From Wolf Blitzer, Anchor of CNN's "The Situation Room"
Washington (CNN) - It's amazing how formidable Bill Clinton remains. He's very much a political force in the country. He will be deeply involved in helping Democrats in the weeks leading up to the November 2 elections.
Clinton can certainly raise money for candidates but, more importantly, he can help deliver votes. I think it's fair to say many - not all, but many - Democrats in deep trouble right now would welcome some help from him. They might even prefer him over President Obama in their districts.
I've been thinking about him because I will be in New York Tuesday at his Clinton Global Initiative to interview him. It will be my third interview with him this year. I spent some time with him in Washington on the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing and, more recently, at the Fortune-Time-CNN Global Forum in Cape Town, South Africa.
Note: Wolf Blitzer interviewed President Clinton in South Africa at the Fortune Time CNN Global Forum - which compensated the former President for his appearance.
WASHINGTON (CNN) - Child journalist Damon Weaver, who landed a coveted interview with President Obama, said Wednesday that CNN's Wolf Blitzer is his role model.
In an interview with Time magazine after his interview with the president and a subsequent media blitz, 11-year-old Weaver said he didn't get a chance to tell Blitzer that he wants to be like him after his interview on CNN because "it was my first time meeting him and I tried to answer his questions."
Read: Damon's Q&A on Time.com
"I would like to be Wolf Blitzer," Weaver told Time in an interview published on Wednesday.
And what did he think of his interview with Blitzer?
"It was very fun," said Weaver. "He was nice. He was asking me questions like, 'What was it like with the President? How could I get in touch with him? And can you put in a good word for me?'"
Watch Wolf Blitzer's interview with Air Force One pilot Col. Mark Tillman today in The Situation Room at 5 pm ET.
ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Maryland (CNN) - Driving to this sprawling base just outside Washington, D.C. this week brought back lots of memories. Covering a president often means traveling with a president aboard this extraordinary aircraft, and as CNN's Senior White House Correspondent during the Clinton administration, I used to come here all the time to board Air Force One.
This week, I had a rare chance to catch up with Col. Mark Tillman, who's been flying the giant Boeing 747 since 1992, the final year of George H.W. Bush's presidency. He continued to fly for President Clinton’s full eight years, and became the chief pilot when President George W. Bush took office in 2001. Col. Tillman, who is now getting ready to retire, agreed to sit down with me and reflect on those years.
Watch Wolf Blitzer's interview with Air Force One pilot Col. Mark Tillman today and tomorrow in The Situation Room at 6 pm ET.
ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Maryland (CNN) - Driving to this sprawling base just outside Washington, D.C. this week brought back lots of memories. Covering a president often means traveling with a president aboard this extraordinary aircraft, and as CNN's Senior White House Correspondent during the Clinton administration, I used to come here all the time to board Air Force One.
This week, I had a rare chance to catch up with Col. Mark Tillman, who's been flying the giant Boeing 747 since 1992, the final year of George H.W. Bush's presidency. He continued to fly for President Clinton’s full eight years, and became the chief pilot when President George W. Bush took office in 2001. Col. Tillman, who is now getting ready to retire, agreed to sit down with me and reflect on those years.
Watch Wolf show his moves on Ellen.
(CNN) - Before sitting down with Ellen DeGeneres, CNN Anchor Wolf Blitzer showed off his dance moves.
The full interview is set to air Monday.
(CNN) – Once again, the U.S. Supreme Court has reached a 5-4 decision with Justice Anthony Kennedy as the decisive swing vote.
The latest case involves the right to own a handgun in the District of Columbia. In this case, Kennedy went with the conservatives, including Chief Justice John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas. The majority concluded that the D.C. law violated the Second Amendment to the Constitution – the right to bear arms.
But Kennedy sided with the liberals in two other major 5-4 decisions, including Wednesday’s ruling that the death penalty could not apply to child rape victims. Last week, he sided with his liberal colleagues, Ruth Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, David Souter, and John Paul Stevens in concluding that terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay detention center have certain legal rights to stand trial.
All of which once again underscores the fragile balance of the court and the fact that the next president probably will have an impressive opportunity to change that balance for the next 20 or 30 years.
As I have pointed out before, John McCain says he likes justices like Roberts and Alito. Barack Obama says he likes justices like Ginsburg and Breyer.
This will be a major issue in the election for lots of Democrats and Republicans. The ramifications on a whole host of issues, not just abortion rights for women, are enormous.
(CNN) - There are two intriguing third party candidates running for president his year: Ralph Nader and Bob Barr. Both are well known here in Washington. But will they have an impact around the country if the election between Barack Obama and John McCain is close?
Nader, a long time populist and liberal consumer advocate, has been here before. He won more than 90,000 votes in the Florida election in 2000 and was widely accused of helping George W. Bush beat Al Gore by just more than 500 votes in the state. Gore’s supporters believe that he would have won the state and the election if Nader had stayed out. Nader denies that, insisting he took votes from both Democrats and Republicans.
Barr is a former Republican Congressman from Georgia and is now running on the Libertarian Party ticket. In the House of Representatives, he was always an outspoken conservative. He took the lead in initiating impeachment charges against President Bill Clinton.
Given that conservative track record, he is likely to take votes away from McCain, especially in Georgia where he is relatively well-known.
Obama’s supporters are hoping he does. They believe Georgia is fertile ground for the Democratic candidate, especially if the Democrats can register hundreds of thousands of new young and African American voters in the state.
So let’s see how Nader and Barr do this time around.
(CNN)–Barack Obama says he’s going to run a 50-state race for the White House. His aides say he will aggressively seek to make inroads in some of the traditionally Republican presidential states. It’s an ambitious quest but one that would be made easier if he raises hundreds of millions of dollars.
We’ll see in the coming weeks and months how that works out. My instinct tells me he won’t be spending lots of time in Utah and Wyoming, for example.
Still, I do think Obama will campaign actively in North Carolina and Georgia – two states with large numbers of African Americans. His campaign as well as the Democratic National Committee will try to get hundreds of thousands of new voters registered, especially African-Americans and young people. That is potentially very fertile ground for Obama and could make a critical difference in November.
Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic Party, was criticized in recent years by some fellow Democrats for spending scarce DNC money in some of the Republican states. He said he wanted the Democratic Party active across the United States. His critics thought that was a waste of money and time.
But now, that investment seems to have paid off. Witness the recent Democratic successes in those three special Congressional elections in Mississippi, Louisiana and Illinois where seats long held by Republicans, including the former Speaker Dennis Hastert, were captured by Democrats.
(CNN) – In some of the more recent public opinion polls, Barack Obama comes out doing much better than John McCain on several domestic issues. McCain, on the other hand, does better when it comes to the war on terror.
The latest USA Today-Gallup Poll, for example, shows that Obama is seen as doing a better job than McCain on health care (51 percent to 26 percent), the economy (48 percent to 32 percent), energy (47 percent to 28 percent), and taxes (44 percent to 35 percent).
In this same poll, they basically tie on such matters as the war in Iraq (43 percent to 43 percent), moral values (40 percent to 39 percent) and illegal immigration (34 percent to 36 percent).
But it’s a totally different situation when it comes to the war on terror. McCain is seen as doing a better job by a 52 percent to 33 percent margin.
All of which suggests that Obama probably would win the election if the biggest issues involve the economy and other domestic matters. But that could change if the war on terror were to emerge as issue number one. Under that circumstance, voters might flock toward McCain.
It’s a fascinating insight into the minds of voters – but remember: it’s only a current snapshot. Things can easily change between now and November 4. They always do.
From CNN Politics
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