Obama has been looking to emphasize national service.

(CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama on Wednesday unveiled a plan to create volunteer and service opportunities to help tackle some of the nation's most pressing issues, part of his weeklong focus on patriotism and national service.

"This won't be a call issued in one speech or one program — I want this to be a central cause of my presidency," Obama said in a speech at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs.

"We will ask Americans to serve. We will create new opportunities for Americans to serve. And we will direct that service to our most pressing national challenges."

He added, "When you choose to serve — whether it's your nation, your community or simply your neighborhood — you are connected to that fundamental American ideal that we want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness not just for ourselves, but for all Americans. That's why it's called the American dream."

Obama highlighted his time as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side and his stint heading Project Vote, a group that helped register 150,000 new African-American voters in the Illinois city, according to his campaign.

"I wasn't just helping other people. Through service, I found a community that embraced me; citizenship that was meaningful; the direction I'd been seeking. Through service, I discovered how my own improbable story fit into the larger story of America," he said.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee also touched on the "spirit" of service witnessed after the September 11, 2001, attacks and take aim at the Bush administration's failure to capitalize on this opportunity to call Americans to service.

Full Story

Ret. Gen. Wesley Clark appears on Tuesday's 'The Situation Room.'

(CNN) — Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, appearing on CNN's "The Situation Room" Tuesday, continued to press the argument that John McCain is not suited to be commander-in-chief, and took aim at the Arizona senator's "judgment."

"I've never said anything to dishonor John McCain … I like him. But I will say this, that when it comes to being President of the United States, it's about judgment," Clark told CNN's John Roberts. "And I've seen stronger judgment from Barack Obama, despite the fact that he doesn't have military experience than I've seen from John McCain despite all his worldly travels.

"To me, this is about, and I hope the American people will make the decision based on judgment," he added.

Clark also criticized Orson Swindle, a McCain surrogate and former Vietnam POW, who blasted Clark's record as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.

"I don't know Orson. I'm sure he's an outstanding man and did a great job in uniform. He doesn't know me either," said Clark.

"But I did in my last command as the head of the forces in NATO, lead the forces of NATO in the fight to stop ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. We did win a war. We bombed for 78 days … we did it without the loss of a single American soldier … We did it with a combination of diplomacy and force," he said.

Clark also discussed his support in 2004 for John Kerry, namely on his military experience, and how it differs from McCain's.

"John McCain basically served honorably while in uniform, he did everything the country could have asked," Clark told CNN. "What John Kerry did is John Kerry got out of the uniform and took a judgment, a judgment I didn't agree with at the time, but he had the moral courage to stand up for himself and oppose the conflict in Vietnam.”

Sen. John McCain has voiced his opposition to same-sex marriage.

WASHINGTON (CNN) –- An official from the Log Cabin Republicans organization says the group representing gay Republicans has had a series of meetings with presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

The meetings, however, were not disclosed to the press by the McCain campaign. An e-mail from CNN to the McCain campaign for comment was not immediately returned.

A McCain aide told The Politico's Ben Smith that a meeting between McCain and the organization "a few weeks ago" was "scheduled as a meeting with the senator … Like Sen. Obama, every single campaign-related meeting he has isn't alerted to the press."

In a statement Thursday, Log Cab Republicans President Patrick Sammon confirmed to CNN that the group had a "series of productive meetings with the campaign since Sen. McCain won the nomination—including a recent meeting with the Senator. We expect to have more conversations with the campaign as we head toward November."

While they have yet to endorse McCain, the organization's Web site says they are “encouraged” that he has won the party’s nod.

“Sen. McCain has had a long relationship with Log Cabin Republicans dating back to the opening of our organization’s national office in the mid 1990s."

The LCR endorsed McCain’s Senate reelection bid in 2004.

Read the rest of this entry »

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, appearing on 'Fox News Sunday,' said he wouldn't rule out being Sen. John McCain's vice president — if asked — but would have to first discuss a policy position that sets him apart from the Arizona senator: Abortion rights.

"If he asks me, we'll have a private conversation and we'll decide whether or not we ought to tell you what we said," Ridge said.

Host Chris Wallace pressed Ridge on his pro-abortion rights views — something critics say could hurt his chances of running with McCain, who has anti-abortion positions.

So would Ridge's views conflict with his support for a McCain administration? Apparently not.

"Obviously, the vice president's job is to support once a decision is made, whether it's on social issues, economic issues or diplomatic issues, the position of the president of the United States," he said.

"But that doesn't mean that you don't share a belief that you've had your entire life. But again, those are really difficult and challenging questions when the vice president and the president disagree on a wide range of issues, but the vice president's job is to support the administration."

Ridge, the former governor of Pennslyvania, could help McCain in the state, which is in play this year. As a moderately conservative Catholic, he could aid in other states with independent voters.

Interactive: CNN's electoral map

But his position in favor of abortion rights could hurt McCain among the more conservative GOP base.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dodd is an Obama supporter.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. Chris Dodd says he got no sweetheart deals from embattled mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp., telling reporters Tuesday that he would reject "out of hand" any hint of preferential treatment.

"At no point did anyone ever suggest to me that we were going to get some deal out of Countrywide," said Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and a former Democratic presidential contender. "I never spoke to anybody except loan officers — never any higher-ups or any senior people within Countrywide."

Last week, Portfolio magazine reported that Countrywide — one of the companies accused of fueling the subprime mortgage crisis — gave favorable mortgage rates to Dodd. A similar allegation forced the head of Sen. Barack Obama's vice presidential search team, Jim Johnson, to step down last week.

Obama has criticized the mortgage company for its lending practices. But Republicans had been hammering Johnson since The Wall Street Journal reported on June 7 that he received a good deal on a mortgage from Countrywide because of his friendship with Angelo Mozilo, the company's CEO.

Dodd, an Obama supporter who has been mentioned as a potential vice presidential candidate, said he would fully cooperate with any investigation.

The Connecticut senator said he sought out Countrywide in 2003 in order to refinance his two homes — one in his home state of Connecticut, the other in Washington.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sen. Barack Obama holds a town hall meeting with residents in Wayne, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.

(CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama told voters in Wayne, Pennsylvania, on Saturday that he'll cut taxes for the middle class, raise taxes for the wealthy and pour more money into what he calls green energy.

Later Saturday, in Illinois, Obama helped fill sandbags near the Mississippi River in an area devastated by flooding, his campaign said. The same day, Sen. John McCain extended his sympathies to those affected by flooding in the Midwest.

According to his campaign, Obama wants to invest $150 billion over the next 10 years to establish a green energy sector; create a national low-carbon fuel standard to ensure that the fuel is more efficient, and invest in clean energies like solar, wind and biodiesel.

That, according to the campaign, would create up to 5 million new green energy jobs.

Obama also blasted McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential candidate, for his recent silence on energy reform and his support for a gas tax holiday.

"He isn't offering any solutions to help Americans pay for high gas prices. Instead, he's proposing a gas tax holiday that's nothing more than a Washington stunt," Obama said. "I was for the idea back then, but I've learned from my mistake, because I don't think it's right to say you're offering families relief when you're just boosting oil company profits."

Obama says McCain's gas tax plan would "actually do real harm" and take "$3 billion a month out of the highway trust fund and hand it over to the oil companies."

Full Story

Watch portions of Dana Bash's interview with John McCain Friday.

(CNN) – John McCain said Friday that every candidates' wife "should be treated with respect and if there's any disrespectful conduct on the part of anyone, those people should be rejected.”

“I have the greatest respect for both Senator [Barack] and Michelle Obama. … I've never met her, Mrs. Obama, she's a talented and a very effective person. And I admire both of them. We have stark differences in views,” he told CNN's Dana Bash in a one-on-one interview.

Earlier: Obama expects Michelle to take heat

“Americans want a us to have a much more respectful campaign than the kinds they've been seeing recently.”

The comment comes a day after Obama’s campaign launched a new Web site, Fightthesmears.com, which aims to debunk rumors against the Illinois senator and his wife.

McCain also touched on his own vice presidential vetting process — and whether he's considering former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as his running mate.

"Not yet," he said.

Read the rest of this entry »

John McCain said Wednesday that he'll win the state of Pennsylvania in November

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. John McCain on Wednesday blasted presidential rival Sen. Barack Obama’s controversial statement in April about “bitter” Pennsylvania voters.

In a town hall meeting in Philadelphia, McCain said he doesn’t agree that voters in the state “cling to their religion and the Constitution because they are bitter. I am going to tell them that they have faith and they have trust and support the Constitution of the United States because they have optimism and hope and that is the strength of America.”

McCain was referring to remarks Obama made before the state’s April 22 primary that decades of lost jobs and unfulfilled promises from Washington have left some Pennsylvanians "bitter" and clinging "to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

WATCH more on the 'bitter' controversy.

Democratic rival Sen. Hillary Clinton used Obama’s words to attack him as out of touch with Pennsylvanians. Obama later said that the remarks were badly phrased, but accurate.

McCain made it clear that he will “compete and win” and even “carry this state” in the general election – a state that has voted for the Democratic candidate in the last two presidential elections.

“I will carry this state and I will be the next president of the United States.”

Full Story

Sen. Barack Obama wins a major endorsement Wednesday.

(CNN) – The United Mine Workers of America endorsed Barack Obama's White House bid Wednesday.

"We are extremely proud to make this endorsement today," UMWA International President Cecil Roberts said. "Sen. Obama shares the values of UMWA members and our families. He understands and will fight for the needs our members have today and the hopes our members have for a secure future for themselves and their families."

The UMWA says it represents 105,000 active and retired coal miners, mine construction workers, public service employees, health care workers and manufacturing workers in the United States and Canada, and that its membership includes more coal miners than any other union in the world.

The unanimous endorsement by the union’s political action committee comes shortly after the May 13 primary in West Virginia — a large coal producing state. Hillary Clinton overwhelmingly won that primary, 67 percent to Obama's 26 percent.

Roberts said the union considered both Sens. Obama and John McCain before making the decision, but found that Obama "will be on our side while Sen. McCain will not," citing proposals supported by the presumptive Republican nominee that he claimed would cut jobs in coal country, particularly in the Eastern area.

UMWA International's Dan Kane said the union will be "working as hard as we can, using every resource at our disposal in every community where our members live and work across this nation to do our part to help [Obama]."

Last week, Obama picked up the backing of the United Steelworkers Union. Both the Steelworkers and UMW had originally backed former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who endorsed Obama last week.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — CNN has confirmed that former ABC News congressional correspondent and current National Journal contributing editor, Linda Douglass, will leave her publication to join the Obama campaign.

Douglass says she will serve as a senior strategist and senior spokesperson on the campaign's plane, in addition to other senior staff.

She assumes her new post next week.

Douglass joined National Journal Group in June 2007 and covers government, politics and the 2008 election, according to National Journal's Web site.

She is also a senior fellow with the John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University.

Douglass won the 2000 National Press Foundation's Everett Dirksen Award for her coverage of Congress, and the 1990 Broadcast Journalist of the Year, from the Society of Professional Journalists, according to the site.

A response from the Obama campaign was not immediately available.

Update: In a press release to CNN Wednesday, Suzanne Clark, the president of National Journal Group, wrote: "Linda Douglass is a first rate talent.  She has made significant contributions to the National Journal Group - from breaking news and securing high profile interviewees and event panelists to launching our radio show."

"We are sad to see her go. She has done great work for our publications, helped us expand our multi-media presence and has been a true friend to her colleagues.  We wish her the best," Clark added.

A cartoon insert in several national newspapers explains international trade for kids.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — There’s nothing funny about the Colombia free trade agreement, a hotly contested issue on the 2008 election campaign trail and throughout the halls of Congress. But the White House is now sticking up for the beleaguered pact in the funny pages — and Democrats are counterattacking via cartoon.

"This past Sunday, in the comics section of papers nationwide (including the Post), was an insert called the Mini Page that explained trade at a children's level," Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Sean Spicer said in an e-mail sent to reporters Wednesday, adding that the fourth page of the insert included “an explanation of why the Colombia trade agreement is in the best interest of American workers."

President Bush has been a staunch supporter of trade with Colombia.

"Colombia is one of our strongest allies in the Western Hemisphere. They are led by a very strong and courageous leader, President Uribe. He's taken courageous stands to defend our shared democratic values," he said last month.

See the cartoon (PDF).

Joe Shoemaker, communications director for Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, responded by pointing to another example of policy education through pictures: the "Schoolhouse Rock!" series.

"Thank you for your helpful (if somewhat condescending) explanation of trade 'at a children's level,'" he wrote in an e-mail.

"I wanted to bring to your attention a series known as Schoolhouse Rock! Between 1973 and 1986 a series of fifty-two educational short films featuring songs about schoolhouse topics” – adding that the cartoon short "I'm Just a Bill" had "dealt extensively with the legislative process — at a children's level."

"If you find 'I'm Just a Bill' helpful, you may also want to check out 'Three Ring Government' which explains the three co-equal branches of the federal government and discusses the concept of separation of powers," wrote Shoemaker.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she would not bring the Columbia free trade legislation up for a vote.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sens. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain responded Saturday regarding Senator Ted Kennedy's hospitalization earlier in the day.

Obama, who won the endorsement of the Masachuessets senator, said that his "thoughts and prayers" are with the senator, who was rushed to the hospital earlier Saturday.

At a campaign event in Eugene Oregon, Sen. Obama told his audience: “You know as I have said many times before, Ted Kennedy is a giant in American political history - he has done more for the health care of others than just about anybody in history and so we are going to be rooting for him.”

Clinton, meanwhile, released a statement on Kennedy.

"My thoughts and prayers are with Ted Kennedy and his family today. We all wish him well and a quick recovery."

Later at a campaign picnic at Laredo in Kentucky, Sen. Clinton said of Kennedy…” Nobody has fought harder to make sure everybody got good health care and I know that we all join together in wishing him well."

In a press release, McCain said he was "very sorry to hear that Senator Kennedy has taken ill, and like millions of Americans, Cindy and I anxiously await word of his condition."

"Senator Kennedy's role in the U.S. Senate cannot be overstated. He is a legendary lawmaker, and I have the highest respect for him. When we have worked together, he has been a skillful, fair and generous partner. I consider it a great privilege to call him my friend. Cindy and I are praying for our friend, his wife, Vicki and the Kennedy family," he added.

Sen. John McCain speaks at an environmental discussion Tuesday in North Bend, Washington.

(CNN) — Sen. John McCain took his weeklong environmental tour to Washington state Tuesday, addressing the need for reducing the nation's dependency on foreign oil and sparking investment in environmentally friendly technology.

McCain spoke at an environmental roundtable at Cedar River Watershed Education Center in North Bend, Washington.

Washington is among several potential battleground states in the West — including California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Oregon — where voters count the environment as a top issue.

McCain said Tuesday that coming up with new forms of clean energy is "a national security issue when we're dependent on more than $400 billion a year in imported oil from countries that don't like us very much … some of that money is helping terrorist organizations."

The Arizona senator also said the heightened awareness of global environmental concerns could help push new forms of energy to the forefront of the nation's political agenda.

"Environment, national security and economy are all coming together, perhaps … to spark … an incredible impetus for us to sit down together, Republican and Democrat, environmentalists, business and bankers and retailers … all together and address this problem."

Read more here

Ambassador Joe Wilson and wife, Valerie Plame, appear in new Clinton ad

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Hillary Clinton's campaign released a new ad in Oregon Friday, featuring two familiar faces: Ambassador Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame, who was the undercover operative in the highly publicized CIA leak case.

In the ad, they say Clinton has the "strongest plan to end the Iraq War and bring our troops home safely," according to the campaign.

The 30-second ad, dubbed "Strongest Plan," comes as Oregonians vote by mail in advance of the state's May 20 primary.

The Clinton campaign says the Wilsons played a "critical role in drawing attention to the Bush Administration's exaggerated claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and have been outspoken critics of the conduct of the war."

Watch the ad here.

Schuler is a first term Democrat.

(CNN) — Democratic Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina announced Wednesday that he is backing Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, CNN has confirmed.

Shuler, a former NFL quarterback, is a superdelegate. The first-term congressman represents the 11th district in the western part of the state

Shuler has said in the past that he would support whoever won his district in Tuesday's North Carolina primary. Clinton won the district by 13 points.

On Tuesday, as North Carolina voters weighed in at the polls, Barack Obama also gained one of the state’s superdelegates: Democratic National Committee member Jeanette Council announced her support for his White House run.

UPDATE: Wednesday afternoon, the Obama campaign confirmed Council's endorsement, and announced the support of two more superdelegates: North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Meek, and California Democratic National Committee member Inola Henry.

Click here for full North Carolina results

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Barack Obama’s campaign said Saturday that new two-minute TV ads will blanket Indiana and North Carolina ahead of both states’ pivotal contests this Tuesday.

The ads, dubbed “Minute,” will begin airing in some markets on Sunday night, with the bulk of the spots appearing during Monday evening’s news in both states.

According to the campaign, the Illinois senator makes his “closing argument to Indiana and North Carolina voters, outlining his plans to put an end to the divisive, calculated politics in Washington.”

Obama also speaks out against the gas tax holiday — a plan being supported by rival Democrat Sen. Hillary Clinton and presumptive GOP nominee John McCain.

Click HERE to watch the Indiana version.

Click HERE to watch the North Carolina version.

Sen. Hillary Clinton makes a campaign stop in Kinston, North Carolina, on Friday

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama stumped for last-minute votes in Indiana and North Carolina Friday ahead of the states' Tuesday primaries.

New polls show Clinton narrowing Obama's lead in North Carolina, once seen as an easy win for Obama.

Polling in Indiana shows the two candidates running dead even.

"We are seeing terrific support all across Indiana and all across North Carolina … I have no doubt these are going to be tight races. This campaign has been tight throughout," Obama said in Indianapolis, Indiana, Friday morning.

"But I am very confident the American people are looking for the kind of truth telling and serious policy making that is going to have an affect on heir lives, and as long as I'm talking about the issues."

Read the rest of the story