Independent voters likely to have the last word

William E. Gibson
Sun Sentinel
(MCT)
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ Joyce Russell is an independent voter in South Florida who thinks Ronald Reagan was “the best president we ever had.” She is so eager for change this year she has decided to vote for Democrat Barack Obama.
Probably. After further study. Subject to change.
Wavering independents like Russell most likely will decide the presidential election, and many have turned toward Obama, giving him a burst of momentum in the final three weeks of a close campaign.
Poll results show a late shift among independent voters, which has helped Obama overtake Republican John McCain in Florida and open a clear lead in other battleground states.
A poll conducted for the Sun Sentinel and Florida Times-Union last week found that voters who were not part of either major party favored Obama over McCain 47 percent to 44 percent, a difference within the margin of error. It reflected a turnabout since a September poll, which found McCain leading Obama among such voters 47 percent to 39 percent.
Economic stress, aggravated by plunging stock markets and faltering institutions, has bolstered Obama’s campaign for change and reinforced dissatisfaction with President Bush.
“Everybody is worried about the economy, health care, the stock market, the way things are going. We are all worried about our future,” said Russell, 56, a retired Hollywood homemaker. “Do we want more of George Bush or a change? That’s what I’m voting for: change.”
McCain, projecting the image of a maverick reformer, is also campaigning for change, and many conservative independents are leaning his way.
“I do respect John McCain in the sense that he was a war veteran. He knows something about fighting evil. He stared it in the face,” said Stephen Belser, 27, a former Republican who is not affiliated with any party.
Belser, like many conservatives who left the Republican Party, remains wary of McCain but is even more worried that Obama’s tax-the-rich policy would lead toward socialism.
McCain’s selection of running mate Sarah Palin reassured many conservative independents who share her opposition to abortion and her disdain for the Washington establishment.
“The fact that McCain picked a woman _ who has a blue-collar husband and a pregnant kid who chose to have her child _ shook up the election and made it interesting,” said Belser, an engineer who lives in Palm Beach County near Lake Worth. “He has a chance now. It’s going to be tight.”
Independents are generally defined as registered voters not affiliated with any party. Some political scientists also count members of smaller “third parties” and voters who pick candidates regardless of their party.

Registered Florida voters who did not belong to either major party amounted to about one of every 12 voters in 1994. Just two years later, they amounted to about one of every eight voters.
This year, through August, nearly one of every five Florida voters was neither a Republican nor a Democrat. About 18.5 percent had no party affiliation.
Because Democratic voter registration this year has increased significantly in Florida and nationwide, Republican candidates depend more than ever on independent voters for support.
“Independents are affected by events to a greater degree than partisan voters,” said Ron Rapoport, a leading expert on independent voters at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. “A lot of the shifting to Obama in the last two weeks has clearly been the result of events on Wall Street.
“As the economy comes to dominate the campaign, those independent voters are giving Democrats an advantage.”
Voters tend to blame bad times on the party that controls the White House. And they tend to look to Democratic candidates when the nation is focusing on domestic issues, just as they look to Republican candidates when the hot topic is foreign affairs or national security.
That’s why McCain is trying to change the subject from the economy to Obama’s character and limited experience. That tactic works for voters who see Obama as a liberal big spender.
“His plans for massive spending and social programs would be a strong lurch to the left,” said Fred Gielow, 73, of Boca Raton, a former member of Ross Perot’s Reform Party. “With him in office, I fear for the republic.”
But for Caleb Roorda, 26, a former Republican who became an independent voter in Palm Beach Gardens, it’s time to turn to a Democrat.
“If we keep going this way, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and to heck with the middle class,” Roorda said. “I like the idea that a lot of Republicans have a good moral life, but that doesn’t help our economy. I want to see something done for the people.”
___
(c) 2008, Sun Sentinel.

North Korea taken off U.S. terror list

Monique Jones/Editor-in-Chief

North Korea was removed from the terrorism blacklist Saturday, said State Department spokesman Steve McCormack.

According to CNN, McCormack said that the U.S. and North Korea reached an agreement on many measures concerning North Korea’s nuclear program. Some of these agreements include participation by all party members in the Six Party Talks (which also include South Korea Japan, China and Russia), access to all of North Korea’s nuclear facilities, what procedures would be used in the verfication process and the role of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency. 

“Based upon the cooperation agreement North Korea has recently provided … the secretary of state this morning rescinded the designation of the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] as a state sponsor of terrorism, and that was effective as of her signature,” said McCormack.

Many Republicans are angry and frustrated by President Bush’s decision to take North Korea off of the terrorism list.

“While I am not surprised by today’s decision, I am profoundly disappointed. Given the regime’s decision to restart its plutonium reactor at Yongbyon and actions barring access to the site by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, it is clear that North Korea has no intention of meeting its commitment to end its nuclear program,” said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain also issued a statement concerning North Korea. “I have previously said that I would not support the easing of sanctions [against] North Korea unless the United States is able to fully verify the nuclear declaration Pyongyang submitted on June 26,” said McCain.

However, Sen. Barack Obama, also running for President, said that the move to take North Korea off of the list is a “modest step forward.”

“President Bush’s decision to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism is an appropriate response, as long as there is a clear understanding that if North Korea fails to follow through there will be immediate consequences,” said Obama. “If North Korea refuses to permit robust verification, we should lead all members of the Six-Party Talks in suspending energy assistance, re-imposing sanctions that have recently been waived, and considering new restrictions.”

Connecticut legalizes same-sex marriages

Monique Jones/Editor-in-Chief

Same-sex marriages were legalized by the Connecticut Supreme Court Friday. The ruling makes Connecticut the third state in the U.S. to make same-sex marriages legal. The decision would only allow couples to have the state benefits of marriage.

In 2005, Connecticut allowed civil unions for gay couples, but eight couples sued the state, saying that civil unions were not the same as marriage and that the Connecticut constitution granted them equal treatment.

A representative of Connecticut’s commissioner of public health stated to CNN that he wasn’t sure when the state was going to start issuing same-sex marriage licenses.

In latest bold step, Treasury will by bank stakes

Kevin G. Hall
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
WASHINGTON _ The Treasury Department confirmed Friday evening that it will buy stakes in major U.S. banks and financial institutions, announcing the bold move as leaders of the world’s leading industrialized democracies agreed to guidelines for joint action but stopped short of taking coordinated steps sought by investors worldwide.
The revelation that Treasury will take nonvoting stakes in U.S. banks adds to a growing list of unprecedented government interventions into private financial institutions not seen since the Great Depression.
The list includes the seizure of mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the rescue of global insurer American International Group with an $85 billion loan, emergency lending to several financial firms, and the direct purchase of short-term promissory notes from U.S. corporations to bypass clogged credit markets.
The announcements came after another turbulent day in world financial markets, and after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson held an emergency meeting in Washington with the finance ministers and central bank presidents from the Group of Seven, which includes the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Japan.
In a news conference, Paulson said he told the visiting financial leaders how he’ll carry out the recently enacted $700 billion U.S. financial rescue package. He revealed that he plans to go beyond purchasing distressed bank assets to take nonvoting stakes in U.S. financial institutions to help recapitalize them.
“We are developing strategies to use the authority to purchase and insure mortgage assets and to purchase equity in financial institutions, as deemed necessary to promote financial market stability,” Paulson said. He added that Treasury is working to develop a standardized approach for a wide array of companies to help them attract private capital as well.
In a joint communique, G-7 finance ministers and central bankers said “that the current situation calls for urgent and exceptional action. We commit to continue working together to stabilize financial markets and restore the flow of credit, to support global economic growth.”
Their five-point guideline plan includes preventing bank failures; ensuring that credit and money markets return to normal functioning; enabling banks to raise capital from public and private sources; ensuring sufficient insurance of bank deposits; and restarting the secondary markets where mortgages and other loans are pooled into bondlike instruments.
“This is a period like none of us have seen before. … There were not (questions) on what we needed to do,” Paulson insisted, dismissing concerns that global investors wanted to see more immediate G-7 steps taken in unison.
Action would be coordinated where possible, he said, but “individual countries are going to have different needs and are going to approach the problems differently.”
Perhaps the statement’s most important point, however, was its message to the world that the G-7 powers are committed to coordinated and united action. Market analysts had stressed that such a stand was necessary to improve global confidence. That’s the point Paulson emphasized in a statement he issued following the meeting:
“The G-7 is compelled to robust international partnership and cooperation. Never has it been more essential to find collective solutions to ensure stable and efficient financial markets and restore the health of the world economy,” Paulson’s statement said.
Over the weekend, Paulson will continue meeting with leaders of the world’s 20 most important economies _ including big emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, India and China _ to seek additional ways of restoring confidence in the financial markets. They’re in Washington for meetings of the International Monetary Fund.
The G-7 meeting came at the end of a turbulent week in global financial markets.
In the U.S. on Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average swung more than 1,000 points in a wild day of trading, the biggest point swing in the blue-chip stock index’s 112-year history.
The Dow closed down 128 points to 8,451.19, the best daily finish in a dismal week that had the index down more than 18 percent, the worst week of its storied history. Before getting to that final number, however, the Dow fell almost 700 points after the opening bell Friday and briefly crossed below 8,000 for the first time in five years.
In a rare bit of good news, some battered bank stocks including Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase rebounded, preventing even steeper losses in the Dow. The tech-heavy Nasdaq actually closed up 4.39 points, or 0.27 percent, to 1,649.51. The S&P 500 posted modest losses of 10.70 points, or 1.18 percent, to 899.22. And the Russell 2000, an index of smaller companies, rose 4.6 percent.
The U.S. numbers were tame compared to the turmoil abroad Friday, as investors projected into the future and fretted about a sinking global economy. Japan’s Nikkei exchange fell 9.6 percent, losing a quarter of its value this week. Exchanges in Hong Kong and Australia fell 7.2 percent and 8.3, respectively, on Friday.
Asia’s turmoil spread to Europe, where London’s FTSE exchange was down 8.8 percent and exchanges in Germany and France closed down 7 percent and 7.7 percent, respectively.
“There is no safe haven,” said Evariste Lefeuvre, an economist with the French investment bank Netixis, told the BBC.
Most economists now project a U.S. recession and the possibility of a global one.
Another bright spot: Oil prices tumbled 10 percent, settling at $77.70 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, almost half of July’s record of $147.
For U.S. motorists, that translates to lower pump prices. The nationwide average price for a gallon of unleaded gas fell to $3.35 on Friday, according to AAA. That’s down 76 cents from the July 17 high of $4.11 a gallon and down 31 cents from a month ago.
Meanwhile the credit market at the heart of the global financial turmoil sent conflicting signals. The most closely watched credit measure is the London interbank offer rate, or Libor, a rate banks charge each other for short-term loans.
The British Bankers Association said Friday that the overnight Libor rate improved markedly, to 2.46875 percent on Friday from 5.09375 percent a day earlier. But the Libor rate for three-month loans, a sign of future confidence, actually rose from 4.75 percent to 4.81875 percent. Libor rates affect the cost of borrowing for U.S. businesses, as well as some rates on car loans, student loans and adjustable-rate mortgages.
(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)
President Bush on Friday again spoke to the nation, trying to soothe the nerves of ordinary Americans, who have seen their retirement plans plunge in value and their jobs threatened by the widening financial turbulence.
“We are a prosperous nation with immense resources and a wide range of tools at our disposal. We’re using these tools aggressively,” Bush said before the cameras on the White House lawn.
But this week’s events are hard to shake off.
In Japan and elsewhere, some of the market drops over the past five trading days are on par with the faster two-day 25 percent drop in 1929 that is widely viewed as the trigger to the Great Depression.
That grim reference is not lost on the Federal Reserve and Treasury, which have taken a number of aggressive steps to avoid repeating the same mistakes made during the Depression.
Some analysts believe a more coordinated approach between major economies is needed if confidence is to be restored.
“One of the biggest lessons of the Great Depression is that countries only acted in self-interest, and if countries act in self-interest the chance of failure is much higher,” said Jon Danielsson, an economist at the London School of Economics. “There is an increasing realization that the way out is for the large industrial nations to act with a single voice.”
Already, the central banks of five major economies, including the U.S., took a coordinated half-point cut in their lending rates in a bid to show common resolve.

McCain gets boos at rally for defending Obama

Margaret Talev and William Douglas
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
COLUMBUS, Ohio _ John McCain on Friday moved to calm rising anger among his supporters at rival Barack Obama, calling him a decent man and at one point taking the microphone away from a woman who had called Obama an Arab.
Their anger apparently still at flash point, McCain’s supporters then booed him for his conciliatory words about Obama.
The abrupt move from McCain at a town hall meeting in Minnesota came after days of rising tensions as McCain and his campaign attacked Obama as a friend of a 1960s radical they called a terrorist.
Increasingly angry, supporters of McCain and running mate Sarah Palin have responded at rallies with loud cries of “terrorist” and “traitor.”
At one such rally earlier this week in New Mexico, McCain visibly winced when his mention of Obama’s name was greeted by the shout of “terrorist,” but the candidate said nothing about it and went on with his speech.
Supporters at the Minnesota town hall meeting pressed McCain to get even tougher on Obama.
But when one man said he was scared to raise his unborn child in a country that might be led by a President Obama, McCain disagreed.
“I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States,” McCain said to boos and groans from his supporters.
“If you want a fight, we will fight,” McCain said. “But we will be respectful. I admire Senator Obama and his accomplishments. . . . I don’t mean that has to reduce your ferocity, I just mean to say you have to be respectful.”
Later, another supporter told McCain, “I don’t trust Obama…. He’s an Arab.”
McCain stood shaking his head as she spoke, then quickly took the microphone from her.
“No, ma’am,” he said. “He’s a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with.”
Campaigning in Ohio hours before, Obama defended his character against the mounting attacks, daring McCain to run as negatively as he wants in the final weeks of the race while predicting that, in light of the financial crisis, “it will not work.”
Both candidates responded to the stock market meltdown with new policy proposals. McCain, in Wisconsin, suggested waiving a tax rule requiring that investors begin selling off their IRAs and 401(k)s when they turn 70-and-a-half. Obama, in Ohio, pitched temporarily lifting lending fees and extending fixed-rate loans to small businesses through a Small Business Administration disaster relief fund.
But the dramatic personal nature of the campaign overshadowed those developments.
“We know what’s coming, we know what they’re going to do,” Obama told supporters in Chillicothe and later in Columbus.
McCain’s campaign had announced a national TV ad that asserts Obama worked with a “terrorist” when it was politically convenient and then lied about their relationship.
The man, Bill Ayers, is a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago who in 1995 hosted a candidate event for Obama and was involved with two mainstream charitable groups in which Obama also had been active. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has praised Ayers as a leading citizen who helped shape the city’s innovative schools’ program.
In the late 1960s and early ’70s, when Obama was a child, Ayers belonged to the radical antiwar group, Weather Underground, which advocated violence and placed bombs at the Pentagon and the Capitol.
McCain’s accusation is that Obama understated what he knew about Ayers’ past or his beliefs when it suited him. There’s no evidence that the two men are close or that Ayers has any connection to Obama’s presidential campaign.
At a rally on Thursday, McCain himself used the word “terrorist” to describe Ayers, and many McCain supporters were whipped into a lather as they voiced fear and indignation at Obama’s ascent. Many participants chanted “liar, liar” when Obama’s name was mentioned.
However, at a Friday morning rally in La Crosse, Wis., McCain seemed to dial back the tone. He didn’t mention Ayers, and perhaps his most negative words were to paint Obama as “a Chicago politician.”
 But McCain’s campaign on Friday also organized for the second time this week a conference call featuring John Murtagh, whose family home was firebombed in 1970 because his father, as a New York supreme court justice, had presided over a Black Panthers trial.
Murtagh’s father was also threatened in an open 1970 letter signed by Ayers’ wife, Bernardine Dohrn _ also a former radical from the Vietnam era, now a law professor at Northwestern University. Murtagh said he remains convinced that the couple wanted to kill or hurt his family. He said he doesn’t hold Obama responsible, but he thinks that Obama’s past comfort level with Ayers shows a “complete lack of judgment.”
Earlier in the week, McCain, in New Mexico, insinuated that Obama was hiding aspects of his past, asking, “Who is the real Barack Obama?” McCain did not reference race or religion, but the open-ended question may have stirred voters who believe that Obama, who’s Christian, is Muslim because his Kenyan father’s family was Muslim.
“Nothing’s easier than riling up a crowd by stoking anger and division, but that’s not what we need now in the United States,” Obama said in Chillicothe and almost verbatim later in Columbus. “The American people aren’t looking for someone who can divide this country, they’re looking for somebody who will lead this country. Now more than ever it is time to put country ahead of politics.”
“They can try to turn the page on the economy, they can try to deny the record of the last eight years,” Obama said. “They can run misleading ads, they can pursue the politics of anything goes. It will not work. Not this time.”
McCain spokesman Brian Rogers responded that, “Barack Obama just doesn’t understand regular people and the issues they care about” and said McCain’s character questions were “legitimate” and “vital.”
While Obama dared McCain on Friday to keep up his attacks, the Democratic nominee and his supporters took pains Friday to defend Obama’s honor.
 Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, who introduced Obama in Chillicothe, told the audience, “Barack Obama is a strong, Christian family man. Now why did I share those two things with you this morning? Because the McCain-Palin campaign and unfortunately some of their followers would want you to be afraid of Barack Obama. They want you to believe that he is untested and unknown. I know Barack Obama. I think I know what’s in his heart. He is bright, he is capable, he is mature, he is steady. We can trust Barack Obama with Chillicothe, with southern Ohio, with Ohio, with America.”
 Meanwhile, in Ohio and other battleground states, the Obama campaign was airing an ad that shows old photos of the biracial Democratic nominee with his white mother and white grandparents. Obama often closes his speeches by telling the audience that together they can change the world. In Columbus, he closed, “God bless the United States of America.”

Palin abused power in Troopergate matter

Don Hunter
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska _ A legislative investigation has concluded that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power in pushing for the firing of an state trooper who was once married to her sister.
The report by investigator Steve Branchflower was made public Friday by a 12-0 vote of the Legislative Council, which authorized the investigation.
Branchflower’s report contains four findings:
-The first concludes that Palin violated the state’s executive branch ethics act, which says that “each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust.”
Branchflower was investigating whether Palin abused her power by pushing for the firing of state trooper Mike Wooten, who was involved in a nasty divorce from Palin’s sister. Palin and her husband, Todd, have accused Wooten of threatening Palin’s father.
The investigation also looked into whether Palin dismissed public safety commissioner Walt Monegan because he resisted pressure to fire Wooten.
-In the second finding, Branchflower says Monegan’s refusal to fire Wooten was not the sole reason for his dismissal but that it was a “contributing factor.” Still, he said, Palin’s firing of Monegan was “a proper and lawful exercise” of the governor’s authority.
-The third finding says a workers compensation claim filed by Wooten was handled appropriately.
-No. 4 concludes that the attorney general’s office failed to comply with Branchflower’s Aug. 6 request for information about the case in e-mails.
The release of Branchflower’s 263-page report came after a unanimous vote of the 12-member Legislative Council, which authorized the inquiry last summer. The vote followed an all-day, closed-door meeting with Branchflower. Three members participated by telephone.
Branchflower also recommends the Legislature change the way complaints against peace officers such as troopers are handled. He says lawmakers should consider making it possible for people who file such complaints to get feedback about the status of their complaint and whatever action was taken about it.
The initial complaint against Wooten was filed by Gov. Palin’s father, Chuck Heath, before she was elected governor in 2006. Branchflower says the inability of the family to get information about what was happening with the complaint was frustrating to them.
“I believe their frustration was real, as was their skepticism about whether their complaints were being zealously investigated,” Branchflower’s report says. “The irony is that the complaints were taken very seriously, and a thorough investigation was under way. However, the law prevented the Troopers from giving them any feedback whatsoever.”
The law should try to balance the need for confidentiality with a recognition that feedback to the filer of a complaint is also important, the report says.

VP debate a score for Biden, hit or miss for Palin

David Lightman
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
ST. LOUIS, Mo. - Joe Biden won Thursday night’s vice presidential debate, according to two national polls, giving the Democrats fresh, important momentum Friday as the campaign for the White House enters its final month.
A CBS News/Knowledge Networks survey of 500 uncommitted voters taken after the debate Thursday night found that 46 percent thought Biden won, while 21 percent gave Republican Sarah Palin the victory. While two-thirds found Palin knowledgeable about important issues, 98 percent said the same about Biden.
A separate CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey found similar views, with 51 percent saying Biden did better, to 36 percent favoring Palin.
Perhaps most significant, the CNN survey found that 87 percent thought the Delaware senator was qualified to be president, while 42 percent saw Palin that way.
“He didn’t ramble and he wasn’t patronizing. He stayed on message and linked McCain to President Bush in a very effective way,” said Douglas Koopman, a professor of political science at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Particularly impressive, Koopman said, was how Biden dealt with Palin’s repeated reference to John McCain as a “maverick.”
“I love him,” Biden said of McCain, his longtime Senate colleague. “He’s been a maverick on some issues, but he has been no maverick on the things that matter to people’s lives,” such as the economy, health care and education.
Even so, reviews for Palin, whose approval numbers had been tumbling in recent weeks, were generally favorable too.
“Had Palin blown it, it probably would have been the end of McCain’s candidacy, but she dug in her heels and enhanced her credibility,” said Wayne Lesperance, associate professor of political science at New England College in Henniker, N.H.
But at this stage of the campaign, with Americans weary of war and anxious about the declining economy, the Republican ticket faces a hostile environment since it represents the incumbent party at a time when voters are seeking change. Palin had to do more than merely hold her own to shift the campaign’s overall dynamic. But there’s no evidence she did that, even if she exceeded expectations for her performance.
Obama led by an average of 5.8 points in national surveys over the past week before the Biden-Palin debate, according to RealClearPolitics.
“Every day that goes by with Barack Obama about 5 to 8 points ahead is not a good day for John McCain,” said vice presidential expert Timothy Walch.
“Every day of the next month is important,” said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.
Nevertheless, Republicans claimed new momentum.
Palin, who has been unavailable to most of the press corps ever since she joined the GOP ticket, will “be available to the press, and she’ll talk to every American voter. She’ll be out 24/7,” vowed McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt.
Some experts agreed that Palin’s folksy style could resonate, particularly with women in the Midwest and West, a trend that may not show up right away.
“People listen to what the neighbors say, what their favorite pundit says and sometimes there’s a disconnect between that and what the media are saying now,” said Wayne Fields, a professor of English and American culture studies at Washington University in St. Louis.
Ultimately, he said, people base their opinions on their intuition, and “they really don’t know specifically what they’re basing their judgment on.”
 Yet Palin probably won’t have much more opportunity to be widely heard. Public attention tends to focus most on presidential candidates, especially in the final weeks of a campaign, and there are no more vice presidential debates. With a crush of other big news stories _ including the House of Representatives’ passage of the financial-rescue plan on Friday and the second McCain-Obama debate coming up on Tuesday _ the Biden-Palin encounter is likely to fade quickly.
“The vice presidential story is essentially over now,” Walch said. “By Monday, we’ll be on to another topic.”

A partial breakdown of the economic crisis

Michelle Amaral

News Editor

 

Since the 1930s, one facet of the American Dream has been the ability of a person to own a home. Due to the Great Depression, though, many people could not afford to buy a home and, moreover, numerous private banks had failed and so were unable to make loans.

 

In 1938, the Federal National Mortgage Association, now known as Fannie Mae, was created as a type of guarantee to private banks that the money they loaned to the public would in turn be ‘reimbursed’ by this new agency. In this way, private banks could make more loans with essentially nothing to lose since they simply turned around and sold these mortgage loans to Fannie Mae. Over time, however, banks became sloppy in their determination of good loan candidates.

 

At its creation, Fannie Mae was an entity controlled by the government. Today, both Fannie Mae and its identical replica, Freddie Mac, are government sponsored enterprises. Their money is made in the same manner as other privately owned companies on Wall Street, but in the event that these two go bankrupt, the federal government has previously pledged to bail them out.

 

Presidential debate kicks off with discussion of financial rescue package, minus the details

Larry Eichel
The Philadelphia Inquirer
(MCT)
OXFORD, Miss. -In the first presidential debate of the fall campaign, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain argued Friday night over their voting records, their foreign policy judgments, and their positions regarding the war in Iraq.
Although the subject of the financial rescue package being negotiated in Washington occupied the first 35 minutes, the two major-party candidates largely avoided any discussion of the details and instead attacked each other on familiar political ground.
Obama tied the situation to the policies of the Republican incumbent, whose unpopularity is a major drag on McCain’s candidacy.
“We have to realize that this is a final verdict on eight years of failed economic policies promoted by George Bush, supported by John McCain,” Obama said.
McCain highlighted the need to trim the federal budget, long one of his favorite issues.
“The first thing we have to do is get spending under control in Washington, it’s completely out of control …,” McCain said.
The debate, which was supposed to focus on issues of foreign policy and national security, was held at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.
In dealing with those issues, McCain, now serving his fourth term in the Senate, did his best to make the less-experienced Obama seem naive and uninformed while Obama sought to portray McCain as too closely aligned with the unpopular incumbent.
On Iraq, for instance, McCain hammered Obama for refusing to acknowledge what he called the success of the troop surge policy, which McCain was instrumental in getting adopted by the administration.
“This strategy has succeeded and we are winning in Iraq,” McCain said.
Obama responded by saying that McCain was being too selective in his recounting of history.
“John, you like to pretend like the war started in 2007,” he said, referring to the year when the surge was implemented. ” … The war started in 2003. And at the time, when the war started, you said it was going to be quick and easy. You said we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were. You were wrong.”
Obama said that the administration’s focus on Iraq had created “enormous problems in Afghanistan, which he described as the central front in the war on terrorism.
But McCain, while acknowledging the need for more troops on that front, said that losing in Iraq would have a “calamitous effect” on the situation.
In the final moments of the debate, the candidates returned to the topic, each using it to make his central point, with one man stressing the need for change, the other the value of experience.
Said Obama: “We have weakened our ability to project power around the world because we have everything through the single prism” of Iraq.
McCain countered by saying, “There are some advantages to experience and knowledge and judgment, and I honestly don’t believe Sen. Obama has the knowledge and experience _ and has made the wrong judgments in a number of areas.”
The format of the debate allowed for direct and prolonged exchanges between the candidates. And the dialogue, while restrained at first, became increasingly testy as the 90-minute debate wore on.
For instance, the two men clashed directly Friday night over Obama’s statement, made early in his quest for the Democratic nomination, that he would meet with leaders of rogue states such as Iran “without precondition.”
Obama defended his position, claiming that such meetings, even if they failed to produce immediate progress, would strengthen the United States’ ability to get it allies to impose sanctions of such states.
McCain would have none of it, arguing that to meet with someone like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be to “legitimize” his harsh anti-Israel views.
“It isn’t just naive,” McCain said of Obama’s approach. “It’s dangerous.”
More generally, McCain said that Obama was too much the partisan to broker the kind of bipartisan agreements that are needed to address the nation’s most pressing problems.
“Sen. Obama has the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate,” McCain said. “It’s hard to reach across the aisle from that far to the left.”
Replied Obama: “John mentioned me being wildly liberal, but mostly that’s just me opposing the wrong-headed policies of George Bush.”
Later, the Arizona senator proposed a freeze on all categories of federal spending other than defense, veterans affairs and entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare.
Obama dismissed that idea as ill-considered on the ground that “you’re using a hatchet when you should be using a scalpel.”
The debate was expected to be seen by a huge television audience, although the night of the week and the earlier uncertainty about whether the event would actually happen might lower the television ratings.
It was not until after 11 a.m. Friday, less than 10 hours before the event was to begin, that McCain confirmed that he would participate.
On Wednesday, McCain had announced that he was “suspending” his campaign and would not go to Mississippi “until we have taken action” to address the nation’s financial crisis.
By Friday morning, no bailout package was in place, despite a meeting Thursday at the White House attended by congressional leaders as well as McCain and Obama.
But the Republican nominee opted to take part in the debate because, according to a statement put out by his campaign, he was “optimistic that there has been significant progress.”
Obama had planned to participate regardless, saying that any would-be president had to be able to do several things at once.
Both men said they planned to return to Washington during the weekend to help get a deal done or at least to vote on the package when it comes to the Senate floor.
Obama and McCain meet again Oct. 7 and 15. Their running mates are to have their one and only encounter Thursday night in St. Louis.

Senator Edward Kennedy released from hospital

Senator Edward Kennedy was admitted into a hospital late Friday due to a small seizure. Kennedy was released a while later. It was reported by CNN that Kennedy was anxious to get home to watch the first presidential debate between Senators McCain and Obama.