News

Barack Obama has been declared winner of the 2008 bobble head election, held by sports consulting firm The Goldklang Group in six minor league baseball stadiums this month.

Obama defeated John McCain 55 percent to 45 percent, as minor league fans cast ballots at voting booths inside the six stadiums. Each fan received a bobblehead doll of his/her candidate. Voting stopped and a winner was proclaimed when one candidate's bobblehead supply ran out.

Over 7,200 total votes were cast, and The Goldklang Group declared Obama the winner this week.

Obama swept McCain with wins at each of the six stadiums, spread out over Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, South Carolina, and South Dakota. Obama made one of his strongest showings in St. Paul, Minn., where McCain will accept his party's presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in September; Obama bested McCain there 58 percent to 42 percent.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), who has pledged not to run re-election in 2010, said he will consider a bid for governor.

"After the November election ... we will be looking at the governor's race," Brownback told the Hays Daily News.

The newspaper, however, noted that Brownback said there has "not been any firm decision" on his future.

Brownback, who has been a supporter of term limits for members of Congress, has pledged to serve only two full terms in the Senate. He ran short-lived campaign for the GOP presidential nomination last year.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) rejected the idea that John McCain should pick former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) as his running mate Thursday, saying the GOP standard-bearer has "better choices."

"The issue is that in many ways, Mitt Romney has had very definite swings of position. Not just on one or two things, but on many of the issues," Huckabee said on Fox.

"I think there are better choices for Senator McCain that have the approval of value voters."

Huckabee suggested that his criticism of Romney does not come from a personal desire to be McCain's veep, saying "I have no expectation that I'm going to get that phone call."

"I even have my cell phone turned off, as we speak," Huckabee joked.

But no matter who McCain picks, Huckabee assured that he will support the choice.

"I'm going to support our nominee," he said. "And I'm more interested in who the president is than who the vice president is, anyway."

Columnist Robert Novak told InsideCatholic.com that he doesn't think he'll beat the brain cancer he was diagnosed with two weeks ago.

In an interview on the blog, Novak told Deal Hudson that he hopes that upcoming tumor reduction surgery will extend his life and improve his quality of living. But when Hudson asked Novak whether he thought he'll beat the cancer, Novak said "he didn't think so."

The long-time conservative writer, however, added: "When you're 77 years old, and you have brain surgery, anything can happen."

Novak is scheduled to undergo surgery at Duke University Medical Center. It will be performed by the same doctor who operated on Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who was also recently diagnosed with brain cancer.

New Rasmussen polls show tight contests for the electoral votes in Nevada and Virginia.

John McCain is ahead of Barack Obama 45 percent to 42 percent in Nevada. Obama is ahead 46 percent to 45 percent in Virginia. Both polls, however, have margins of error of 4.5 percentage points.

Previous Rasmussen surveys also showed the two candidates virtually tied in the two swing states.

A poll released by the conservative Club for Growth shows incumbent Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) in a virtual dead heat with opponent Dick Zimmer (R) in New Jersey

Both Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-N.Y.) names will be placed in nomination at the Democratic Convention the two jointly announced Thursday.

The statement said the decision was made to ensure that "all 35 million people who participated in this historic primary election are respected and heard."

"I am convinced that honoring Senator Clinton's historic campaign in this way will help us celebrate this defining moment in our history and bring the party together in a strong united fashion," Obama said.

Clinton added that "with every voice heard and the Party strongly united, we will elect Senator Obama President of the United States and put our nation on the path to peace and prosperity once again.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is taking off the gloves to combat a new book from a former leader of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

In an email to 3.4 million voters, the DNC calls Jerome Corsi, the author of a new unflattering book about Democratic candidate Barack Obama, a "vile smear peddler."

The DNC email contains what it says are the facts on Obama that Corsi, a well-known enemy of 2004 nominee Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), is trying to distort in an effort to harm Obama.

"We cannot afford to let Corsi get away with the same dirty tricks that fooled so many people in 2004," the email, signed by the DNC's rapid response team, reads. "We can't rely on the media to hold him accountable -- in fact, the sheer brazenness of the lies is attracting even more coverage. The media have shown that they aren't going to stop him."

- Sam Youngman

Democratic House candidate Tom Perriello was recently named one of his party

Rev. Jesse Jackson said he's embarrassed by his lewd remark about Barack Obama several weeks ago, but he added that divisions between new and old generations of black politicians aren't healthy.

Jackson, in an interview with Essence magazine, stressed that he shouldn't have talked about castrating Obama, something he was caught doing last month by a hot mic while waiting to appear on television . Jackson, who believed he was speaking in private, made the statement while also criticizing Obama for "talking down to black people."

"What was private talk became public controversy, and I am embarrassed by that," Jackson said. "There is no virtue in that kind of talk, and it should always be discouraged. My appeal even then was that responsibility is a significant message, but our needs require real government intervention and private sector incentives to address the issues of unemployment, building affordable housing and making education more affordable, which really was my point. It was a very painful period for me to have gone through that."

Jackson, a former Democratic presidential candidate, said, however, that the division between older black leaders and a new generation of leaders led by Obama is unhealthy.

"Politics must be inter-generational," he said. "You need Barack on the one hand to talk, you need Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), chair of the House Ways and Means [Committee], and John Conyers (D-Mich.), chair of our House Judiciary [Committee]. In politics you grow by adding and multiplying, not by subtracting and dividing. So "old guard vs. new guard" is not a healthy combination. The reality is that we achieved the right to vote, we achieved freedom, but we didn't achieve equality, and that is the remaining civil rights work."