Quote supplies grist for Obama
NEW PHILADELPHIA, Ohio - Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, pouncing on a top Republican aide's remark that the campaign is not about issues, said yesterday that John McCain is trying to run away from his party's bad economic record.
Campaigning in eastern Ohio, Obama quoted McCain campaign manager Rick Davis as saying that the election would be decided not on issues, but largely on voters' perceptions of the candidates' personalities.
Obama mentioned Davis's comment three times during a one-hour appearance at an outdoor forum on economic issues facing women. He used it to accuse speakers at the Republican convention in St. Paul of avoiding talk about job losses, home foreclosures, and other issues.
"If you've got George Bush's track record, and John McCain voting 90 percent of the time in agreement with George Bush, then you probably don't want to talk about issues either," Obama said.
The McCain campaign said in a statement, "Our campaign has been consistent and clear: This election is about whose judgment you can trust to move America forward," and it argued Obama doesn't have that judgment.
Obama said McCain, Bush, and other Republicans "just don't get" the hardships many Ohioans are facing because of the long-running loss of manufacturing jobs. He cited his proposals to increase the minimum wage and the earned income tax credit; to pump money into wind and solar power, clean-coal technology, and biodiesel; and to help subsidize health and tuition costs for many families.
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In an address in June, she asked the students to pray for the troops in Iraq and noted that her eldest son, Track, was expected to be deployed there. "Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God," she said. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan."
A video of the speech was initially posted at the Wasilla Assembly of God's website. Palin attended the evangelical church from the time she was a teenager until 2002, the church said in a statement posted on its website.
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The eight were arrested after raids of homes in the Twin Cities conducted before the convention began by the Ramsey County Sheriff's Department.
The charges are highly unusual because of the addition of terrorism to the crimes. Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner said she could recall no such cases in her 24 years with the prosecutor's office. Bruce Nestor, president of the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, which is representing several people, called the charges ridiculous.
Seven of the eight are being held at the Ramsey County Jail on $75,000 bond: Max Jacob Specktor, 19, Erik Charles Oseland, 21, Eryn Chase Trimmer, 23, Luce Guillen-Givins, 24, Nathanael David Secor, 26, and Robert Joseph Czernik, 32, all of Minneapolis; and Garrett Scott Fitzgerald, 25, of Kasota, Minn.
Monica Rachel Bicking, 23, of Minneapolis was released earlier in the week.
According to the complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court, the eight are leading members of the RNC Welcoming Committee, a self-described anarchist coalition.
For at least two years, the group mapped out ways to use violent methods to disrupt the convention and prevent delegates from entering the
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