Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrat Barack Obama's lead over Republican rival John McCain has grown to 12 points in the U.S. presidential race, with crucial independent and women voters increasingly moving to his side, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Thursday. With less than two weeks before the November 4 election, Obama leads McCain 52 percent to 40 percent among likely voters in the latest three-day tracking poll, which had a margin of error of 2.9 points. Obama has made steady gains over the last four days and has tripled his lead on McCain in the past week of polling.

Arnold Schwarzenegger now has the former top aides to his two would-be Democratic rivals working for him. It’s all part of his strategy of “buying off the ticked off,” as an Arnold friend puts it. Yesterday the governor moved unilaterally to take another major Democratic issue off the table by raising the minimum wage. Today he appoints lifelong Democrat and environmental favorite Linda Adams as his new secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency. With the retirement of veteran air quality warrior Alan Lloyd from CalEPA, there had been concern in environmental circles that the secretaryship would go to a...