Biden's mother-in-law dies
WILMINGTON, Delaware (CNN) - Joe Biden's spokesman said the Delaware senator would be canceling campaign events Monday and Tuesday in the wake of his mother-in-law's death Sunday.
"Other details will follow, but we appreciate everyone's respect for the family's privacy during this difficult time," wrote Biden spokesman David Wade.
Bonny Jacobs, Jill Biden's mother, had been sick for a long time and was living in a hospice.
Wade announced Saturday that Sunday and Monday's events were canceled after doctors told the family to stay close by. He said the family is now together at home in Wilmington.
The death comes the same day Biden's son Beau deploys with his National Guard unit to a mobilization station in Texas before a tour in Iraq.
Fact Check: McCain's proposed health care tax credit
The Statement: At a campaign stop Saturday, Oct. 4, in Newport News, Virginia, Sen. Barack Obama discussed Sen. John McCain's health care plan. He argued that many people would lose their employer-provided health insurance, and would be left trying to buy health insurance plans for their families with the $5,000 tax credit the McCain plan offers. Obama said, "What Senator McCain doesn't tell you is that the average cost of a family health care plan these days is more than twice that much - $12,680. So where would that leave you? Broke."
Watch: 'That ain't right,' Obama says
Get the facts!
RNC to seek audit of all contributions to Obama campaign
(CNN) – The fund-raising prowess of the Obama campaign may be put under a microscope, if the Republican National Committee has its way.
The RNC announced that it plans to file a complaint with the Federal Election Committee Monday that seeks an audit of the more than $450 million donated so far to Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
The complaint will address two issues highlighted in a recent Newsweek report about the Obama campaign’s fund-raising. First, the RNC will ask the federal agency responsible for enforcing campaign finance laws to audit and inquire into whether the Obama campaign accepted any money from foreign nationals, a contribution source prohibited under federal law.
“We believe that, based on the law, the Obama campaign has accepted contributions from foreign nationals and has knowingly done so through at least its failure to reasonably investigate where all this money is coming from,” RNC Chief Counsel Sean Cairncross told reporters Sunday.
Listen: RNC announces plans to ask for an audit of Obama camp's fund-raising
The FEC defines foreign nationals as foreign governments, foreign political parties, foreign corporations, foreign associations, foreign partnerships, individuals who are foreign citizens, and immigrants to the U.S. who do not have a “green card,” showing they are permanent residents or are lawfully admitted to the country.
Second, the RNC plans to ask for an audit of possible excessive contributions to the Democratic nominee. “The Obama campaign has a track record of accepting these,” Cairncross told reporters, referring to recent FEC requests directed at the Obama campaign to explain what appear to be multiple small donations from single donors listed in the campaign’s finance reports which violate the contribution limits when aggregated.
The Obama campaign was quick to turn the McCain camp's critical eye back onto McCain's own fund-raising. “Because of campaign finance issues, John McCain has had to return over $1.2 million to donors who potentially violated the law with their contributions," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement Sunday. "We look forward to a thorough investigation into whether John McCain’s campaign has returned all of the money it raised from foreign nationals," Burton added.
The Obama campaign also responded to the RNC's claims that it may have received some contributions prohibited by federal law. "Without accepting a dime from the Washington lobbyists or corporate PACs that have funded John McCain's campaign, our campaign has shattered fundraising records with donations from more than 2.5 million Americans. We have gone above and beyond the transparency requirements by disclosing our bundlers and the levels of contributions they raise. We constantly review our donors for any issues and while no organization is completely protected from internet fraud, we will continue to review our fundraising procedures to ensure that we are taking every available to step to root-out improper contributions,” Burton said.
A dead heat in Colorado
(CNN) - Call it the Rocky Mountain battle for the White House.
A new CNN Poll of Polls in Colorado suggests the battle for the state's 9 electoral votes is a dead heat. In the survey, compiled Sunday, 47 percent of likely voters in Colorado back Barack Obama for president, with 46 percent supporting John McCain. Seven percent of those questioned are undecided.
The CNN Poll of Polls is a compilation of the latest surveys in the state. The polls in this latest average are a Mason-Dixon survey conducted September 29-October 1, a CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corporation poll taken September 21-23, and an American Research Group survey conducted September 23-25.
Both campaigns are spending a lot of time and money campaigning in Colorado. McCain made a swing through the state on Thursday and Friday. Obama last campaigned in Colorado on September 29. The Democrats also held their party's national convention there in late August.
Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada are three mountain west states that voted for George W. Bush in 2004 that the Democrats are hoping to turn from red to blue come Election Day.
Obama accuses McCain of looking for distractions
(CNN) - Sen. Barack Obama on Sunday charged that Sen. John McCain's campaign is launching "Swift boat-style attacks" on him instead of addressing the country's problems.
Watch: Obama fights back
"Sen. McCain and his operatives are gambling that they can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance. They'd rather try to tear our campaign down than lift this country up," Obama said at an event in Asheville, North Carolina.
"That's what you do when you're out of touch, out of ideas, and running out of time," he said.
The comments come a day after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate, claimed that Obama associated "with terrorists who targeted our own country."
The McCain campaign shot back on Sunday, saying its accusations are "true facts," and not "smears."
"The last four weeks of this election will be about whether the American people are willing to turn our economy and national security over to Barack Obama, a man with little record, questionable judgment, and ties to radical figures like unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement.
New Obama ad tries to focus nation's attention on the economy
(CNN) – With a month until Election Day, the Obama campaign is trying keep voters’ attention focused on their pocketbooks and retirement savings accounts.
In “This Year,” the latest in a string of Obama ads with economic themes, the Democratic nominee uses images of locked factory gates and anxiety on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. “Erratic in a crisis. Out of touch on the economy,” the ad says as images of Sen. John McCain getting off an airplane and riding a golf cart appear on screen.
The commercial comes amid talk of McCain preparing to adopt a more aggressive strategy in the final month of the general election campaign, first reported Saturday in the Washington Post.
“Struggling families can’t turn the page on this economy,” the ad says.
The McCain campaign has not responded to CNN's request for comment about "This Year."
The new ad will begin airing Monday on national cable outlets, according to the Obama campaign.
(Full script after the jump)
Greene: Why kick the losers to the curb?
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Missouri (CNN)– “Are we really in such great shape as a country that we can afford to throw any of these people out?”
Amy Yeager, 35, was talking. Yesterday we wrote about her two-and-a-half hour drive across Missouri so she could visit the restaurant that calls itself “The Only Home of Throwed Rolls”; the throwed-rolls experience, she told us, was fulfilling enough that several times a year she does it: drives a total of five hours round-trip for a meal that lasts considerably less than 90 minutes.
When the conversation turned to the presidential election, though, it became serious, and she brought up an idea that many political professionals might consider lunacy.
Which is why the idea is so good.
“Think of all the candidates from both parties that we saw on those debate stages during the primaries," she said.
There are days when it’s a little hard to remember all those names, but you can certainly envision the crowded stages back when the snow was on the ground in Iowa.
“It just seems wrong to have so many really smart people, who care about our country, and then get rid of all of them but one or two and not take advantage of the others’ talents and willingness to serve," she said.
Obama camp releases another health care ad
(CNN) – Even as the McCain campaign stepped up attacks on Sen. Barack Obama’s judgment and personal associations, the Obama campaign is keeping its message focused on health care.
The campaign’s latest ad, “Coin,” implies that Sen. John McCain’s health care reform proposals would be a risky bet. “On health care, there are two sides,” the ad says as a slow motion image of a single dime being tossed in the air appears on screen. After detailing the differences between Obama’s health care plan and McCain’s, the ad ends asking the viewer “Isn’t your health care too important to be left to chance?” as the dime falls and lands off screen.
The McCain campaign took exception with how its health care reform proposals are being portrayed. “Barack Obama is not being truthful,” senior McCain policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin said in a statement released by the McCain campaign.
“Coin” is part of the Obama campaign’s effort to focus the presidential race on health care and other issues that affect voters’ financial bottom lines. On Sunday, the campaign also held a conference call about health care reform policy that featured Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who was the Kansas Insurance Commissioner prior to becoming governor, and the Pennsylvania and Ohio insurance commissioners. The call focused on criticizing Sen. McCain’s health care reform proposal.
Listen: Sebelius on Obama, McCain health care plans
The day before, the McCain campaign held a conference call of its own where it sought to refute the Obama campaign’s assertions about the McCain health care reform plan and, at a campaign event in Virginia, Obama called McCain’s plan “radical.”
Listen: Holtz-Eakin explains McCain's health care plan
Obama campaign rejects Palin 'terrorist' gibe
(CNN) - Barack Obama's campaign has quickly rejected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's claim that he associated "with terrorists who targeted our own country."
Palin attacked Sen. Obama on Saturday for his brief political relationship with Bill Ayers, a founding member of the radical Weather Underground, which was involved in several bombings in the early 1970s, including attacks on the Pentagon and the Capitol. Obama was a child at the time of the bombings.
Obama and Ayers, now a university professor, have met several times since 1995, when both orked with a non-profit group trying to raise funds for a school improvement project and a haritable foundation. CNN's review of project records found nothing to suggest anything nappropriate in the volunteer projects in which the two men were involved.
A CNN Fact Check found Palin's charge to be false.
Biden cancels events as mother-in-law battles illness
(CNN) - Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden is cancelling his campaign events for Saturday and Sunday as his mother-in-law battles a serious illness.
The Senator from Delaware's campaign spokesman, David Wade, put out a statement saying "the campaign has cancelled Sen. Biden's schedule today and tomorrow because of a serious illness in Jill Biden's family. Hospice has advised the Bidens to remain close by, and we appreciate everyone's respect for the family's privacy."
Wade is referring to Biden's wife's mother, Bonny Jacobs, who is in a hospice in Pennsylvania.
Biden was scheduled to speak in Washington D.C. and then attend a fund-raiser in the nation's capitol Saturday night. Sunday he was expected to campaign in Virginia.
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