Announced this morning. How will everyone be voting?!
Bloc Québécois
Leader: Gilles Duceppe
Conservative Party of Canada
Leader: Stephen Harper
Liberal Party of Canada
Leader: Stephane Dion
New Democratic Party of Canada
Leader: Jack Layton
Green Party of Canada
Leader: Elizabeth May
Other parties:
Continue reading…
Too Fit to Be President?
Facing an Overweight Electorate,
Barack Obama Might Find
Low Body Fat a Drawback
By AMY CHOZICK
August 1, 2008; Page W1
Speaking to donors at a San Diego fund-raiser last month, Barack Obama reassured the crowd that he wouldn’t give in to Republican tactics to throw his candidacy off track.
“Listen, I’m skinny but I’m tough,” Sen. Obama said.
But in a nation in which 66% of the voting-age population is overweight and 32% is obese, could Sen. Obama’s skinniness be a liability? Despite his visits to waffle houses, ice-cream parlors and greasy-spoon diners around the country, his slim physique just might have some Americans wondering whether he is truly like them.
The candidate has been criticized by opponents for appearing elitist or out of touch with average Americans. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll conducted in July shows Sen. Obama still lags behind Republican John McCain among white men and suburban women who say they can’t relate to his background or perceived values.
“He’s too new … and he needs to put some meat on his bones,” says Diana Koenig, 42, a housewife in Corpus Christi, Texas, who says she voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.
“I won’t vote for any beanpole guy,” another Clinton supporter wrote last week on a Yahoo politics message board. Continue reading…
Sen. said Saturday he is simply acting pragmatically in softening his opposition to additional oil drilling along the nation’s coastline, a shift Republicans say shows he is calculating and out of touch with voters.
Speaking in Florida, Obama insisted he still generally opposes additional drilling as his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, once did as well but would be willing to support it as part of a new bipartisan energy proposal that seeks to lessen dependence on foreign oil.
“If we can come up with a genuine bipartisan compromise, in which I have to accept some things that I don’t like, or the Democrats have to accept some things that they don’t like in exchange for actually moving us in the direction of actual energy independence, then that’s something I’m open to,” the Illinois Democrat said.
Oil drilling, a hot topic in Florida, has been a point of dispute between Obama and McCain in recent weeks.
“Sen. Obama says he wants energy independence, but he doesn’t support anything that serves that goal,” McCain said Saturday in his weekly radio address. “He believes every domestic energy source has a problem. I believe every energy source needs to be part of the solution.” Continue reading…