Sunday Roundup: Candidates on Iraq dominates talk shows
(CNN) - A roundup of quotes from the Sunday political talk shows, as compiled by the CNN Wire:
On the candidates' Iraq strategies:
"I think what's significant about what's happened in the last week - frankly, in the last month, since Senator Obama clinched the nomination - is how many big positions - Iraq, Iran, free trade, the death penalty - that Senator Obama has ... altered his position on.
"On Iraq, John McCain has been right and consistent, and Senator Obama has been wrong."
–Sen. Joe Lieberman, Independent from Connecticut, on ABC's "This Week"
"The Republicans, and John McCain specifically, are trying desperately to get away from the reality of John McCain's position, which is that he has a plan for staying in Iraq and Barack Obama has a plan for getting out of Iraq... (Obama's position) is no change whatsoever in his fundamental determination to end the war."
–Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, on CBS' "Face the Nation"
Sunday Roundup: GOP in trouble?
(CNN) - On Tuesday, Democrat Travis Childers won a key Mississippi House seat against Republican Greg Davis. The district was thought to be a stronghold for the GOP, with the seat held by Rep. Roger Wicker since 1994.
The state’s governor appointed Wicker to the Senate seat of Trent Lott at the first of the year. Many in Republican circles are interpreting this loss, along with those of two other House seats in traditionally conservative districts, as an ominous sign for the November election.
Meanwhile, the congressional Democrats raised over $44 million for the upcoming campaign, while Republicans have only pulled in an estimated $7 million. And earlier this week, retiring Republican Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia sent out a memo calling the current political climate “the worst atmosphere we've seen since Watergate.”
On ABC’s “This Week” House Minority Leader John Boehner spoke with George Stephanopoulos about the chances for Republican gains in the fall.
(Full roundup after the jump)
Sunday Roundup: Who's leading the Democratic race?
(CNN) - Hillary Clinton's big win in Pennsylvania on Tuesday kept the New York senator's hopes alive as she and fellow candidate Sen. Barack Obama continue to campaign for the next two upcoming primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. With both campaigns still in full swing and no immediate end in sight, the Sunday morning talk shows hashed out the current stats with strategists, surrogates, party leaders, and even one of the candidates, in an effort to answer the question: Who's leading the race for the Democratic nomination?
Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, a backer of Sen. Hillary Clinton, and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a supporter of Sen. Barack Obama, stopped by ABC's "This Week" to talk campaign politics. Sen. Bayh made the case for looking at the popular vote instead of the delegate count to determine a frontrunner. "The most important thing to look at is the aggregate popular vote. The pledged delegates are important, but they are just intermediaries representing the people themselves," he said. But Daschle argued that examining only the popular vote leaves out a large segment of the Democratic voting population, the caucuses. "That basically says to all caucus states who don't keep track of the popular vote per se that you don't count," Daschle said.
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It was a Senator showdown on CNN's "Late Edition" this week between Clinton supporter Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York) and Obama backer Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri). Sen. Schumer interpreted Clinton's Pennsylvania win as a change in the tide. "Hillary Clinton now has the momentum," he said to CNN's Wolf Blitzer. But Sen. McCaskill disputed Schumer's assertions. "If you drill down and look at the superdelegate race, right now, you see where the momentum is," referring to Obama's surge in superdelegates in the past week despite his loss in Pennsylvania.
Sunday roundup: The next steps in Iraq
WASHINGTON (CNN) - With this week’s headlines focused on the congressional testimony of U.S. Commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, the Sunday morning talk show circuit showcased some of the top political players in the next steps for the United States in Iraq:
On CNN’s Late Edition, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden and Republican Ranking Member Richard Lugar gave their assessments following the week of testimony. Biden told host Wolf Blitzer that it’s not the presidential election that will change the Iraqi government, but rather “reality on the ground will change the politics in Iraq.” Lugar expressed some disappointment in the current Iraq strategy, telling Blitzer “The hearing demonstrated that we don't have still a definition of success or victory.”
Also on Late Edition, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari asserted that the Iraqi government is doing its part to stabilize the country. “We are shouldering the main burden on looking after our people,” Zebari said. “We are not standing by. This is our country.”
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Sunday roundup: Debate over McCain's '100 years' comment
(CNN) - The economy may be “Issue #1,” and the unresolved Democratic presidential race continues to dominate the headlines, but in anticipation of Tuesday’s congressional testimony by General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, much of the Sunday morning talk focused on the Iraq war.
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On “Fox News Sunday,” John McCain responded to Barack Obama’s criticism of the presumptive Republican nominee’s comment about maintaining a troop presence in Iraq for 100 years.
“I said, ‘It could be 100 years, but it's a matter of U.S. casualties, and we have presence in countries like South Korea, Japan,’ et cetera, et cetera,” McCain told Chris Wallace. “So it's very clear. And Senator Obama and anyone who reads that knows that I didn't think we were in a 100-year war.”
Later on Fox, Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, disputed the Arizona senator.
“On the 100 years war issue, John McCain is being disingenuous, because what he said in that interview was as long as there is no violence - which indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of Iraq itself,” Kerry alleged.
“If he's talking about being there for 40 years, 100 years, he's talking about attracting more and more terrorists and not paying attention to the larger challenges.”
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