion — if the government adopted his program of middle-class tax cuts, a healthcare insurance program, and boosted energy and infrastructure funding, MacGuineas said.

Those estimates do not include the newly tweaked efforts by both candidates to provide an economic stimulus package.

Obama recently pressed a $60-billion plan of middle-class tax cuts and public works jobs, while McCain countered with a $52.5-billion proposal that included deeper capital gains tax cuts and loosened rules for withdrawing money from retirement accounts.

In the face of those projections, determination to rein in deficit spending will not be enough, said Rudolph G. Penner, who was director of the CBO in the mid-1980s.

“The promises of both candidates are in serious trouble,” said Penner, who is with the centrist Urban Institute, a nonpartisan research center on social and economic policy.

“Both of them are already underwater about the deficits they would face even without the bailout,” he said. “And with the bailout, it’s clear they will have to adjust their promises. But we’re not hearing anything close to that from either of them.”

Presidential Debate: Barack Obama and John McCain in denial about National Debt, Economists say. Barack Obama and John McCain gesture toward moderator Bob Schieffer at their third and final debate, at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. on October 15.

Presidential Debate: Barack Obama and John McCain in denial about Deficit, Economists say. Barack Obama and John McCain gesture toward moderator Bob Schieffer at their third and final debate, at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. on October 15. The nation faces massive shortfalls over the next several years no matter who is elected president, experts say. A bipartisan watchdog group says both candidates’ plans would add to the national debt. Editing by Josephine Charles

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Barack Obama takes advantage of big shot, a big guy called Colin Powell

Posted by Iflove Featured Stories on October 20, 2008 at 9:28 am

Barack Obama takes advantage of big shot, a big guy called Colin Powell: IN FAYETTEVILLE, N.C.: Barack Obama meets restaurant patrons in traditionally GOP territory. “We’re not separated by the pro-America and anti-America part of this country. We all love this country,” he told more than 10,000 at the city’s sports arena.

News of the Republican’s endorsement and a record $150 million raised in a month propel the Democrat as he campaigns in GOP country.

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Barack Obama strongly boosted his presidential prospects on Sunday, winning the coveted endorsement of former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and ringing up a staggering $150 million in contributions in a single month of fundraising.

The endorsement from one of the country’s most respected statesman-soldiers enhances Obama’s credibility on national security issues, and his huge cash haul allows him to extend his crucial advantage on the television airwaves.

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It was not a great surprise that retired four-star Gen. Colin Powell, the first secretary of State in George W. Bush’s administration, endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president today. He had served…

The Illinois senator’s showing came as he continued to drive deep into Republican territory, stumping in North Carolina, which has not backed a Democrat for president since 1976.

“I think he is a transformational figure. He is a new generation . . . coming onto the world stage, onto the American stage; and for that reason, I’ll be voting for Sen. Barack Obama,” Powell said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”

Given his credentials — as secretary of State for President Bush, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Bush’s father, and national security advisor to President Reagan — Powell’s vote of confidence may allay concerns about Obama’s readiness to be commander in chief, one of the Republicans’ primary lines of attack.

“What that just did in one sound bite — and I assume that sound bite will end up in an ad — is it eliminated the experience argument,” former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on ABC’s “This Week.”

For all its potency, however, Powell’s endorsement may have been only the second most important political development of the day, coming hours after the Obama campaign announced its latest fundraising total in an e-mail to supporters.

The $150-million figure shattered the previous monthly record and, combined with the $49.5 million raised by the Democratic Party in September, gives Obama a gargantuan financial advantage over McCain with just more than two weeks to go in the race.

“Presidential campaigns are about making tough decisions with limited resources,” said University of Wisconsin political scientist Ken Goldstein, who tracks presidential campaign spending on television. “Obama doesn’t need to make tough decisions.”

Indeed, Obama has used his riches to mount serious challenges in such traditional GOP strongholds as Indiana, Nevada, Virginia and here in North Carolina, where polls show the race essentially even.

Obama has a significant cash advantage over McCain, who accepted $84.1 million in federal funding for the fall campaign and can spend no more than that amount. Obama had initially said he would accept public financing if McCain did, but changed his mind after his strong fundraising performance in the primaries.

By opting out of the government financing system — and becoming the first major-party candidate to do so since it was set up in 1976 — Obama is free to raise and spend unlimited sums. Overall, Obama has raised a record $605 million for his campaign.

Powell, 71, who once considered a history-making bid to become America’s first black president himself, said he reached this decision after closely observing Obama and McCain over the last two months.

He said the GOP nominee did not seem to grasp the depth of the global financial crisis and appeared to offer shifting solutions to it.

He called Alaska Gov. Palin “a distinguished woman,” but added, “I don’t believe she’s ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president.”

Powell expressed disappointment at the tone of McCain’s campaign, saying the Arizona senator and GOP operatives were resorting to “demagoguery” in their portrayal of Obama’s dealings with William Ayers, a Vietnam-era radical who is now an education professor. The two men are not close, but have served together on civic boards in Chicago.

“It isn’t easy for me to disappoint Sen. McCain in the way that I have this morning, and I regret that,” Powell said, adding that the two Vietnam veterans had known each other for 25 years. “But I strongly believe that at this point in America’s history, we need a president . . . who will not just continue, basically, the policies that we have been following in recent years.”

Obama acknowledged Powell’s support at a rally in Fayetteville. “I have been honored to have the benefit of his wisdom and his counsel from time to time over the last few years, but today I am beyond honored,” he said.

McCain said he was not surprised by Powell’s decision. “We have a respectful disagreement,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Obama’s tactical advantage was evident from Sunday’s light schedule: a lone event in a state that he does not need to win. Appearing at Fayetteville’s sports arena, Obama laced into McCain, summoning some of the high-flown rhetoric that helped launch the Democrat’s national rise. And, in a rare mention, he attacked McCain’s running mate.

Republican John McCain campaigned Sunday in must-win Ohio, where polls show a close race, and spent part of the day defending running mate Sarah Palin’s qualifications on national television and in a call with Jewish leaders.

The day’s main stage, however, was a TV studio in Washington, where the retired four-star Army general ended months of speculation by crossing party lines to support Obama, who is vying to become the nation’s first African American president.

Barack Obama takes advantage of big shot, a big guy called Colin Powell: IN FAYETTEVILLE, N.C.: Barack Obama meets restaurant patrons in traditionally GOP territory. “We’re not separated by the pro-America and anti-America part of this country. We all love this country,” he told more than 10,000 at the city’s sports arena. News of the Republican’s endorsement and a record $150 million raised in a month propel the Democrat as he campaigns in GOP country. FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Barack Obama strongly boosted his presidential prospects on Sunday, winning the coveted endorsement of former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and ringing up a staggering $150 million in contributions in a single month of fundraising. Editing by Alice Lee

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