Former Secretary of State Colin Powell had some kind words to say about Barack Obama's speech on race .
"I think that Sen. Obama handled the issue well . . . he didn't look the other way," said Powell, in an ABC News interview. "He didn't wait for the, for the, you know, for the storm to go over. He went on television, and I thought, gave a very, very thoughtful, direct speech. And he didn't abandon the minister who brought him closer to his faith."
He also took a similar tack as Obama's when judging Rev. Jeremiah Wright's conversial comments.
"Rev. Wright is also somebody who has made enormous contributions in his community and has turned a lot of lives around," he said, "And so, I have to put that in context with these very offensive comments that he made, which I reject out of hand."
Powell, who has served in both Bush administrations, said he has yet to decide who to back in the White House race.
Hillary Clinton's campaign just released a radio spot responding to Barack Obama's claim that he doesn't take money from oil companies.
Clinton, conservativeblogs and non-partisan FactCheck.org have all picked away at Obama's claim, made in a television ad now running in Pennsylvania. Clinton's campaign points out that no candidate gets money from oil companies, who are banned from making direct contributions to candidates. The blogs and Factcheck note that Obama has received more than $213,000 in contributions from oil company employees and that two oil company executives have bundled at least $50,000 in donations for Obama.
Obama's campaign has responded by saying that Obama hasn't taken money from oil companies' political action committees, which pools contributions from the companies' employees.
For the record, John McCain is the presidential candidate who has gotten the most contributions the oil industry, receiving $291,685 from both oil PACs and employees. Clinton has received $289,950. Obama has taken in $163,840, all from oil employees.
Download the mp3 of Clinton's radio spot here and watch Obama's ad below.
Hillary Clinton campaign is getting a dose of some much needed cash tonight thanks to Elton John, who is performing on her behalf at Radio City Music Hall in New York tonight.
TPM Election Central is reporting that Clinton will get $2.5 million in donations. Her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama, raised $40 million last month, which was double her total. He raised about $21 million than she did in February.
The old campaign website for Mike Huckabee is counting down to an April 15th noon launch. There are no clickable portions on the Huckabee website, but Huckabee is scheduled to speak at Cornell University that day. The speech is titled: "In God We Trust: The Role of Faith in Politics."
Mitt Romney is delivering a keynote speech to the Lancaster County GOP in Pennsylvania tomorrow on John McCain's behalf.
The speech is Romney's second appearance to help his bitter-rival-turned-apparent-friend. Romney attended fundraisers in Utah and Colorado with the McCain two weeks ago.
VP speculation has recently centered on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, but with Romney pulling veep-like duty tomorrow the conversation may swing back in the former Massachusetts Governor's direction.
The Republican Party of Florida, satisfied with their hotel reservations for the Republican National Convention, poked fun at Democratic counterparts, who will be staying at a campground.
The Florida GOP will be staying at the Minneapolis Airport Marriott, 12 miles from the site of the convention, reports The Buzz, the St. Petersburg Times's political blog. Sunshine State Democrats, who earned the ire of party bigwigs by failing to keep their presidential primary from being held in January, will be staying at the KOA Campground in Denver, the site of their party's national convention. (Neither Florida's nor Michigan's Democratic delegates had lodging as of last week, The Hill's Mike Soraghan reported.)
"From the looks of things, while the RNC recognized Florida
Last night's big win by Kansas to capture the NCAA men's basketball championships didn't help either Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) in their tournament brackets. Neither of the of the presidential contenders had either team in the game.
But despite the letdown in their final game picks, both Senators preformed well, just not well enough to have a clear winner.
McCain picked 38 out of 63 games right while Obama picked 37 correct. If you count just the number of games picked McCain barely eeks out a win. But if you weight the picks the results are unclear.
McCain picked two more games correctly in the first round, but Obama beat McCain by one in the second round. The totals for the remaining rounds are the same.
Depending on how the picks a scored either Senator could have won, lost or tied, hopefully not a sign of things to come on general election day.
True to life, McCain was able to battle back from an early slip. McCain picked his good friend Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I) home University of Connecticut to get the championship game. UConn lost in the first round to San Diego.
Minutes after today's Senate Armed Services hearing had ended, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) sent a memo to reporters outlining John McCain's misstatements on al Qaeda -- including one from the hearing.
McCain had referred to al Qaeda, the Sunni-aligned terrorist group, as a "sect of Shiites" in an exchange with Gen. David Petraeus during Petraeus' appearance before the panel (see the video below). McCain was asking Petraeus about the significance of al Qaeda's presence in Iraq, and as Petraeus assessed the threat posed by the group, McCain posited it was "certainly not an obscure sect of the Shiites overall."
McCain corrected himself almost immediately, but the DNC pounced, outlining a history of McCain's al-Qaeda misidentifications.
Read more...
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said he's sorry for making a remark about John McCain's service as a fighter pilot.
Rockefeller had told the Charleston Gazette that "McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground? He doesn
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