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The Obama campaign talks a lot about new ideas and expanding the political map, but in the swing state of Pennsylvania, which the campaign has focused on almost exclusively since the Democratic convention, old-school issues still rise to the fore. The latest example came Friday during a small political event at SCHOTT North America Inc., a glass factory in Duryea, Pa., where even a hand-picked crowd threw Barack Obama a curve ball. A woman in the crowd told Obama she had “heard a rumor” that he might be planning some sort of gun ban upon being elected president. Obama trotted...

Gun rights groups are planning a busy election season. To maintain momentum gained from the Supreme Court’s ruling in June striking down the District of Columbia’s handgun ban and declaring that the Second Amendment grants individuals a right to own firearms, the gun groups have launched the most ambitious voter registration and education drives they’ve ever attempted. Congressional election endorsements from the National Rifle Association (NRA) are due this month. Also on tap is a media blitz by multiple groups in competitive districts. At the Republican convention, strategic planning is under way. “It’s a chance for us to sit down...

Strong Majority of Voters Disagree With Barack Obama on Second Amendment and Self Defense Issues    Associated Television News logo. (PRNewsFoto)LOS ANGELES AND WASHINGTON , CA AND DC USA ATI-News/Zogby Poll Shows Democrats, Republicans and Independents Oppose Obama Positions WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- A strong majority of likely voters disagree with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on firearms and self-defense related issues, according to a just-released ATI-News/Zogby poll. Brad O'Leary, president of ATI-News.com and author of the explosive new book, The Audacity of Deceit: Barack Obama's War on American Values, notes that opposition to Obama's stance on these...

MUCH has been made of the timing of Hillary Clinton’s speech before the Democratic National Convention tonight, coming as it does on the 88th anniversary of women’s suffrage. Convention organizers are taking advantage of this coincidence of the calendar — the 19th Amendment was certified on Aug. 26, 1920 — to pay homage to the women’s vote in particular and women’s progress in general. By such tributes, they are slathering some sweet icing on a bitter cake. But many of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters are unlikely to be partaking. They regard their candidate’s cameo as a consolation prize. And they are...

'Meet the Press' transcript for August 31, 2008 **SNIP** MS. ANDREA MITCHELL: Well, they, they think now that they have a story. They have a story of a working mom, she is a colorful character, an Annie Oakley, you know, Annie get your gun. They love her story. But when she tried to talk about Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, in western Pennsylvania yesterday at a rally with conservative Republican voters, Hillary Clinton was booed. So she can use the Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro analogy if she wants to in interviews. She cannot use that at Republican rallies. She is...

Lawmakers Discuss Tapping Into The Traditionally Conservative Issue Stepping gingerly back into the thicket of gun politics, some Democrats are offering up a few proposals to make them less on the defensive on an issue that many claim cost former Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the presidency. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., and Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., spoke at a National Wildlife Federation briefing Wednesday afternoon, pushing efforts to expand conservation areas for hunting and fishing grounds as well as better protection of the environment for sportsmen. "Sportsmen have been stereotyped as concerned with one issue: guns....

U. of C. shunning poor patients? HOSPITAL DISPUTE | Obama's wife, 3 aides tied to plan to free up space BY TIM NOVAK AND CHRIS FUSCO Staff Reporters August 23, 2008http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1122691,CST-NWS-hosp23.article Sen. Barack Obama's wife and three close advisers have been involved with a program at the University of Chicago Medical Center that steers patients who don't have private insurance -- primarily poor, black people -- to other health care facilities... Obama's top political strategist, David Axelrod, co-owns the firm, ASK Public Strategies, that was hired by the hospital last year to sell the program -- called the Urban Health...

August 27, 2008, 8:00 a.m. Obama’s AimDespite the rhetoric, the candidate opposes gun rights. By David Freddoso Denver — In 2007, Senator Barack Obama stood up for a gun owner. He endorsed Chicago Alderman Dorothy Tillman in her Democratic primary. Not only was she a gun owner, but she had even pulled a gun on her colleagues during a contentious 1991 ward redistricting hearing, according to eyewitnesses. Tillman, best known for demanding to be served by black (not white) waiters, and for advocating reparations for slavery, narrowly lost her race despite Obama’s support. It would be only a slight...

Denver — In 2007, Senator Barack Obama stood up for a gun owner. He endorsed Chicago Alderman Dorothy Tillman in her Democratic primary. Not only was she a gun owner, but she had even pulled a gun on her colleagues during a contentious 1991 ward redistricting hearing, according to eyewitnesses. Tillman, best known for demanding to be served by black (not white) waiters, and for advocating reparations for slavery, narrowly lost her race despite Obama’s support. It would be only a slight exaggeration to say that this was the strongest effort Obama has ever made to support gun rights......

Joe Scarborough and the rest of the Morning Joe crew actually had my sympathy this morning. Amidst all the infighting at MSNBC, including demands for Joe's head in Olbermann-friendly circles, one could sense that the panel was on its best behavior. During the opening hour, a subdued David Shuster—who had openly fought with Joe just two days ago—was there, but just barely. Scarborough himself could not have been more enthusiastic in his praise for yesterday's DNC proceedings, from Bill's speech to the historic fact of the nomination of an African-American. But if my impulse is to cut the Morning Joe...

Campaigns usually collapse because of gaffes -- off-the-cuff actions that accidentally reveal the true nature of candidates. And the Barack Obama campaign has had more than its share of revealing gaffes: Obama’s statement that rural voters turn to God, guns and racism because they have no jobs; his explanation that proper tire gauge use would fix high gas prices; his self-aggrandizing exhortation that he has “become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions”; his associations with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko; the list goes on and on. But gaffes are not the...

Joe Biden's long history of strident arrogance is coming back to haunt him. The elitist campaign that lamented the "bitter" citizens who "cling" to weapons and religion just brought on another pol cast from the same mold. Click link to view the videos and get the message out.

Amazing...what he says on tape to (apparently) some liberal group.......... http://macsmind.com/wordpress/2008/02/27/obama-plans-to-disarm-america/

RENO, Nev. | Sen. Barack Obama is taking his campaign to the rural backroads that helped him win early primaries but later slipped from his grasp. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee's small town-hall meetings are aimed at showing voters that he understands their economic plight. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama listens to a question at a rally Sunday at a high school in Reno, Nev. Rural voters delivered Nevada delegates to him in January, but abandoned his campaign in later primaries and caucuses. (Associated Press) "This election is about whether or not we are going to sustain and maintain...

A confident Barack Obama raised an extraordinary $7.8 million Sunday at three California fundraisers, most if it in large checks to a Democratic Party committee. “I will win. Don’t worry about that,” he said to the crowd of about 1,300 at his third event of the evening, according to the pool report. He was warmly received by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called him "a leader that God has blessed us with at this time." Obama echoed some of the themes he discussed when he described Pennsylvanians as "bitter" and stoked controversy three months ago, but did so much more...

BELLEVILLE, Pa. -- The folks in this picturesque mountain community with red barns and Amish buggies have been voting overwhelmingly Republican in national elections for decades. But tough economic times in Mifflin County and in rural areas all around the country have created possible openings for Democrat Barack Obama. President Bush won nearly 70 percent of the county's vote in both 2000 and 2004, but the standard of living here has declined steadily during his administration. The farm equipment factory that employed 500 workers here is closing. So is the milk plant. Farmers are facing skyrocketing feed and fertilizer costs,...

Sen. John McCain reminded Pennsylvanians Tuesday that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama said the state's small-town voters "cling to guns and religion" because they are "bitter," a gaffe that possibly contributed to Mr. Obama's loss in the state primary and might haunt his general election campaign in this battleground. Mr. McCain told a town hall meeting that this state's voters are the "heartland," and "beam of hope and liberty for everyone in the world." His reprise of the "bitter" flap - an off-the-cuff remark made by Mr. Obama at a private fundraising event in San Francisco prior to...

Democrats ‘Still Don’t Get It’ on Guns Wednesday, August 13, 2008 By Susan Jones, Senior Editor (CNSNews.com) - Beware of what the Democrats are saying about guns in their party platform, a Second Amendment group says. The draft 2008 Democratic National Platform includes the “Utopian fantasy that gun control laws will somehow make neighborhoods safer,” said the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. “While promising to preserve our Second Amendment rights, the party platform demonizes semiautomatic sport utility rifles and wants them banned, calls for anti-gun show legislation and proposes so-called ‘common-sense’ gun laws,” said CCRKBA...

A longtime Western Pennsylvania politician once said, “You run with the top of the ticket when you can, and run away from it when you have to.” Which explains U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire’s short answer as to whether he will campaign in his district with Barack Obama: He’ll “consider it.” Altmire -– a previous skeptic of offshore drilling who now supports it, pitting him against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -– said it will depend on when the presumptive nominee comes to town and if their schedules mesh. “I am not going to avoid it,” he added.

"I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions." -- Barack Obama Liberals are almost always insufferably arrogant. It sort of goes with the territory. After all, if you believe that we have to throw religious customs, hundreds of years' worth of societal traditions, and the parts of the Constitution you disagree with into the wastebasket based primarily on your "feeling" that they're antiquated or no longer necessary, then you almost certainly must have an ego the size of a small planet. That brings us to Barack Obama, who, even amongst liberals, is notorious...

Vote Both the passionate group devoted to nudging Barack Obama to pick one-time fierce rival Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential running mate is over. Organizers Adam Parkhomenko and Sam Arora said they were ending their effort since all indications are Hillary would not be Obama’s number two. "Because it seems that Senator Obama has made his decision to offer the slot on the ticket to another candidate, we believe that continuing to ask him to pick Hillary is no longer helpful to our party's chances of winning in November," they posted on their website. The writing on the wall...

In case you One of these things is not like the otherdidn't know this, the presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama, is black. Which makes him just like the old Sesame Street comparison ditty, "one of these things is not like the other." He is unlike any other presumptive nominee that we have ever had in American history. If you are not convinced, just line him up next to every presumptive nominee for any major party in American electoral elections, he is still black and they are all still white.

For the Brady Campaign, Violence Policy Center, Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, U.N. gun-ban extremist Rebecca Peters and her globalist billionaire sugar-daddy George Soros, for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his horde of big-city politicians—in fact, for all those individuals and organizations who would harm or destroy our Second Amendment rights—Barack Obama’s mantra of “change” means their agenda will be harnessed to the total power of an aggressive, activist and radical federal government. “Change” means gun owners will be under siege like never before. Especially for NRA members who fought through the never-ending threats of the Clinton-Gore administration, the...

Has Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine's chances of landing the coveted spot as Obama's Veep risen? According to stories at both The Politico and the Washington Post Kaine has risen to the level of serious contender, along with Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh and Delaware Sen. Joe Biden. The WaPo story has close Kaine associates acknowledging that Kaine has told them that he has had "very serious" conversations with Obama about joining the ticket.

The Sen. Barack Obama campaign held a conference call this morning on one of the key battleground states in this race: Pennsylvania. Team O, led by Gov. Ed Rendell, stressed the importance of registering and winning over the one-million-plus, un-registered voters spread out over the Keystone State.

Sen. Barack Obama claims there has been only a "shift in emphasis," not "wild shifts," in his political positions. Many already know the list: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, NAFTA, public financing of campaigns, abortion, gay marriage, Social Security taxes, the death penalty and negotiating with rogue nations.Possibly one of the more remarkable changes has been his position on guns. But despite Obama's recent concession on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" that there has been a "shift in emphasis" on various issues, on guns he held firm: "You mentioned the gun position. I've been talking about the Second Amendment being an...

Barack Obama (B.O.) without a teleprompter makes Elmer Fudd sound like the late Winston Churchill. His wife was never proud of America before the year 2008. If his former Pastor donned a sheet, he could give a good impression of the Grand Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan. He hangs out with people who attempted to blow up the Pentagon. One of his favorite orators is the "Reverend" Louis Farrakhan. He thinks there are 57 states in America...

I was excited to see the U.S. Supreme Court affirm for the first time that the Second Amendment and our right to keep and bear arms was and is an individual right as intended by our Founding Fathers. Sen. John McCain understands this and he immediately praised the Court’s decision. Sen. Barack Obama still can’t figure out how he feels about it. Barack Obama has made many statements over the years that lead me to believe he would be the most anti-gun president ever elected to the White House and also leads me to believe that he doesn’t understand our...

Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream By Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam Doubleday, 256 pp., $23.95 A few months back, Barack Obama explained why he had not won more support from voters in Appalachia. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate,...

Sen. Barack Obama did patriotism yesterday, today it is faith and by the end of the day both speeches will have been done in back-to-back states that swing: Missouri and Ohio. The Obama campaign said the Illinois senator plans to go to Zanesville, located in eastern Ohio, to visit a church program that provides food and clothing assistance to those in need.

“Obama’s alleged support of the Second Amendment is utterly cynical and false.”April 13th, 2008 by Bruno Behrend So says the NRA, and they are 100% correct. The above headline is from one of their recent blast e-mails, and I must say that I endorse their view in this situation. _____ To understand Barack Obama on the Second Amendment, you have to know about the clash of character between the then-Chicago state senator and an ordinary citizen who exercised his right to armed self-defense in violation of a local gun ban. That citizen was a 52-year-old resident of Wilmette, Illinois, who,...

By all accounts, Barack Obama should win this election. He and his brand control the image, the message and, to a large extent, the media of this election cycle. Yes, the media. He has enough money to buy ads every day from now to election day, glossy magazines cannot wait to put his image on their covers, Hollywood types are so smitten that they wear his image on their clothing and YouTube is bursting at the seams with homages to him. It is definitely his to win -- or to lose. It all hinges on two things: likability and character.

Bill Clinton is so bitter about Barack Obama's victory over his wife Hillary that he has told friends the Democratic nominee will have to beg for his wholehearted support. Mr Obama is expected to speak to Mr Clinton for the first time since he won the nomination in the next few days, but campaign insiders say that the former president's future campaign role is a "sticking point" in peace talks with Mrs Clinton's aides. The Telegraph has learned that the former president's rage is still so great that even loyal allies are shocked by his patronising attitude to Mr Obama,...

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. - Second Amendment to the U. S. ConstitutionThe aftermath of the Supreme Court’s historic affirmation of an individual’s right to bear arms illustrates the philosophical divide between the Left and Right, Conservative and Liberal. Liberals believe that rights emanate from the government while conservatives hold that the individual has inherent rights. When the Founding Fathers established America’s representative democracy the world was just beginning to emerge from the feudal and monarchic traditions that...

Gun-control advocates across the country reacted with shock and outrage at the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns today, saying the ruling would threaten gun-control measures in other states. If there was any doubt that other bans would be in peril, the National Rifle Association quickly put those questions to rest when it announced shortly after the ruling that it would file a flurry of lawsuits challenging restrictions in San Francisco, Chicago and several Chicago suburbs. The law in Washington, which spelled out rules for the storage of weapons and made it extremely...

ABC News' Teddy Davis and Alexa Ainsworth Report: With the Supreme Court poised to rule on Washington, D.C.'s, gun ban, the Obama campaign is disavowing what it calls an "inartful" statement to the Chicago Tribune last year in which an unnamed aide characterized Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as believing that the DC ban was constitutional. "That statement was obviously an inartful attempt to explain the Senator's consistent position," Obama spokesman Bill Burton tells ABC News. The statement which Burton describes as an inaccurate representation of the senator's views was made to the Chicago Tribune on Nov. 20, 2007. In a...

Here is Barack Obama's reaction today to the Supreme Court decision which struck down the D.C. Gun Ban and upheld 2nd Amendment Rights. Obama's statement is clearly politically calculated to minimize his being on the wrong side of this issue. Obama claims to have "consistently" supported the 2nd Amendment as an individual right . . . (see video) But listen to what Obama was saying just this past February about the D.C. Gun Ban . . . (see video)

Sen. Barack Obama began a panel discussion at Carnegie Mellon University this morning with a bunch of really smart panelists from MIT, General Motors, AOL and the SEIU. Today marks Obama's first visit to the Steel City since April 21, the eve of the Pennsylvania primary; Obama won the city of Pittsburgh proper in the spring primary, but not the state.

Today is the day. The folks at SCOTUS blog will be providing a live blog to follow developments as quickly as possible.

Go to http://my.barackobama.com/uniteforchange and enter zip code 18702 (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, a city of 50,000 or so that is almost entirely blue collar DEMOCRATIC in terms of its politics). The map shows Unite for Change events within 50 miles. Unite for Change events in Wilkes-Barre: ZERO Unite for Change events in Scranton (90,000 people): ONE In other words, the Obama campaign could not find one single person in DEMOCRATIC Wilkes-Barre who would associate his or her name with this phony smile on top of an empty suit. In nearby Scranton, which also is blue collar Democrat, only one person was willing...

The Washington Post reports that Sen. Barack Obama is aggressively trying to reintroduce himself to voters, echoing the spin of Obama's advisers that not everyone knows him yet. In reality, Obama's major campaign challenge will not be to reveal, but to conceal his true identity. Obama is not trying to introduce himself to unreached voters, but is engaged in damage control with many he's already reached -- and insulted and disillusioned. As long as he was soaring above the fray with the lofty rhetoric of hope, change and unity, Obama could masquerade as a quasi-messiah figure. But once forced into...

Red diaper baby Barack Obama's collectivist beliefs go way back. We dug up an enlightening old article, "What Makes Obama Run?" (by Hank De Zutter, Chicago Reader, Dec. 8, 1995) that offers more insight into what Obama, the Democrats' presumptive presidential candidate, thinks about America and traditional American values. The short answer: not much. In it Obama, at that time a candidate for the Illinois Senate, criticizes individualism as what intellectual John Ralston Saul has called the cult of the Hero: "In America," Obama says, "we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne...

He [Obama] warned that the general election campaign could get ugly. “They’re going to try to scare people. They’re going to try to say that ‘that Obama is a scary guy,’” he said. A donor yelled out a deep accented “Don’t give in!” “I won’t but that sounded pretty scary. You’re a tough guy,” Obama said. “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said. “Because from what I understand folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”

Barack Obama is warning supporters that the general election fight between him and John McCain may get ugly, but the Illinois senator is vowing not to back down. "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," Obama said at a fundraiser in Philadelphia Friday, according to pool reports. "We don't have a choice but to win," Obama said, joking that he has heard "folks in Philly like a good brawl. I've seen Eagles games." Obama again said that the GOP will make try to make him look "scary" to voters. Obama pledging to swing back at...

Senator Obama refused Senator McCain's offer for the two of them to appear in 10 joint Town hall Sessions between now and the November Election. Camp McCain offered to join Senator Obama in 10 Town hall session through out the country leading up to the November election immediately after Clinton called it quits. These town hall session which McCain has become increasingly comfortable with were a great play from Camp McCain... Realizing that Obama doesn't do well without a script infront of him or being told what to think, McCain seized the opportunity to capitalize on this and pitched the...

As the United States edges ever closer to tyranny with freedom dying a little more each year with the passage of new laws, the handing down of judicial rulings, and the promulgation of executive orders, it is assumed by increasing numbers that it is the role of government to provide for all of our needs and to save us from our own worst tendencies irrespective of whether or not these are matters we want massive bureaucracies poking into our private lives about. As bad as such intrusions are, the fear such a scenario provokes pales in comparison to the almost...

Having now left Trinity United Church of Christ, can Barack Obama escape responsibility for his decades-long ties to Michael Pfleger and Jeremiah Wright? No, he cannot. Obama’s connections to the radical-left politics espoused by Pfleger and Wright are broad and deep. The real reason Obama bound himself to Wright and Pfleger in the first place is that he largely approved of their political-theological outlooks. Obama shared Wright’s rejection of black “assimilation.” Obama also shared Wright’s suspicion of the traditional American ethos of individual self-improvement and the pursuit of “middle-classness.” In common with Wright, Obama had deep misgivings about America’s criminal...

"The videos leave you with a visceral understanding that Black Liberation Theology, Barack Obama’s faith, calls for the undoing of society as we know it. It is flagrantly, even proudly racist. Adherents to this faith do not want to unite anything, but they are certainly calling for Change. In a big way."

<p>Sen. Barack Obama issued a statement this afternoon after a video tape emerged showing Father Michael Pfleger 'speechifying' from the pulpit of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.</p> <p>In the statement Obama said he was "deeply disappointed" in Pfleger after his sermon was captured on videotape showing the priest mocking Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and white people from the pulpit of Trinity, the home church of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Sen. Obama.</p>

Barack Obama’s favorability ratings among white women have significantly depreciated in recent months, particularly among Democrats and independents, posing an immediate obstacle for the likely Democratic nominee as he moves to shore up his party’s base. According to a new report by The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, half of white women now have a negative perception of Obama. Forty-nine percent of white women view Obama unfavorably, while only 43 percent hold a favorable opinion. In February, 36 percent of these women viewed Obama unfavorably while 56 percent had a positive perception of the likely Democratic...