Watch the next president on CNN’s 'Late Edition'
WASHINGTON (CNN) - Both Barack Obama and John McCain will appear on CNN’s "Late Edition" this morning - McCain at 11 a.m. and Obama at noon.
Host Wolf Blitzer spoke with the Republican candidate on Friday, and CNN is covering Sen. Obama’s speech at the UNITY: Journalists of Color conference in Chicago, Illinois.
Each interview will be followed by analysis from the best political team on television.
And if you miss the morning airing, be sure to tune in at 7 p.m. ET for a special “Late Edition: The Next President” which will show highlights of both candidates’ appearances.
You won’t want to miss it.
Jindal: 'McCain has to talk more proactively' on economy
Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-Louisiana, told CNN's Candy Crowley on Sunday that he thinks John McCain has to be more proactive in his dialogue on domestic issues if he wants to win the White House.
While the Arizona senator scores well on issues related to foreign policy and national security, recent polls show that Barack Obama leads McCain on economic matters.
When asked how the presumptive Republican nominee can overcome this hurdle, Jindal suggested that McCain needs to overtly emphasize his policy differences with those of the presumptive Democratic nominee.
“Senator McCain has to talk more proactively about his views on domestic issues, how he contrasts with Senator Obama,” the governor said on Late Edition.
Highlighting McCain’s positions on health care, taxes, and a “robust national energy policy,” Jindal said: “I think the majority of the American people agree with Senator McCain’s positions, but he needs to draw that contrast so people can see the difference.”
The nation’s youngest governor, Jindal has often been mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate. He is a staunch social conservative who could possibly offset any reservations Republicans have about McCain’s conservative credentials.
Richardson: 'You can't drill your way out of the problem'
(CNN) - Sen. Barack Obama supporter Gov. Bill Richardson, D-New Mexico, attacked Sen. John McCain’s stance on offshore drilling on Sunday, calling the Arizona senator’s plan “cosmetic steps.”
“The point is that we have got to have a bipartisan comprehensive strategy and this administration, it seems Senator McCain, all they want to do is drill, drill, drill,” the former Democratic candidate told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “You can't drill your way out of the problem.”
Democrats have criticized the presumptive Republican nominee for his apparent “flip-flop” on the issue of offshore drilling. The McCain camp denies that he’s changed his position, arguing that he has always supported a state’s right to choose what happens in its coastal waters. Aides said recently that the senator voted to uphold the federal ban on ocean drilling in 2000 as a way of supporting states’ rights.
Throughout his appearance on Late Edition, Richardson frequently linked McCain’s proposal to the plan put forth by President Bush.
“The Bush administration has waited eight years to pressure OPEC and their great friends, the Saudis. When President Bush came in, he said he was going to jawbone OPEC to increase production,” the governor stated. “What is needed is not what the president and John McCain want to do, which is drill offshore. What is needed is a comprehensive strategy of fuel efficiency, 50 miles-per-gallon vehicles… mass transit. What is needed is investments in renewable energy and solar and wind,” he said.
Richardson is the latest in a string of Democrats to slam McCain’s solution for lowering gas prices. On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada called it a “cynical campaign ploy” and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, said: “It is so hard to tell what Sen. McCain’s positions are because they change so rapidly… [This] is certainly not the position he had just six months ago.”
Clinton adviser reflects on failed campaign
(CNN) - Hillary Clinton’s communications director Howard Wolfson spoke about the New York senator’s failed presidential bid on CNN’s Late Edition - and acknowledged: “There are things that we would have done differently.”
“I think Barack Obama did a pretty good job of learning from whatever mistakes we made,” he told host Wolf Blitzer. “If his campaign wants to study ours and see what we did right and wrong, I'm sure they're going to do that.”
The outspoken adviser also defended the fact that Clinton waited until Saturday to give her concession speech.
“I know we live in the minute-by-minute media culture,” he said. “I think it's a little unrealistic and frankly unfair to expect somebody who's been running for president for 18 months and has done as well as Senator Clinton did – [she] was winning states in the last several months by 30, you know, 40 points to - on the last day of the primary - immediately come out and give a concession speech.”
Despite Wolfson’s admission that the campaign made some slip-ups, he insisted that not highlighting the history-making aspect of being the first female president was not one of them.
“It didn't seem to hurt our ability to get the votes of women who were Senator Clinton's strongest supporters. We overwhelmingly won the woman's vote in this race… African-Americans as a whole tended to vote for Senator Obama in overwhelming numbers, a great credit to him. But white women and Latinas did vote overwhelmingly for Senator Clinton, over 60 percent.”
And what about Wolfson’s immediate plans?
“I'm looking forward to a summer of some relaxation. I'll miss talking to you on a daily basis. But I'm going enjoy talking to my family more,” he said with a smile.
Hart: Bush is 'incredibly hypocritical'
(CNN) - Former senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart became the latest Democratic elder to denounce President Bush’s remarks from Israel on Thursday, calling the president’s speech "incredibly hypocritical."
"We all know that the administration has had contact with and is advocating contact with Hamas and other organizations,” Hart told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Late Edition. "So it was incredibly hypocritical."
While speaking to the Israeli parliament at a celebration of Israel’s 60th Anniversary, President Bush said: “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before.”
Many Democrats took these comments to be a veiled attack on Barack Obama’s foreign policy. Former presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden, D-Delaware, called the president’s comments “bulls**t“ and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said his actions were “beneath the dignity of the office of president.”
Obama responded to Bush’s comments on Friday by saying that they were “the kind of appalling attack that's divided our country and that alienates us from the world.”
North Carolina Democratic Primary – 'Record turnout possible'
WILMINGTON, North Carolina (CNN) — Voting under a typical ‘Carolina blue’ sky, droves of Democrats are turning out at polling stations in Wilmington, North Carolina.
If the headline of today’s local paper, the Wilmington Star-News, is any indication, it should be a big day for the Democratic Party. The headline reads ‘Record turnout possible’—and a beautiful spring day may draw more people to the polls.
Many voters in Wilmington are buzzing because for the first time in twenty years, North Carolina’s Democratic primary will play a significant role in deciding the party’s nominee.
“It’s really exciting,” a woman voting at Rachel Freeman Elementary School said. “It normally doesn’t matter as much.”
Heading into today’s primary, a CNN poll of polls showed Barack Obama with a 10 percent lead over Hillary Clinton in North Carolina. A win for Obama here would strengthen his grip on the delegate lead, but a better-than-expected showing by Clinton in another large state would bolster her claim that she’s the more formidable candidate in a general election.
Rangel says issue of religion will 'come back to haunt us'
(CNN) - Hillary Clinton supporter Rep. Charles Rangel, D-New York, attacked the media coverage of Barack Obama’s former pastor on CNN’s “Late Edition”, blaming them for over-hyping the issue and implying that it could hurt the Democratic Party down the road.
“It's disgraceful that he has to make any explanation for anything,” the outspoken congressman told Wolf Blitzer. “The intrusion of the media and Republicans into the sacred relationship that worshipers have with their spiritual leaders, I think, is going to come back to haunt us.”
“To think that we have to go into the lives and the beliefs of rabbis and priests and ministers and imams is absolutely ridiculous,” he went on.
Rangel’s comments defending the privacy of Obama’s relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright goes against what even the Illinois senator has said about the issue. Last Sunday, Obama told Chris Wallace that it is a “legitimate political issue” and that he understands why people are discussing it.
Clinton, Obama foreign policy advisers get heated
Watch Rice and Rubin debate foreign policy issues on Late Edition.
(CNN) - While the overall tone between campaign surrogates was tranquil on the Sunday morning talk shows, the argument between foreign policy advisers was anything but calm.
Sparked by Hillary Clinton's quote from earlier this week in which she said that "we will attack Iran" and that the U.S. would be able to "totally obliterate" Iraq's controversial neighbor, two Democratic foreign policy experts passionately defended their candidate's positions on CNN's "Late Edition."
Barack Obama adviser Susan Rice and Clinton adviser Jamie Rubin, both former members of the Clinton administration, came into the interview well-researched and armed with criticism of the opposing candidate. Rubin repeatedly cited a New Yorker article from 2006 in which Obama said he did not know how he would have voted on the war had he been in the senate, while Rice maintained that Obama had always felt that the war was a mistake.
Neither surrogate would accept the other's claims. It got pretty heated.
Three negative spots debut in one day
(CNN) - With just two days to go until the Pennsylvania primary, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both launched new attack ads Sunday that accuse the other of “empty rhetoric” and “eleventh-hour smears” - while the Democratic National Committee trained its fire on John McCain.
Roughly half a dozen negative spots - the majority of all campaign advertising in the state - have hit the airwaves this week alone.
Carter: Going against popular vote would be 'serious mistake'
WASHINGTON (CNN) - Jimmy Carter reiterated the sentiments of many Democratic Party leaders on Sunday by saying that it would be a “serious mistake” for superdelegates to choose the candidate with fewer total delegates.
“I think it would be a very serious mistake for the Democratic Party…if a candidate had the majority of popular votes, the majority of delegates and a majority of states - all three - were the superdelegates to vote contrary to that, I think it would be very difficult to explain,” the former president told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week.”
Carter is the latest in a series of prominent Democrats to say that nullifying the popular vote would be a flawed approach. He said that he “basically agreed” with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who on March 15 stated "if the votes of the superdelegates overturn what's happened in the elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic party.”
Heading into the key Pennsylvania primary on April 22, Hillary Clinton trails Barack Obama by 171 pledged delegates. Even well-known supporters of Clinton have declared publicly that she needs to come first in the popular vote to win the nomination.
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