Network Anchors Will Travel With Obama To Europe and Middle East – Michelle Will Stay Home

   Senator John McCain’s trip to Iraq last spring was a low-key affair with his ordinary entourage of reporters following him abroad.  NBC News anchor Brian Williams reported on his arrival in Baghdad from New York, with just two sentences tacked onto the “in other political news” portion of his newscast.

But when Mr. Obama heads for Iraq and other locations overseas this summer, Mr. Williams is planning to catch up with him in person, as are the other two evening news anchors, Charles Gibson of ABC and Katie Couric of CBS, who, like Mr. Williams, are far along in discussions to interview Mr. Obama on successive nights.

And while the anchors are jockeying for interviews with Mr. Obama at stops along his route, the regulars on the Obama campaign plane will have new seat mates: star political reporters from the major newspapers and magazines who are flocking to catch Mr. Obama’s first overseas trip since becoming the presumptive nominee of his party.

The extraordinary coverage of Mr. Obama’s trip reflects how the candidate remains an object of fascination in the news media, a built-in feature of being the first African-American presidential nominee for a major political party and a relative newcomer to the national stage.

As for the heavy coverage planned for Mr. Obama’s upcoming trip, news executives said in interviews that, once again, the Democratic candidate was potentially benefiting from being a newer, untested politician. To that end, his first visit overseas since becoming the party’s presumptive nominee would be an opportunity for voters to see how Mr. Obama handles one of their major concerns: his ability to handle national security matters and foreign affairs.

“If this was John McCain’s first trip to the war zone, that would be a story and we would cover it big time,” said Paul Friedman, the senior vice president of CBS News. “This is Senator Obama’s first trip — his positions and the public’s perception of him on national security issues are important.”

Mr. Friedman said Mr. McCain and the Republicans have helped make the visit a bigger story because they have repeatedly questioned Mr. Obama’s credentials, keeping a running count of the number of days that have passed since Mr. Obama last visited Iraq, in 2006.

Hillary Clinton Distances Herself From Hillraisers

  This is a very insightful article. 

Some former top Hillary Clinton fundraisers have received attention in recent days for thus far declining to help bundle donations for Barack Obama. But none of those figures was actively working against Obama’s candidacy. Ricki Lieberman is another matter.

Also a former Clinton “Hillraiser” (meaning she raised more than $100,000 for the campaign), Lieberman is keeping her own private hope alive with a daily email blast to supporters, entitled “Electability Watch,” which features a cascade of negative articles and other items about Obama as a means to argue that superdelegates should change their minds in Denver and crown Clinton the nominee instead. A tipster who described them as “disgusting” sent a batch of recent “Electability Watch” emails to the Huffington Post. Their authenticity was confirmed in a phone conversation with Ms. Lieberman, who said her only desire is to “see a Democratic president in the White House” next year.

Any Democrat, perhaps, except Barack Obama — or “BO aka Bush 3,” as Lieberman repeatedly refers to him. The emails sometimes go out of their way to parrot some of the most hardcore attacks on Obama, including comments comparing Obama’s planned nomination speech to Nazi-era rallies in Germany. In one email, she quotes messages from apparent Holocaust survivors:

I have heard from many Survivors and their children about the symbolism and implications of use of rules to undermine our core democratic values. Ellen Mendel wrote that “I was born under Hitler in Germany, and reading about the plans for the Obama throng in the stadium in Denver and the implications which have been spelled out, gives me the chills…the DNC will deliver the country to Obama on a platter. I wonder when it will hit them what pawns they have been in this Faustian tragedy.

                                                                          
Another, “As someone who escaped from France during WW ll, I hope that I’m not being over dramatic when I’m more than uneasy with stuff like Obama’s possible Denver stadium theatrics and the calibrated negotiations going on about the convention.”

Other emails from Lieberman cite Obama’s “alliances with a cast of characters include Louis Farrakhan,” and urge people to contact the German embassy to protest “Obama’s grandiose, inappropriate hope” to speak at the Brandenburg Gate.

In an interview, Lieberman said it is incumbent upon the party’s superdelegates to take another cold, hard look at which candidate will be more electable in the fall. Given that neither Obama nor Clinton managed to win enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination, a switch from Obama to Clinton is a technical possibility that nevertheless seems highly improbable.

 

Read the rest of this article by Seth Colter Walls at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/16/clinton-distances-herself_n_113094.html

Advertising Brouhaha At ‘The New Yorker’ Because Of Obama ‘Satire’ Cover

Will there be a financial back-lash against The New Yorker?

As it turns out, it might not be just the Obama campaign that’s bent out of shape over this week’s cover of The New Yorker.

Rumors have swirled inside Condé Nast that advertisers also were upset with the latest rhubarb, which depicts Barack Obama in Muslim garb and wife Michelle as a machine gun-toting radical.

Publisher Drew Schutte said he has indeed heard from people, but as far as he knows, none of them has been an advertiser – only disgruntled readers.

“Our numbers are the first telephone numbers listed in the magazine, so we’re probably getting a lot of the calls,” he said of the angry calls that have reached the ad sales department.

Asked how many angry calls had poured in, Schutte said he had no way of gauging.

While this type of controversy is the last thing a publisher needs in these troubled times, certainly if it gives advertisers pause, the timing is especially bad for The New Yorker.

The magazine is now among the most troubled magazines at Condé Nast, and it remains to be seen if the current controversy upsets the title’s tenuous hold on profitability.

Through the July 7 issue, The New Yorker is down a staggering 21.2 percent in ad pages to 699.69, compared with the same period a year ago, when it racked up 887, according to Media Industry Newsletter, which tracks the industry.

The magazine, whose parent company is S.I. Newhouse’s Advance Publications, was estimated to have lost more than $175 million under his ownership before it finally turned a slight profit in 2002, when David Carey was publisher. At that time, it was pulling in about 2,200 ad pages a year.

Despite the uproar, embattled Editor-in-Chief David Remnick is garnering support from his immediate predecessor, Tina Brown.

“I thought it was a perfectly justifiable decision,” said Brown of the cover.

“I personally like it when magazines take on the issues of the day.”

Author: Keith Kelly/NY Post

Read entire article:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07162008/business/inside_the_cover_story_120153.htm

 

 

McCain Blasted For Opposing Gay Adoption

  Does John McCain prefer to see children move from foster home to foster home or live in a group home versus a stable loving environment?  I thought the goal was for children to find a home with people who will love and nurture them and not hurt or abuse them? Does McCain think it’s better for these children to have an unstable life?

Advocates for gay and lesbian families are denouncing John McCain, an adoptive father himself, for opposing adoptions by gays, which prompted his presidential campaign to clarify Tuesday that he does not seek a federal ban on the practice.

Only one state, Florida, outlaws gay adoptions, which have become commonplace in much of the nation.

McCain was asked for his views on the subject in an interview published Sunday in The New York Times.

“I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don’t believe in gay adoption,” McCain replied.

Ever Use Birth Control? Planned Parenthood Ad Exposes McCain’s Position

Planned Parenthood Action Fund is launching a new ad Wednesday in crucial battleground states set to highlight a campaign trail moment John McCain would rather soon forget.

The 30-second spot aimed at women voters shows McCain’s apparent unease when a reporter asked him last week whether it was unfair that some insurance plans covered Viagra and not birth control.

“Ever use birth control? Then you’ll want to hear this,” the ad’s narrator states before a flustered McCain is shown saying, “I don’t know enough about it to give you an informed answer.”

Planned Parenthood spokesman Tait Sye says the ad will run in Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C. during television programs popular with women — including Wednesday’s season premier of “Project Runway” and “Army Wives” on Lifetime. It will also air during Oprah in some markets.

McCain: Top Fundraisers Are Lobbyists – Shows Him The Money

  Senator John McCain released an updated list of his top money collectors on Tuesday, revealing that nearly a fifth of those who have brought in the largest amounts for him, more than $500,000 each, are lobbyists or work for firms that engage in lobbying.  This will give us some indication of who will pull his strings and seek favors and ambassadorships if he’s elected. 

Mr. McCain added more than 400 names to an existing list of just more than 100 elite fund-raisers that his campaign first posted on its Web site in April. The campaign had promised to update the list regularly, but The New York Times reported last week that both Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Senator Barack Obama of had not been living up to promises to fully disclose the identities of those who “bundle” millions of dollars in campaign contributions for them.

Mr. Obama, who first posted a list of his top fund-raisers early last year, added more than 180 names last week to his bundler list after an inquiry from The Times, leaving him with a tally of more than 500 people who have collected more than $50,000 each for him.

In his disclosure on Tuesday, Mr. McCain went further than Mr. Obama, specifying which people have raised more than $500,000 for him — Obama’s highest category remains $200,000 and above. Mr. McCain also lists the occupations and employers for each of his top fund-raisers — those who raised $50,000 or more — information that Mr. Obama does not provide and that watchdog groups say is critical for identifying bundlers and understanding their potential interests.

Although the Obama campaign draws a much higher percentage of small-dollar contributions compared with the McCain campaign, the candidates have a strikingly similar number of high-dollar bundlers.

·        At least one fund-raiser who was originally on the McCain campaign’s bundler list was taken off. That was James Courter, chief executive of the telecommunications company I.D.T., who resigned Monday as one of more than 20 national finance committee co-chairmen for the campaign, after I.D.T. was fined $1.3 million by the Federal Communications Commission for failing to disclose contracts it had in Haiti. The fine was first reported by the Web site Portfolio.com. Mr. Courter was listed in April as raising $100,000 or more for Mr. McCain, but campaign officials said he had been taken off because he was no longer raising money.

Other fund-raisers whose activities have drawn scrutiny remained on the list, including:

·        Tom Loeffler, who had been a campaign general co-chairman. Mr. Loeffler, whose lobbying firm, the Loeffler Group, represented Saudi Arabia, among other clients, stepped down from his official McCain position earlier this year after campaign officials issued a new conflict-of-interest policy.

Of the more than 60 McCain bundlers who have raised $500,000 or more, at least a dozen are lobbyists or work for lobbying firms. They include:

·        Wayne L. Berman, of Ogilvy Government Relations, whose clients include Fannie Mae, the National Rifle Association and Verizon

·        Jack Oliver, of Bryan Cave Strategies, who lobbies for Shell Oil and Anheuser-Busch

·        Peter Terpeluk Jr., a former top fund-raiser for George W. Bushin 2000 who later served as ambassador to Luxembourg. Mr. Terpeluk works for American Continental Group and lobbies on behalf of Siemens and Ernst & Young, among others

At least one fund-raiser disclosed by the McCain campaign on Tuesday, Kenneth C. Griffin, chief executive of Citadel Investment Group in Chicago, raised money for both Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama. Mr. Griffin, whose $1.5 billion in income in 2007 made him one of the country’s top hedge fund earners, collected more than $50,000 for each of the candidates.

Mr. Griffin was host of an Obama fund-raiser at his firm last year but recently helped organize an event for Mr. McCain in Chicago, revealing his true preferences, according to those close to him. Citadel spent more than $1.1 million dating back to 2007, lobbying in Washington against higher tax rates for hedge funds. Mr. McCain has opposed measures that would increase the taxes paid by private equity and hedge fund managers, while Mr. Obama has supported them.

More than 100 of Mr. McCain’s top bundlers were either Bush “Pioneers” or “Rangers,” raising more than $100,000 or $200,000 each for President Bush in 2004, demonstrating that Mr. McCain has made at least some progress in recruiting members of the high-powered fund-raising apparatus that helped Mr. Bush set fund-raising records.