Jon Huntsman is for life, liberty and the pursuit of really great street food
(CNN) - Now that former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman has officially entered the GOP presidential field he's making a play for a small but passionate group of voters: street food fanatics.
"Street food is so fresh, and it's so good and it's so cheap," he says.
FULL STORYA son seeks a political rematch
Atlanta (CNN) – Charles Rangel was first elected to Congress in 1970 after defeating Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a powerful lawmaker and civil rights icon in the Democratic primary. Forty years later, Rangel will face his son, Adam Clayton Powell IV, in the 2010 Democratic primary.
The younger Powell told CNN’s Don Lemon that he will officially announce his campaign Monday in Harlem. It will be a rematch as Powell lost to Rangel in the 1994 Democratic primary for the same seat. Powell, a New York assemblyman, denied he is motivated by revenge.
“I got that out of my chest in 94, the revenge, the settling the score … the reality is that if the congressman was not running I would still be just as enthusiastic about representing Harlem and Northern Manhattan in the United States Congress.”
GOP leaders offer a health care prebuttal to Obama
(CNN) - Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner took aim at the Democrats' health care proposal Wednesday, hours before the president is set to address the matter at a prime time news conference.
Boehner, the house minority leader, laid out his view of several "myths" he expected to hear from Obama: "First he'll say, 'If you like your plan you can keep it,' but clearly under the [plan], the congressional budget office estimates 23 million Americans will be forced out of their private health insurance into a government run plan."
McConnell, the senate minority leader, disputed suggestions Repuplicans are agaisnt reforming the country's health care system.
"I can't find a single member who is not for trying to improve America's healthcare system," the Kentucky Republican said.
Both leaders also expressed concern with what they see as the president's rush to get a bill passed rather than addressing their concerns, and said they were willing to work with the White House on a bill on a slower timetable.
Williams Jr. croons for McCain – Palin: 'Hey, good lookin' dish'
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/10/14/art.williamsjr.cnn.jpg caption=" Hank Williams, Jr. is campaigning for McCain."](CNN) – Country music star and Monday Night Football fan Hank Williams Jr. has released a song in support of the Republican ticket. “McCain – Palin Tradition” - based on the Williams tune “Family Tradition” - was unveiled in a performance yesterday by the singer at an event in Virginia.
While John McCain receives top billing in the song’s title as the head of the ticket, the lyrics pay as much tribute to running mate Governor Sarah Palin. In a studio recording of the song, the vice presidential nominee is referred to as a “good lookin dish” and a “mama bear,” though the McCain campaign omits the “good lookin dish” line from its’ official lyrics. The song also touches on current events, blaming the Democrats for “bankrupting” Fannie Mae n Freddie Mac and Bill Clinton for forcing unwilling bankers to make “all those bad loans.” According to Williams this created the conditions for the financial bail-out which he characterizes as a “Democrat liberal hoo doo”.
The honky tonk-tune contains a lyric that seems to reference Barack Obama’s acquaintance with violent 60s radical Bill Ayers: “John and Sarah … don't have radical friends to whom their careers are linked.” In the studio recording the line is sung “don't have terrorist friends,” while the lyrics released by Williams’ publicist read “radical friends.” At a Virginia Beach, Virginia performance, Williams sung “terrorist,” while at a performance in Richmond he used “radical.”
Hank Williams Jr.’s publicist says he plans to release a revamped single of the song soon, featuring other performers supportive of McCain – Palin, including singer/rapper Kid Rock.
Full lyrics after the jump:
McCain: Obama might have to send troops back to Iraq
McCain said Obama ingored the facts in Iraq
(CNN) - John McCain said Wednesday that a troop withdrawal from Iraq under an Obama administration wouldn’t be a lasting one.
The presumptive Republican nominee told the crowd at a Pennsylvania campaign event that Barack Obama advocated an “unconditional withdrawal” - a description of the Illinois senator’s policy that they debuted as he headed overseas several days ago - though he said “we are winning and we are succeeding” in Iraq, not a recent contention that the United States had already succeeded.
“Senator Obama says, ‘Well, if we don’t succeed we may have to go back in.’ Well, you might,” said McCain. “When I’m President of the United States we will come home. We will come home with victory and honor but we will never have to go back because we will have won this conflict.”
The Arizona senator also repeated his Tuesday charge that his opponent, for political reasons, is hoping for an American failure in Iraq: “Apparently Senator Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a campaign.”
Bill Clinton: High oil prices here to stay
Watch Bill Clinton's comments Wednesday.
(CNN) – Campaigning for his wife in North Carolina, former President Bill Clinton said Wednesday that he’d be “very surprised if oil goes below a hundred dollars a barrel again in my lifetime.”
“There is a limited amount of oil in the ground and everyday more and more people can afford to buy it so they are gonna bid the price up,” said Clinton, who added that drivers have been forced to choose “between driving to work and having enough food for their kids.”
His wife Hillary Clinton has proposed a gas tax holiday – paid for in part by higher taxes on oil companies - that would give consumers a price break at the pump this summer. The New York senator has also called for a Federal Trade Commission investigation into possible market manipulation by oil companies or speculators.
McCain: Calls for Iraq withdrawal a ‘failure of leadership’
WWatch McCain talk about veterans and Iraq.
(CNN) - Sen. John McCain sharply criticized calls for withdrawal from Iraq, telling a Missouri audience of the Veterans of Foreign Wars that those statements were politically opportunistic and strategically irresponsible.
“[Withdrawal] may appear to be the easier course of action, but it is a much more reckless one, and it does them no credit even if it gives them an advantage in the next election,” the presumptive Republican nominee said in a speech at the National World War I Museum.
McCain also asserted that major redeployment of troops from Iraq was really a policy of “withdraw and re-invade” because “trouble will come immediately.” He also warned of calamity should the United States withdraw from Iraq, he defended the record of recent progress and praised General David Petraeus, who is slated to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday.
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