With pastors and presidential candidates in both parties making headlines, maybe you're looking for the truth about what the Senators still in the running think about God, church, and ethics. The Pew Foundation gives us the scoop.
... or at least calling on the cell. And guess what? Chelsea wants to get together one-on-one. John Kerry rang up to talk about the weather. And I've got exams next week.
That's the real-life whine of 21-year-old Jason Rae in Wisconsin, one of 796 free agent super delegates who can pick their own candidate at the Democratic convention. Senator Kerry really called Jaason to stump for Obama. Mrs. Clinton wants Jason's vote, too, so Chelsea treated the college junior to breakfast, and Bill chatted him up:
Rae was about to head out to dinner with friends when his phone rang and the screen said, "Number withheld." The voice on the other end said: "Please hold for the former president" and then a familiar voice said "Hey Jason, it's Bill here."If you're confused about why such a young dude has so much power in this election, don't worry. Most of us don't get how we elect a President -- it's complicated. Get the scoop on delegates, super delegates, and the conventions, find out how the electoral college works, and keep track of how the delegates are voting so far here.
"I started to think, is this real? I am a junior in college and Bill Clinton is talking to me?" Rae said as he recalled the phone call.
Clinton talked about Hillary Clinton's electability and gave Rae an update on how things were looking on the ground in South Carolina. He then regaled Rae with stories about his travels to Wisconsin as president and the cities he visited during that time.
Visit Five Great Websites Before Heading To The Ballot Box
Geeks are jamming the web with widgets, gadgets, and feeds that inform us about the candidates and their positions. Five websites in particular can help even the most undecided voter make a choice. These are nonpartisan resources, and user-friendly for even a web newbie.
If you're not sure yet how to vote, try this quiz created by Cosmo Girl and see how it matches you up with the candidates.
| Facebook Supporters* | ABC News Poll** | |
|---|---|---|
| Democrats: | ||
| Barack Obama | 57.39% | 23% |
| Hillary Clinton | 18.32% | 53% |
| John Edwards | 8.88% | 10% |
| Dennis Kucinich | 6.57% | 2% |
| Joe Biden | 3.05% | 3% |
| Bill Richardson | 2.55% | 3% |
| Mike Gravel | 2.42% | NA |
| Chris Dodd | 0.82% | NA |
| Republicans: | ||
| Ron Paul | 38.55% | 3% |
| Mitt Romney | 14.97% | 17% |
| Mike Huckabee | 14.47% | 19% |
| Fred Thompson | 11.51% | 14% |
| John McCain | 10.44% | 12% |
| Rudy Giuliani | 9.14% | 25% |
| Duncan Hunter | 0.92% | 2% |
I'm still not sure which candidate's for me, so I took this great quiz comparing my views with theirs over at Select Smart, and was SHOCKED, totally SHOCKED by the matchup (no, I'm not telling -- this blog stays nonpartisan until November '08, sorry). Fill in the bubbles over at the select smart site, skip the ads, and get your own results.
One issue the Select Smart people leave off is what the candidates think about world poverty and disease, so if you care about those biggies, head over to One Vote '08, pick three candidates and compare their views via video clip.
A dude named Pudgenet sang the first question in the CNN/YouTube debate between the eight Republican candidates:
So far we've heard from Barack Obama and John Edwards, both Democrats. On December 3rd, 2007, John McCain, the Senator from Arizona will be the first Republican to answer your questions on MTV:
The dialogue will take place at 7 p.m. ET and will be the first to be simultaneously broadcast live on MTV, MySpace, ChooseorLose.com and on mobile devices via MTV Mobile; and translated live into Spanish via ImpreMedia's LaVibra ... So far, the hour-long forums have allowed students and online users to quiz the candidates on a wide variety of issues, from funding for the arts to Iraq, stem-cell research, their religious beliefs and gay marriage.
Check out how Obama handled a question about a movie based on his life:
The three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate between the Democratic and Republican candidates in '08 are going to be in Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, and New York. Here are the dates and places:
Do all the candidates punch those dates into their blackberries and iPhones, hoping they'll be the one to represent?
MySpace and MTV are planning town hall conversations with the major candidates on college campuses, and we're invited. MySpacers and college students will be able to ask questions while the rest of us watch the candidates answer via web and television. The first get-together will be on September 27th with John Edwards in New Hampshire. And guess what? MySpace also plans to hold a mock election early in 2008. So stay tuned; I plan to.
Don't get why the States keep moving back their primaries? Join the crowd. Or read NPR's short, fab article explaining why the Iowa Caucus might move to this December, right before Christmas, almost a year before the '08 election. Basically, like a lot of things on the planet, it's about coming first and getting the most attention. The United Brats of America.
And if you, like me, don't get why tomorrow's straw poll in Iowa is so important for the Republicans, and why Mitt Romney has spent tons of time and money there, ABC spells that out for us. According to a guy quoted in the Wall Street Journal, "(Romney) needs to crush whoever comes in second by a 2-to-1 margin." But since two other leading Republicans, Giuliani and McCain, have pulled out, will tomorrow's straw poll really show us which way the wind's blowing?
The next debate for the Democrats will take place in Iowa, too, on August 19th -- the wee Hawkeye State's got big muscles. In toto, the Dems are scheduled to debate each other sixteen times, with two cancellations, for a grand total of 18 planned debates; the Repubs will face off in a dozen debates. After the Summer '08 Conventions (Dems in Denver, Colorado from August 25-28, 2008; their Republican rivals in St. Paul, Minnesota from September 1-4, 2008), the candidates who win each party's nominations start to battle each other. That's when it usually gets more interesting ... and sadly, nastier, too.
Here are four fun, chock-full-of-info video clip sites related to the election (if you're getting bored of always tuning into YouTube's You Choose channel):
SLJ sums up a recent study claiming that teens aren't into the news:
A recent Harvard University study, based on a national sample of 1,800 teens (ages 12 to 17), young adults (ages 18 to 30), and older adults, found that 28 percent of teens pay almost no attention to daily news. An additional 32 percent were "casually inattentive" to news from just one source. Taken together, 60 percent of teens can be considered inattentive to daily news, as compared to 48 percent of young adults and 23 percent of older adults, says the study.
Prove them wrong by getting savvy about the '08 election. You can get started by checking out Expert Voter's nifty spreadsheet of video clips about the candidates' stands on issues like the war in Iraq and abortion.
Bookmark Comedy Central's Indecision 2008, and check out clips about the campaign featuring Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
It's hard not to get cynical these days. Sometimes it feels like politicians spin everything just to sound good. Can you trust anybody to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (besides my Dad, of course)? Well, now we can at least know if and when a candidate's been lying.
The factoid nerds at Fact Check aren't for any party or candidate. They go after Democrats like Mrs. Clinton, who said that all the Republican candidates support the war and the president. (She must have forgotten about Ron Paul, who thinks the war is bad news.) They also pick on Republicans, like Mr. Giuliani, who claimed that adoptions in New York increased a ton while he was mayor when the numbers actually started dropping. Not to accuse these presidential wannabes of being liars or anything -- it's just good to know when they're wrong about the facts.
If you need ammo for those dinner table political debates with the parents, head right to expert voter, where you can watch clips of the candidates chatting about the war in Iraq, immigration, the environment, and other stuff. Their web geek's got it set up in a handy-dandy, easy-to-use matrix.
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