WASHINGTON– Vice President Joe Biden said Friday that the country is evolving on the issue of gay marriage and he thinks it’s inevitable there will be national consensus.

He said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” the same thing is happening with the issue of marriage that happened with gays’ service in the military.

Changes in attitudes by military leaders, those in the service and the public allowed the repeal by Congress of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that will eventually allow gays to serve openly in the military.

Gay marriage is still not legal in most states. President Barack Obama recently said his feelings on the gay marriage issue are evolving, but he still believes in allowing strong civil unions that provide certain protections and legal rights that married couples have.

Read more at HuffPo

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Vice President Joe Biden boldly predicted Friday that voters would reject a “Republican tea party” of extreme candidates and Democrats would retain control of Congress this November.

In a pep talk for the party’s rank and file, the vice president challenged the widespread notion that significant losses in House races, and perhaps the Senate, could cost the party its comfortable majorities – a possibility White House press secretary Robert Gibbs suggested last month before saying Democrats will hang onto the House.

“On Nov. 3 … there will be in Washington, D.C., a Democratic majority in the House and a Democratic majority in the Senate. That will be the case,” Biden said in a speech to the Democratic National Committee. And, he said, Democrats will do better than expected in gubernatorial races, too.

“If it weren’t illegal, I’d make book on it,” Biden quipped.

RELATED: Biden Honors Troops At Arlington

All 435 House seats, 37 in the Senate and 37 governors races are on the line.

Bowing to economic reality, Biden said voters’ anger and frustration was understandable given persistently high unemployment and a sluggish recovery. But he also expressed confidence that once voters focus on the elections, they will stick with President Barack Obama because “the choice is between Democrats and the Republican tea party. It’s between Democrats and the party of repeal and repeat.”

“They’re offering more of the past but on steroids,” Biden said, castigating “the Republican tea party” as “out of step with where the American people are.”

The DNC was holding a two-day meeting to get a status report on preparations for the midterm elections and approve changes to the 2012 presidential primary calendar and nominating convention.

Obama’s party laid out the crux of its argument Friday in a new ad set to run on cable: “This fall, America faces a big choice: Do we continue to move forward like the Democrats are doing? … Or do we go back to the same Republican policies that got us into this mess?”

RELATED: Joe Biden Supported By Black Community In Delaware

The ad then shows former President George W. Bush saying, “we can’t get fooled again.”

Biden and other top party officials sought to energize dispirited members of the party as it faces extraordinarily difficult challenges heading into the election-year homestretch. Leading Democrats expressed optimism that the party’s financial might, voter turnout operations and the GOP’s governing track record – which they call poor – will help stem widespread losses on Nov. 2.

“The midterms will be tough,” Chairman Tim Kaine told party members. But, he added: “Tough is who we are. Tough is what we do.” He dismissively called Republicans “the easy streeters and the country clubbers.”

Kaine also expressed optimism, saying: “There’s a lot of doom and gloom about it, but I think we’re going to do a lot better than people think.” He pointed to strong July fundraising – an $11.5 million haul leaving Democrats with $10.8 million in the bank – and a proven get-out-the-vote operation built upon the success of the 2008 presidential election that delivered Obama the White House.

“We need to mobilize our army once again. We’ve won some impressive battles in the last 18 months but we still haven’t won this war,” Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services secretary, told the gathering. “We can’t go back, we won’t give up and we should never retreat.”

And Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill told party members to redouble their efforts to defeat Republicans: “You’re the gears of this operation. So get them unstuck!”

Privately, some Democrats attending the St. Louis meeting fretted that the political environment may be getting even more difficult for the party in power, with dour economic news seeming to pile up with each passing day. On Thursday, the Labor Department reported that the number of people applying for unemployment benefits reached the half-million mark last week for the first time since November.

The committee approved changes to the 2012 presidential primary calendar. It’s likely Obama will run for re-election and be renominated. Even so, the party sought to fix the system after the protracted 2008 primary.

The DNC signed off on the panel’s plan that would push back the start of the nominating season and all but mirror the schedule the Republican National Committee approved earlier this month.

Democrats will hold the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 6, 2012, and the New Hampshire primary eight days later, on Feb. 14. Nevada caucuses will be Feb. 18 and the South Carolina primary on Feb. 28. All other states will hold their primaries and caucuses March 6 or later.

States that hold their primaries later in the 2012 calendar year will get anywhere from 5 to 20 percent more delegates to the convention.

The party also limited the influence of the independent superdelegates in choosing the party’s nominee by reducing their numbers, from 20 percent of the total number of delegates to 15 percent. Superdelegates are the members of Congress, governors and party elders who can back candidates regardless of how their states vote.

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ELWOOD, Ill. — Vice President Joe Biden hailed America’s fighting men and women Monday as the “spine of this nation,” while President Barack Obama’s Land of Lincoln tribute in Illinois got washed out by a severe thunderstorm and high winds.

The president was expected to deliver the speech Monday evening after he lands at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington.

Biden made the more traditional appearance at Arlington National Cemetery on Obama’s behalf, saying the country has “a sacred obligation” to make sure its servicemen and women are the best equipped and best-supported troops in the world.

Text continues after gallery …

“As a nation, we pause to remember them,” Biden said. “They gave their lives fulfilling their oath to this nation and to us.”

Obama had readied a similar message of gratitude for his appearance at the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Illinois, and actually had taken the podium to give the address when the skies opened up with a quintessentially midwestern late-spring downpour — thunder, lightning and high winds.

Under the cover of a large umbrella, he told thousands gathered before him that “a little bit of rain doesn’t hurt anybody, but we don’t want anybody being struck by lightning.” He asked people to return to their cars for their safety, and he retreated briefly to an administration building on the cemetery’s grounds. A few minutes later Obama boarded a pair of buses to greet military families that came for the event.

Within the hour, reporters who accompanied Obama to the cemetery in Elwood, Ill., were told the speech had been called off. The White House had released copies of Obama’s prepared remarks in advance of his talk, but they were pulled back when the event had to be canceled.

Before the storm hit, and in advance of his appearance at the podium, Obama had visited a section of headstones where two Marines awaited him. After laying a wreath, he bowed his head in a moment of silence, his hands tightly clasped. Then a lone bugler played Taps.

After leaving the cemetery, Obama met privately with families of veterans and service members currently living at the Fisher House in Hines, Ill. It serves as a home away from home for family members whose loved ones are getting treatment at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Hines, which is about 12 miles west of downtown Chicago.

At Arlington, Biden carried out the traditional wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns under a brilliant sunshine.

The vice president, accompanied by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the country’s service members are “the heart and soul and, I would, say spine of this nation.” He said taking part in the annual ceremony was “the greatest honor of my public life.”

Obama’s decision to appear in Illinois, rather than at the national burial grounds at Arlington, had been controversial, and some veterans groups criticized him for it, although he was not the first president to bypass the annual outing.

Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of the group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said Arlington is the focal point of the nation’s and military’s attention on Memorial Day. “When he’s not here, it doesn’t look like he’s on the same page,” Rieckhoff said.

Rieckhoff said U.S. service men and women need Obama to use the bully pulpit to remind people that the holiday is not about going to the beach or barbecuing. “We think that he has an obligation to really bridge the divide between the military and the rest of the population.”

“We appreciate that the vice president is going to be here, but it’s not the same,” Rieckhoff said.

Jay Agg, a spokesman for the veterans group AMVETS, said the annual ceremony at Arlington is “the ideal place for the president to observe Memorial Day. However, his choice to honor our fallen at another national cemetery as other presidents have done is entirely appropriate.”

In an e-mail, Agg accused some people of using the day “as an opportunity to score cheap political points on the backs of our veterans and in doing so dishonor them and distract from the true meaning and purpose of Memorial Day.”

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From TheRoot.com:

Shortly after he ousted a guy named Corn Pop for breaking the rules at the all-black pool, Joe Biden considered calling the police to escort him to his car once his shift ended.

Corn Pop belonged to a gang known as the Romans, and Biden, the lone white lifeguard at Prices Run–one of the few public pools in Wilmington, Del., open to non-whites during the 1960s–made fun of the man’s pomade-slathered hair before kicking him out.

Word from the black lifeguards was that Corn Pop, who took his coiffure pretty seriously, would be waiting outside with a straight razor, ready to fight. Calling the cops was a no-no, Biden was warned, unless he planned to never return to the pool.

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Newsweek wrote that Joe Biden’s Big F—- Deal Statement when the health care signed was one of the few times that the F-bomb was appropriate. Now they are using Biden’s statement as a fund raising T-Shirt.

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WILMINGTON, Del. — Jean Biden, who raised her son Vice President Joe Biden to believe in what he called “America’s creed … everyone is your equal,” died Friday after falling seriously ill in recent days. She was 92.

In a statement, the vice president said she died in Wilmington surrounded by her family and loved ones. She had suffered a broken hip in a fall in March 2009.

“Together with my father, her husband of 61 years who passed away in 2002, we learned the dignity of hard work and that you are defined by your sense of honor,” he said in the statement. “Her strength, which was immeasurable, will live on in all of us.”

Joe Biden Jr. was first elected to the Senate in 1972, shortly before his 30th birthday. His mother helped out by organizing coffee klatches — part of a family effort that also included Biden’s father, sister and brothers.

“Those of you who have met my mom, you know she’s fairly politically astute, and she still runs the show,” the vice president quipped shortly after she fell last year.

“You think I’m joking? I’m not,” he said.

The former Catherine Eugenia Finnegan was born July 7, 1917, in Scranton, Pa. In 1941, she married businessman Joseph Biden Sr., with whom she had four children. The couple moved from Scranton to Claymont, Del., in 1953, when their eldest son, Joe, was 10 years old. Joseph Biden Sr. died in 2002 at age 86.

According to Biden’s 2007 autobiography, “Promises to Keep,” his mother had some reservations about whether he should risk a promising career as a young lawyer to enter politics.

“You’re not going to run for Senate and ruin your reputation, are you?” he recalled his mother asking.

“And once Mom was reassured that my future was safe, win or lose, she would do anything,” Biden wrote.

Biden was elected vice president as Barack Obama’s running mate. In his speech at the Democratic National Convention in August 2008, he paid tribute to his mother, who was in the audience.

“My mother’s creed is the American creed: No one is better than you,” he said. “Everyone is your equal, and everyone is equal to you. My parents taught us to live our faith, and to treasure our families. We learned the dignity of work, and we were told that anyone can make it if they just try hard enough.”

Biden said he also learned honor and loyalty from his mother.

“When I got knocked down by guys bigger than me, and this is the God’s truth, she sent me back out the street and told me, ‘Bloody their nose so you can walk down the street the next day.’ And that’s what I did.”

Raised in a family with a strong Irish Catholic tradition, Jean Biden leaned on her faith in comforting her eldest son after his wife and daughter were killed in a car crash in December 1972, the month after he was elected to the Senate. His two sons were seriously injured.

“After the accident, she told me, ‘Joey, God sends no cross that you cannot bear,’” Biden recalled.

In his autobiography, Joe Biden recalled being mocked by a seventh-grade nun for his stuttering, an incident that sent his mother to his school in a fury, her children in tow.

“If you ever speak to my son like that again, I’ll come back and rip that bonnet off your head. Do you understand me?” she told the nun.

Joe Biden also recalled how when his mother couldn’t find a pair of cufflinks for him to wear to an eighth-grade dance, she fashioned a pair from nuts and bolts, which left him mortified.

“Now look, Joey, if anybody says anything to you about these nuts and bolts, you just look them right in the eye and say ‘Don’t you have a pair of these?’” she told him.

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WASHINGTON – House Democrats aren’t optimistic that a government insurance plan, a central element of health care legislation passed in their chamber, will survive negotiations with the Senate.

While insisting “it’s not dead,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said Sunday he recognizes realities in the Senate, where Democrats had to scrape up every vote from their side to pass a bill — even one without a government plan to compete in the private insurance marketplace.

“Before the House was to give up the public option, we would want to be persuaded that there are other mechanisms in whatever bill comes out that will keep down premiums,” said Van Hollen. “We’ve got to make sure that the final product is affordable.”

Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House and one who had appealed to President Barack Obama not to yield on the public plan, set out conditions for yielding himself.

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“We want a public option to do basically three things: Create more choice for insurers, create more competition for insurance companies, and to contain costs,” Clyburn said. “So if we can come up with a process by which these three things can be done, then I’m all for it. Whether or not we label it a public option or not is of no consequence.”

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., underscored the divisions Democrats will need to bridge when negotiators from the House and Senate meet next month to reconcile the two bills. He said there will need to be more give on the House side than the Senate, which took weeks to find the 60 votes needed for passage.

“If we are going to have a final law, it will look a lot more like the Senate version than the House version,” Menendez asserted.

The Senate’s Christmas Eve achievement brought the nation closer than it’s been for generations to a new order in health insurance. It would eventually require nearly all Americans to get coverage, help many pay for it and restrict onerous insurance company practicessuch as denying coverage to people with pre-existing sickness.

But nothing will change for anyone until the House and Senate can settle on common legislation, pass it and send it to Obama to sign.

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The high stakes have both parties hoping they can find a few converts from the other side. Nearly every Republican in Congress has opposed the measures.

“If some of the Republicans would come forward with suggestions — offer a vote or two, or three or four — to take away the need to have every last one of the 60 Democrats, you’d have a much better bill in accordance with the tradition of the Congress, especially the Senate, on bipartisanship,” said Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, himself a party switcher.

Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina voiced similar hope, to opposite ends: “a few Democrats to stand up in the House that maybe didn’t before and help us stop this thing.”

DeMint, Van Hollen, Menendez and Specter spoke on “Fox News Sunday.” Clyburn was on CBS’ “Face the Nation” and CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Did you catch last week’s episode of Washington Watch with Roland Martin on TV One? If you missed it, check out very own Smokey Fontaine talkinga bout what’s hot on the web right here!:

Tune in  Sundays at 11 a.m./5 p.m. to watch the first news show ever to look at national politics through an African-American lens. Hosted by Roland Martin, the show has guests as distinguished as VP Joe Biden and covers topics ranging from the economy, healthcare, education and black on black crime.

Submit your questions/comments for Washington Watch HERE.

This week on TV One’s Washington Watch, Roland Martin sits down with Vice-President Joe Biden and others to discuss race, healthcare and Obama’s presidency. Check out the highlights below & watch the show on Sundays at 11am/5pm EST on TV One.

Submit questions & comments for Washington Watch HERE.

VP JOE BIDEN on Washington Watch:

On NY Gov. David Paterson:

Race IS A Factor!:

First lady Michelle Obama says the White House is a place where people should feel free to speak their minds. To that end, she and President Barack Obama welcomed actors, poets and writers to the East Room on Tuesday.

The Obamas hosted a night of poetry reading and the spoken word featuring James Earl Jones, Esperanza Spalding and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The night also included musical interludes, modern poetry and excerpts from Shakespeare.

Mrs. Obama says the administration wants to make the White House available to everyone. She also wants performers to share their experiences.

The president says such performances can express beauty and pain.

Students from Washington-area colleges joined the Obamas around small tables.

Watch the Performance

From HuffingtonPost.com:

If there’s one thing in this world that we love unabashedly, it’s awesome kid reporter Damon Weaver from Pahokee, Florida, who gained national attention after interviewing Joe Biden, and heroically keeping his microphone aloft for several of the Vice President’s long-winded answers. From there, Weaver went on a quest to gain an interview with President Barack Obama.

Does he land it?

Find out here!

WATCH Damon interview Joe Biden:

A “friend” of Vice President Joseph Biden’s daughter, Ashley, is attempting to hawk a videotape that he claims shows her snorting cocaine at a house party this month in Delaware first reported by the NY Post.

The anonymous male acquaintance of Ashley took the video, said Thomas Dunlap, a lawyer representing the seller.

Dunlap and a man claiming to be a lawyer showed The Post about 90 seconds of 43-minute tape, saying it was legally obtained and that Ashley was aware she was being filmed. The Post refused to pay for the video.

The video, which the shooter initially hoped to sell for $2 million before scaling back his price to $400,000, shows a 20-something woman with light skin and long brown hair taking a red straw from her mouth, bending over a desk, inserting the straw into her nostril and snorting lines of white powder.

She then stands up and begins talking with other people in the room. A young man looks on from behind her, facing the camera. The lawyers said he was Ashley’s boyfriend of a few years.

The camera follows the woman from a few feet away, focusing on her as she moves around the room. It appears not to be concealed. At one point she shouts, “Shut the f— up!”

The woman appears to resemble Ashley Biden, 27, a social worker for a Delaware child-welfare agency and a visible presence during her father’s campaign for the White House.

The dialogue is difficult to discern, but the woman makes repeated references to the drugs, said the lawyers, who said they viewed the tape about 15 times.

“At one point she pretty much complains that the line isn’t big enough,” said the second lawyer, who declined to identify himself. “And she talks about her dad.”

Biden has been an outspoken crusader against drugs, coining the term “drug czar” in 1982 while campaigning for a more forceful “war on drugs.”

The lawyers declined to name the person who shot the video, but said he knew Ashley well and had attended other parties with her at which there were illegal drugs.

The lawyers said the shooter used a camera with a hard-disc drive that he later destroyed, drilling into the device and tossing it into a lake.

The woman in the video acknowledges the camera in a way that makes it clear she knows she’s being recorded, the lawyers said, waving at it during a part of the video not shown to The Post.

No one else in the video is seen using the drugs. The portion of the tape shown to The Post ends shortly after the woman’s alleged ingestion.

The shooter claims that he previously tape-recorded Ashley at a party in August, but was unsuccessful in his attempts to sell that video, they said.

An American media company offered $250,000 for the footage and access to the person who shot the tape, according to the lawyers.

Another company, based overseas, offered $225,000, they said.

The unnamed lawyer hinted that his client had additional information that could embarrass the vice president’s daughter.

“The higher the price, the more he’ll reveal,” said the lawyer.

The lawyers said the video shooter was afraid of being identified and prosecuted for his role in the alleged drug use.

“He’s got a criminal-defense attorney,” said Dunlap, who has offices in Virginia and the District of Columbia.

The other lawyer said Ashley didn’t have Secret Service protection at the time of the party because she complained about agents blocking her driveway.

“She complained to her dad about it and he got rid of them,” he said.

This isn’t the first brush with scandal for Ashley, who was arrested in 2002 when she yelled at a cop trying to arrest her disorderly friend outside a Chicago club, according to published report.

She was charged with obstructing, but the rap was later dropped after she apologized. Ashley is the youngest of three siblings, and the only one born to the vice president and his second wife, Jill.

From The New York Times:

R. Gil Kerlikowske, the police chief of Seattle, was chosen on Wednesday to be the White House “drug czar,” signaling a shift in emphasis from arrest and prosecution to intervention and treatment.

The selection of Mr. Kerlikowske, which had been expected, was announced by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who said Mr. Kerlikowske understands that “combating drugs requires a comprehensive approach that includes enforcement, prevention and treatment.”

If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Kerlikowske, 59, will become director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, as the drug czar is formally known. “The success of our efforts to reduce the flow of drugs is largely dependent on our ability to reduce demand for them,” Mr. Kerlikowske said in a ceremony at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

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Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday there is no “magic bullet” for curing the country’s economic woes, urging patience and saying he hopes a recovery can be achieved in the next two years.

“We’ll come of this recession, and when we come out we’ll have a stronger middle class, more competitive nation, and the 21st century will be ours,” he said.

Speaking a day after President Barack Obama outlined the challenge to a joint session of Congress, Biden said that Republican critics have failed to offer a meaningful alternative to the nearly trillion-dollar stimulus program. And he cautioned that getting employment back to pre-recession levels will be difficult, noting that labor markets typically have been the last to return to return to full health.

Biden said the recovery will take some time, but that the nation could be “back in the saddle” within two years if things go according to plan.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, also appearing on NBC, said that Obama had said several things Republicans could agree with in his speech. But he also repeated the GOP’s criticism of the $787 billion stimulus plan that the president signed into law earlier this month, saying it represents too much government spending and too little in the way of revitalizing businesses.

Jindal said that “rather than all the wasteful spending,” Republicans would have preferred targeted infrastructure investments and targeted tax relief, such as a cut in the capital gains tax.

“There’s not enough money in Washington to grow our economy,” he said. “We think we need a focus on getting our businesses to hire people, to create jobs.”

Jindal did say he agreed that Republicans and Democrats “both have a spending problem” and that the GOP has to “match our actions with our rhetoric.”

“Bipartisanship is not just having people over for lemonade and cookies at the White House,” he said. “We want to give this president a chance. We want to work with him. But where we disagree, we’re going to be unafraid to offer principled, conservative solutions.”

Biden appeared on NBC’s “Today” show, CBS’s “The Early Show,” and ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Jindal was interviewed on NBC.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Bill Gates seemed open and optimisitc to having a role in Obama’s new government.

Gates said:

Certainly my full-time job is being chairman of the foundation,…if there was some committee or pretty focused task where I could contribute, I’d be glad to consider that, and I hope that the things we’ve learned about education — including the mistakes we’ve made — I hope we do get a strong dialogue and I’m very optimistic we’ll have that with these people

Gates also met with Vice President Elect, Joe Biden yesterday. The twotalked about global health inititives and ways to improve education in America.

Ten year old reporter, Damon Weaver, from Kathryn E. Cunningham/Canal Point Elementary School in Florida is publically requesting an interview with President Elect, Barack Obama. Weaver had previously interviewed Vice President Elect, Joe Biden and  Miami Heat players, Sean Marion and Dwayne Wade.

Watch Damon Weaver’s Video Plea for an Obama Interview After the Jump

Watch Damon Weaver Interview Joe Biden

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden on Sunday accused the McCain campaign of trying to distract Americans from their economic woes by launching “unbecoming personal attacks” at Barack Obama.

Appearing at a boisterous rally near his childhood home, Biden said John McCain’s campaign is desperate to change the subject from the financial crisis that has wiped out many Americans’ college and retirement savings. He said McCain has resorted to making “ugly inferences” about Obama in the waning days of the campaign.

“Every single false charge, every single baseless accusation is a simple attempt to get you to focus on something other than what’s affecting your family and your country,” said Biden, who was cheered by some 6,000 people packed into a sports arena in the blue-collar city where he lived until he was 10.

“It’s good to be home!” said the Delaware senator, who was joined on stage by former President Clinton and Sen. Hillary Clinton — the former Democratic presidential candidate who has her own roots in Scranton, where her father grew up and is buried.

The battered economy may be helping Obama in Pennsylvania, where he has surged ahead in polls over the past few weeks. A daily tracking poll conducted by Muhlenberg College has shown Obama with a double-digit lead over McCain since Oct. 3.

If Obama and Biden win Pennsylvania, Sen. Clinton predicted Sunday, “there’s no way they can lose the White House.”

Clinton beat Obama in the Pennsylvania primary by 10 percentage points, in part by appealing to the socially conservative, blue-collar voters in Scranton and many other parts of the state. Biden’s counterpart, Republican Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is scheduled to campaign in the city on Tuesday.

Biden on Sunday cast McCain as out of touch with the concerns of everyday Americans who are worried about their jobs and the declining values of their homes. He said McCain doesn’t know how to get the nation’s economy back on track and would simply continue the policies of President Bush.

“Nothing less than our prosperity and our security is on the ballot,” he said.

At an Obama rally in Roanoke, Va., later Sunday, Bill Clinton said Bush’s response to the financial crisis is helping Obama’s campaign.

“The administration keeps plowing an Uzi’s worth of bullets into the McCain-Palin ticket every time they have something else go wrong,” Clinton told an evening rally of several hundred people gathered at Roanoke’s downtown Market Square. “It’s good politics for us.”

Clinton praised the Democratic candidate’s plan for financial recovery and his proposals for health care reform, an issue that he said nobody has taken on “since Hillary and I got our brains beat out trying to fix.”

Later, before a crowd of more than 4,000 at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Clinton said: “In six of the last eight years we have seen what happens if (Republicans) do everythng they want to do. This is not about good people and bad people, this is about good ideas and bad ones.”

In Pennsylvania, Biden defended a comment he made in an ABC interview last month in which he said the wealthiest Americans should show their patriotism by paying more in taxes. The Obama campaign has said it plans to hike taxes on people earning more than $250,000, but would cut taxes for those making less. Republicans have criticized Biden over the remark.

Accusing businesses and wealthy individuals of using “offshore tax loopholes” to hide $100 billion a year in income, Biden told the crowd Sunday, “It is unpatriotic when you earn your money in the United States of America and you hide it offshore to avoid taxes, making sure YOU have to make up the difference.”

His voice rising, the Delaware senator shouted: “It is unpatriotic to take $100 billion offshore and not pay your taxes! That is unpatriotic! So I don’t need a lecture on patriotism! I’ve had it to here!”

The McCain campaign pointed out that Biden and both Clinton had raised questions about Obama during the Democratic primaries.

“As voters in northeast Pennsylvania continue to raise serious questions about Barack Obama’s judgment and character, it is befitting that they will now hear from the three leading voices who sounded the alarm on the risk of an Obama presidency,” said McCain spokesman Paul Lindsay.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden called Republican John McCain an angry man making ugly attacks against the Democratic ticket to cover up his support for President Bush.

“You can’t call yourself a maverick when all you’ve ever been is a sidekick,” Biden said Wednesday of McCain. He credited Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey with first using the line.

Biden’s attacks came during an appearance at the University of South Florida’s Sun Dome, in the heart of the Tampa Bay area where the two tickets are in a tight race. Thousands waited in a line that wrapped along the Sun Dome basketball arena for a chance to hear Barack Obama’s running mate.

Biden plans to continue this aggressive stance toward the Republican presidential candidate through Election Day, said his spokesman David Wade. Wade said Biden would be Obama’s “defender in chief.”

Biden argued that he and Obama have won all three debates so far. He said Tuesday night’s town hall debate between the two at the top of the ticket, where voters asked most of the questions, showed “what a majority of American people are looking for — a steady hand, leadership, an optimist; not an angry man, lurching from one position to another.”

Biden also ridiculed McCain running mate Sarah Palin for her attacks on Obama. “Last week I had a debate, I think it was a debate, with Gov. Palin,” Biden said. Palin and Biden both used the debate more for attacks on the opposing standard-bearer rather than direct answers to the questions.

Earlier, during an appearance on CBS’ “The Early Show,” Biden said Palin’s criticism of Obama as friends with terrorists is “over the top.”

Palin has been telling supporters that Obama is close to a 1960s-era radical William Ayers, a founder of the violent Weather Underground. After first claiming that Obama had been “palling around with terrorists,” she changed the thrust of the attack to say that Obama’s ties to Ayers showed bad judgment.

Obama and Ayers, now a college professor, live in the same Chicago neighborhood and have served together on two nonprofit organization boards. The Illinois senator, who was a young child when the Weathermen were planting bombs in protest of the Vietnam War, has denounced Ayers’ radical views and actions. His campaign has said that Obama didn’t know of Ayers’ past when they first met.

In Florida on Monday, Palin’s remarks about Obama and Ayers elicited waves of booing from supporters. One person at a rally shouted “Kill him!” according to a Washington Post report. (It was unclear if the shouter referred to Ayers or Obama.) A sheriff who introduced Palin at a rally referred to the Democratic candidate as “Barack Hussein Obama.”

“You know, the idea here that somehow these guys are once again injecting fear and loathing into this campaign is … I think it’s mildly dangerous. I mean, here you have out there these kinds of, you know, incitements out there — guy introducing Barack using his middle name as if it’s some epitaph or something,” Biden said, apparently confusing the words “epitaph” and “epithet.”

“It’s just malarkey, flat malarkey,” Biden said of the Ayers criticism. “The guy Barack Obama is going to turn and ask opinion to is me, not that guy.”

Biden said the Republicans have chosen “to appeal to fear with a veiled question, `Who is the real Barack Obama?’”

McCain has been asking that question on the campaign trail, and Biden said that reminds him of the dirty tricks played in the 2000 Republican primary campaign, when false rumors were circulated that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black baby and was mentally unstable.

“The McCain campaign went out and hired the very political manipulators in the Republican primary who in 2000 led those vicious attacks against John’s daughter and John’s lovely wife,” Biden said. “They hired those people to come on board. And now these same people, they’re attacking Barack Obama in the ugliest of ways.”

Biden returned to the campaign trail on Wednesday after spending the last few days mourning the death of his mother-in-law.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Wednesday that Republican rival Sarah Palin is injecting fear and loathing into their campaign with her criticism that Barack Obama is friends with a terrorist. He called the effort “mildly dangerous.”

Palin began last weekend telling supporters that Obama is close to ’60s-era radical William Ayers, a founder of the violent group the Weather Underground. After first claiming that Obama had been “palling around with terrorists,” she changed the thrust of the attack to say that Obama’s ties to Ayers showed bad judgment.

Obama and Ayers live in the same Chicago neighborhood and have served together on community boards. The Illinois senator, who was a young child when the Weathermen were planting bombs in protest of the Vietnam War, has denounced Ayers’ radical views and actions. His campaign has said that Obama didn’t know of Ayers’ past when they first met.

In Florida on Monday, Palin’s remarks about Obama and Ayers elicited waves of booing from supporters. One person at a rally shouted “Kill him!” according to a Washington Post report. A sheriff who introduced Palin at a rally referred to the Democratic candidate as “Barack Hussein Obama.”

Biden, appearing Wednesday on CBS’ “The Early Show,” called Palin’s remarks about Obama and Ayers “over the top.”

“You know, the idea here that somehow these guys are once again injecting fear and loathing into this campaign is … I think it’s mildly dangerous. I mean, here you have out there these kinds of, you know, incitements out there — guy introducing Barack using his middle name as if it’s some epitaph or something,” Biden said, apparently confusing the words “epitaph” and “epithet.”

“It’s just malarkey, flat malarkey,” Biden said of the Ayers criticism. “The guy Barack Obama is going to turn and ask opinion to is me, not that guy.”

Biden returned to the campaign trail on Wednesday after spending the last few days mourning the death of his mother-in-law.

The Prelude to Debate

Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin generated an unparalleled anticipation for their Vice Presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis. Although the number two position in United States government has been interpreted as a powerless, nominally important supporting role, it was propelled to grand heights by the national media for several reasons. First, Sen. Biden and Governor Palin represented only the second time in American history when a man has faced a woman in the VP debate; George H.W. Bush (R) faced Geraldine Ferraro in the first mixed contest in 1984. Second, in just five weeks in the national spotlight, Gov. Palin has sustained the interest of the press corps with both her daring personality and her unseemly moments of vapidity. Sen. Biden has been a fixture on the national circuit because of his long tenure in the House, and his own well-documented presidential campaigns of 1988 and 2008. For most of the public, Palin remained a mystery mom, an Alaskan native and, as she tells it, a Washington outsider. Add that to the secretive tactics employed to keep Ms. Palin’s appearances both limited and meticulously controlled, and there was all the room for a memorable evening of argument. 

Despite the McCain outfit’s best efforts to coach Sarah Palin through her incipient media gauntlet, she had run afoul of both conservatives in her party and the press corps once so familiar with the Straight Talk express. For weeks, Palin and McCain railed against everything from the media’s “sexist” treatment of the new Governor (insisting that she had been vetted and should not be questioned), to the bias of “Eastern elites” who apparently had no business scrutinizing her lack of true qualifications. She had been simultaneously labeled a disastrous pick to the best political move of John McCain’s thirty year career. Palin was, nevertheless, a dogged campaign ally, stoking the interest of Americans across the country and giving new life to the underdog ticket. In fact, in the two weeks after her arrival, Ms. Palin helped her party’s nominee in the polls, placing him in the lead for a brief time. 

Senator Biden was the safe pick, in contrast. Forget his penchant for public embarrassment. The major networks and newspapers all but ignored the 35-year veteran of the House. His legislative record, sharp rhetorical skills, and middle-class background were rarely the topic of headlines due to Ms. Palin’s utter inadequacy in handling her new media love affair. The Alaska Governor held two lengthy interviews with ABC’s Charles Gibson and CBS’s Katie Couric, both of which raised concerns about her readiness to hold high office. The Gibson and Couric interviews, if anything, revealed her naivete on issues of foreign policy, her unwillingness to give straight answers and her still scant preparation for the inquiries themselves. 

Even as the media descended on Sarah Palin, dissecting her various flaws and poorly placed responses, she enjoyed a favorable rating among Americans. Although many polls indicated a lack of confidence in her leadership abilities (especially during the bailout debacle), she found ways to make her cute comments and catch phrases a signature part of her style. She dubbed herself the Outsider, and pleaded with the nation to admire her plucky spirit. 

All of that ended on Thursday night, however. 

The Catch Phrase Express

The debate moderator Gwen Ifill was hogtied because of speculation about her bias for Barack Obama. (She writes a book that mentions him among the many black politicians who make up a new class of prominent Civil Rights leaders.) The PBS journalist was intent to give the candidates equal time to speak, and seemed hesitant to hold either accountable for answering questions, should she be accused of any overt prejudices. 

At the outset, Governor Palin took full advantage of Ms. Ifill’s subdued questioning. She let loose with an anecdote about a Saturday soccer game when asked about her campaign’s stance on the bailout bill. She also used the words “maverick” and “reform” to describe John McCain’s record on the economy without providing either a policy note, or evidence of said reform. Senator Biden’s next important point then laid out John McCain’s history of deregulating the private sector, hammering home that his campaign has said one thing, but done the opposite. He further inveighed against John McCain’s tendency to side with President George Bush’s hazardous economic policies by using the stock phrase “the fundamentals of the American economy are strong.” 

In response, Sarah Palin again used the words “maverick” and “reform,” claiming Senator Barack Obama had sided with his party more closely than John McCain had, and accusing Obama-Biden of typifying “politics as usual.”  At that juncture, Palin made it clear that she would repeat her tried and true debate strategy: relying on recognizable campaign jargon instead of fact.

Mr. Biden’s main charge, according to analysts and surrogates alike, was to avoid long-winded, patronizing speeches. He also had to back off of his personal attacks, so as not to seem overbearing to female viewers. His measured, thorough responses gave him solid ground to target issues directly pressing the American public. Biden called for oversight in any financial deals sponsored by government. He also emphasized a point Barack Obama only meekly made in his Presidential debate in Oxford a week before, that 95% of the population would receive a tax cut under his economic plan. When Palin tried to assert that Senator Obama had voted to tax the middle class while in Senate (those who made $42,000), Biden quickly rebuffed the charge:

Biden: The charge is absolutely not true. Barack Obama did not vote to raise taxes. The vote she’s referring to, John McCain voted the exact same way. It was a budget procedural vote. John McCain voted the same way. It did not raise taxes. Number two, using the standard that the governor uses, John McCain voted 477 times to raise taxes. It’s a bogus standard it but if you notice, Gwen, the governor did not answer the question about deregulation, did not answer the question of defending John McCain about not going along with the deregulation, letting Wall Street run wild. He did support deregulation almost across the board. That’s why we got into so much trouble.

His so-called “politics as usual” experience in the House enabled him to clear up broad misconceptions that Governor Palin advanced. 

Biden Reclaims Middle-Class

Governor Palin, almost as predictably as she began, repeated the refrain of her campaign trail anecdotes, using the phrases “Joe Six-Pack” and “hockey mom” to explain the credit troubles many Americans face. Although she attempted to portray Obama-Biden as liberal spenders, she never issued a figure to support that notion. When she finally mentioned a McCain health care tax credit of $5,000 under his health plan, Biden again seized the moment, explaining that McCain’s $5,000 credit would replace the average $12,000 credit provided for by employers in the current system. He adeptly used a “robbing Peter to pay Paul” analogy, and then went on to assure middle-class Americans that their tax dollars would not be wasted in an Obama-Biden administration. 

Governor Palin kept her composure and, again, reverted to the folklore of her brief stint as Alaskan governor. She claimed to fight big oil companies who were “not her biggest fans” and provide a voice for the citizens of her state. Her position as a fighter against oil companies deviates from her insistence on drilling oil reserves, and her running mate’s refusal to tax those same conglomerates for their enormous windfall profits. Senator Biden made sure to deride John McCain’s energy policy, contending that he would give those companies a four billion dollar tax break 

The conversation shifted Biden’s way decisively when he explained that Obama-Biden policies were not a “redistribution” of wealth (as Ms. Palin had remarked), but a concerted attempt at fairness. Many debate predictors had pegged Palin as the middle-class aficionado, but Biden went full force with his defense of that group. There was little room for Palin to deploy her folksy straight talk, and she was reduced to a winking, nodding, smiling act. When Biden tried to press her about McCain’s passivity in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis, she was flustered. Rather than respond to his point, Palin changed the topic to energy once more. It was a brief moment, but it underscored her uncertainty in how to respond to Biden’s more versed approach. 

In a defining moment, Governor Palin backed off the spotlight like never before when asked what promises she might have to revise as a result of the complicated bailout bill:

Ifill: So, Governor, as vice president, there’s nothing that you have promised as a candidate that you would — that you wouldn’t take off the table because of this financial crisis we’re in?

Palin: There is not. And how long have I been at this, like five weeks? So there hasn’t been a whole lot that I’ve promised, except to do what is right for the American people, put government back on the side of the American people, stop the greed and corruption on Wall Street.

Her quip about a five-week run does little to reassure Americans already skeptical of a failing government. Moreover, her need to “do what is right” has not been proven, despite her use of the phrase. 

Another decline in the Palin performance tango occurred when Ms. Ifill asked the two candidates about manmade climate change, now backed by strong scientific evidence. Palin had once said that manmade climate change was an unfounded myth, according experts she had consulted. This time around, she admitted that climate change was real, and should be addressed (without explaining how she or John McCain would do that.)  Biden once again pounced, laying out the Obama-Biden initiative to create jobs in the energy industry with alternative sources like biofuels. He also decried Palin’s want to “drill, drill, drill” saying that energy independence would hinge on more than just tapping oil reserves for the short term.

“Fundamental Differences”

But the tide completely turned on the Iraq war issue, where Palin had no clear solution, and seemed handicapped in the discussion of Middle East affairs. She accused Barack Obama of voting against funding for troops (Biden reminded her that John McCain voted the same way on the bill) and further described Senator Obama’s plan as a “white flag of surrender.”

Biden dominated the topic, explaining the nuances of the Iraq-Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan relations. Where McCain-Palin failed to lay out a plan for withdrawal from the 5-year-old Iraq war, Biden said he and Barack Obama would “end this war.” He expounded again by saying that the primary terrorist threat was in Afghanistan. John McCain has never had a clear head about the conflict in Iraq, relying mostly on the knowledge of select right-leaning U.S. generals. Palin echoed that untenable philosophy in the debate.  While she tried to take a bold stand in her war tirade, Senator Biden asked for specifics about a timetable for withdrawal, and, in a brilliant turn, explained the various way John McCain had been misguided in his war theories. 

In the same way he had emphatically showed McCain’s record of only backing deregulation in the financial industry, Biden listed the ever-schizophrenic, wrongly conceived John McCain positions on the Iraq war. He went on to show that he and Barack Obama have consistently advocated for bringing the troop power to Afghanistan, and engaging in diplomacy with other hostile world regimes. Sen. Biden used his experience to make Gov. Palin look both amateurish and small-minded on issues of world affairs. 

Biden went on to inform how Obama-Biden diplomacy would work not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in the Sudan, where genocide has reigned. His Bush administration critiques were piquant, and put Palin on the defensive for the remainder of the night. She was visibly perturbed by having to answer for her party’s rule for the past eight years, and said Biden was “pointing the finger backward” while Americans looked forward. Indeed, Biden did look backward, but he countered by saying “facts matter” and “the past is prologue” to indicate that change could not come without examining past fault. 

Senator Biden finished with a stong flourish of points designed to provide more contrast to what he called the Bush Administration’s “abject failure.” When asked about the office of the Vice President, both candidates demured at first in a sarcastic exchange about the position being unimportant. But instead of falling back on old political jokes, Biden figured himself prominently in the next administration as an adviser, and capably put himself outside of the domineering involvement associated with Vice President Cheney. Palin was especially brief on these points, preferring to remain in line with John McCain in spirit and fade to the background. 

Their closing remarks touched on the Iraq war in a personal way because each of them has a child who has a tour scheduled there. Here, Sen. Biden struck a chord with many parents by saying that he knew what it was like to be a single parent, and to fear for a child entering the most dangerous circumstance possible. He fought back tears in the middle of his poignant statement. Governor Palin had once held the sympathy card by making her family a big part of her image as she entered the race, but Biden was sure to make voters aware of his deep family bonds as well. He then detailed reasons why this could be “the most important election” we ever vote in, and pleaded for change in trying times. Palin also commented on the need for change, and talked about the resolve and resilience of America. This kind of rhetoric is all fine and good, but the Governor only used words of comfort when the nation needs much more than a soothing story and wink of the eye.

Thursday night will be one of a few telling moments of Election ’08. On the heels of the nation’s financial despair, the testy battle between John McCain and Barack Obama’s ad messages, and the extreme ineptitude of Gov. Sarah Palin in interviews, the race could turn on its head instantly. When Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, the major party VP nominees, step to the plate, the war of public impression will once more be waged on the national scene. 

The politicians in question, Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin, have almost opposite records. Mr. Biden is a tested debater, using his logistical prowess to maneuver the legal contests in the House of Representatives. His forceful style often catches opponents off-guard, and he can shock audiences with brusque rhetoric. His Democratic allies often speak about his affinity for foot-in-mouth comments as part of the deal. Biden’s knowledge of foreign policy issues may provide levity for his extreme statements. As for his ability to relate to Everyman voters, Joe Biden can put off some with his smug attitude about experience paying dividends in politics. He can also endear them with his stories of simple Delaware life, his wife’s teaching career and his son’s engagement in military service. Campaign advisors have long thought his miscues are more positive than negative:

 

Those who have known Mr. Biden for a long time say they see him as a man with an equally big heart and mouth.

“He has overwhelming support here; he’s well liked,” said James M. Baker, mayor of Wilmington, Del., Mr. Biden’s home. “We forgive him every once in a while when he says something dumb — ‘Oh, that’s just Joe.’ ”

 

Sarah Palin is at once an incurious policy-maker, preferring to hold tight to party values, and a vivacious performer on the debate stage. The bulk of her debate contests came in 2006 when she ran for Alaska governor, unseating the incumbent Tony Knowles. The NY Times chronicled her debates, noting that where she has limited information on a subject, she has managed to divert attention from it. Although this tactic may be a discouraging prospect for her legislative finesse, it has been instrumental in her televised Alaska gubernatorial debates. Since the public debates do not operate on a point system, Palin may be the crowd favorite if she can issue some well-timed quips aimed at Barack Obama and Joe Biden. 

Rather than declaring potential winners, it is more useful to explain how their planned strategies and talking points will register with voters. Where Palin may thrive sticking to a Republican script, Biden could gain ground dissecting her stance, and being the more light-hearted jovial debater of the two. In contrast, if Senator Biden fears condescending Ms. Palin too much, he may play into her hands and put the debate squarely on her terms. 

Biden’s goals will be simple:

1. Unleash his humor liberally without degrading Ms. Palin’s experience. If he can trip her up by asking pointed questions and forcing her to expound on vague points, he will expose her true weakness. 
2. Speak in direct terms about foreign policy, emphasizing the past administration’s deception and eventual mistakes. 
3. Lay out a financial philosophy for the Obama-Biden administration that explains how Americans can benefit in both the short and long terms. 

As for Ms. Palin, her tasks seem simple enough, but subtlety in execution will go a long way:

1. Use her down-home folksy mannerisms to distract from her lack of political acumen. The terms “hockey mom” and “hometown” blazed a wildfire in the American imagination and she must find ways to repeat the sentiments, if not the phrases.
2. Create the image of new bold energy to oppose Biden’s time in Washington. She has to steer clear of age mentions, but invigorate viewers with some vision of America in times to come. 
3. Stay away from discussing the financial crisis in depth. Her talking points will include “cut spending,” “middle class,” “hard-working” and all of the words John McCain omitted from the first debate. It’s easier for her to drill the points home with her background than from McCain’s ultra-rich vantage point. 

The candidate who can capably meet two of their three presentation goals will win the perception/spin game post-debate.

Barack Obama stepped triumphantly into history Wednesday night, the first black American to win a major party presidential nomination, as thousands of Democrats transformed their convention hall into a joyful, shouting celebration.

The son of a black Kenyan father and a white American mother is now one victory from becoming president of a nation where, just decades ago, many blacks were denied the vote.
Competing chants of “Obama!” and “Yes we can!” surged up from the convention floor as the outcome was announced. Later, when their nominee paid a late-night visit to the hall, Obama embraced running mate Joe Biden and implored the delegates to help him “take back America” in the fall campaign against Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

“Change in American doesn’t start from the top down,” he told the adoring crowd, “it starts from the bottom up.”

But even as he won the nomination, there was open talk in the convention city that Obama’s race remained a stumbling block to winning the White House.

“A lot of white workers … and quite frankly a lot of union members believe he’s the wrong race,” AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka told a breakfast meeting of Michigan delegates.

Obama will face McCain, who will accept the Republican nomination next week in St. Paul, Minn.

Earlier, former rival Hillary Rodham Clinton asked the convention to interrupt its roll call of the states and make its verdict unanimous “in the spirit of unity, with the goal of victory.” And they did, with a roar.

The polls show a close race ahead with McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war a few days shy of his 72nd birthday, and Obama was hoping Democrats would leave their convention united despite the hard feelings remaining from a bruising primary campaign that stretched over 18 months.

Former President Bill Clinton did his part, delivering a strong pitch for the man who defeated his wife for the nomination. “Everything I’ve learned in eight years as president and the work I’ve done since, in America and across the globe, has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job,” he said, to loud cheers.

Michelle Obama, watching from her seat in the balcony, stood and applauded as the former president praised her man.

And Obama, delighting the crowd with his appearance on stage, praised both Clintons as well as his wife for their prime time speeches this week.

“If I’m not mistaken, Hillary Clinton rocked the house last night!” he shouted.

The convention ends Thursday with Obama’s acceptance speech, an event expected to draw a crowd of 75,000 at a nearby football stadium where an elaborate backdrop was under construction.

Biden, who has twice sought the presidency in his own right, won his place on Obama’s ticket by acclamation.

In his acceptance speech, Biden said Obama was right about Iraq, a war he opposed from the start, and McCain was wrong.

“These times require more than a good soldier. They require a wise leader,” Biden said. “A leader who can deliver change. The change that everybody knows we need.”

Obama isn’t the first black man to seek the White House, but is the first with a chance to win it. Others, including Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988, tailored their appeals largely to blacks or lower-income voters of all races.

Obama’s reach for political power and history was different, aimed at the broad American political middle. And his nomination, delivered so jubilantly, represents a gamble of sorts by the Democratic Party that a country founded by slave-owners and desegregated only in recent decades — and even then sometimes violently — is ready to place a black man in the Oval Office.

Sen. John Kerry, the party’s 2004 nominee, said Obama’s victory shouldn’t be a close call. In some of the strongest anti-McCain rhetoric of the convention week, he said his longtime friend is merely masquerading as a maverick. “The candidate who once promised a ‘contest of ideas’ now has nothing left but personal attacks,” he said. “How insulting … how pathetic … how desperate.”

Hillary Clinton’s call for Obama to be approved by acclamation — midway through the traditional roll call of the states — was the culmination of a painstaking agreement worked out between the two camps to present a unified front after their long and often-bitter fight for the nomination.

Inside the convention hall, the outcome of the roll call of the states was never in doubt, only its mechanics.

“No matter where we stood at the beginning of this campaign, Democrats stand together today,” declared Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, a former Clinton supporter who delivered a nominating speech for Obama.

“We believe passionately in Barack Obama’s message of changing the direction of our country,” she said.

Earlier in the day, Clinton formally released her delegates amid shouts of “no,” by disappointed supporters. “She doesn’t have the right to release us,” said Massachusetts delegate Nancy Saboori. “We’re not little kids to be told what to do in a half-hour.”

And Clinton did get hundreds of votes in the roll call — 341 to Obama’s 1,549 — before she called for him to be approved by acclamation.

Polls show the campaign now is a close one between Obama and McCain, and both campaigns have been advertising in nearly a dozen battleground states for weeks.

The same surveys show a strong desire for change after eight years of the Bush administration, and Obama has pledged an end to the war in Iraq and a fresh economic policy.

Obama’s nomination sealed a political ascent as astonishing as any other in recent memory — made all the more so by his race, in a nation founded by slave owners.

The son of a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya whom he barely knew, he attended college and Harvard Law School. In between was a turn as a ,000-a-year community worker on the streets of Chicago.

He won his seat in the Illinois Legislature in 1996. But his first bid for higher office, a brash challenge to Rep. Bobby Rush in an inner-city Chicago congressional district, ended in failure in 2000.

Four years later, as a candidate for the Senate, he dazzled with a keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, then won his election. He announced his presidential candidacy a scant two years after arriving in Washington.

With his gifts as a speaker, his astounding ability to raise funds on the Internet and an unmatched ground operation pieced together by political veterans, he won the first test, the Iowa caucuses, on Jan. 3

Clinton rebounded to win the New Hampshire primary five days later, and the two were soon matched in a grueling battle for the nomination that was not settled until the primaries ended in June.

“The journey will be difficult. The road will be long,” he said then as he pivoted to confront McCain.

Bill Clinton Praises Obama

Biden Critcizes McCain

Obama Makes Surprise Visit to DNC