Morning News

From the Los Angeles Times:

Democrat Barack Obama renewed his outreach to female voters Wednesday.

…Speaking under a hot summer sun to a largely female crowd in this small Ohio town [New Philadelphia], Obama spoke of the struggles his mother and grandmother had endured. And he promised to push legislation that would ensure equal pay for women should he win the White House.

…The Democratic presidential nominee described his mother’s efforts to finish school and earn money after she gave birth to him at age 18.

"There were times that she didn’t have enough money for groceries. And even though she was very proud and very independent, there were a couple of times growing up where she accepted food stamps to make sure we had enough food on the table," Obama said. "It was tough. And it was pretty much tough all the way through my teenage years."

…Eight hundred miles away from the Republican National Convention, in the rolling hills of eastern Ohio, Obama held a "women’s economic event" to highlight the struggles of working mothers.

During his first campaign stop in two days, Obama talked at length about his grandmother, who he said had worked her way up from the secretarial pool to become a vice president at a bank after World War II.

"I think about my grandmother and what she could have done if she had been treated equal, if she had been treated fairly," he said.

…Obama, however, is not relying solely on his biography. Last week, the his campaign began running a radio ad featuring a Planned Parenthood nurse practitioner who says McCain is "out of touch with women today."

"McCain wants to take away our right to choose," she says in the ad, which is airing in swing states. "That’s what women need to understand. That’s how high the stakes are."

The Obama campaign also is reaching out to women through house parties, phone banks and online organizing. A campaign official said that on Women’s Equality Day, which is commemorated annually on Aug. 26, female Obama supporters held nearly 200 events nationwide in an effort to recruit women.

From the Associated Press:

Joe Biden says he left his gallbladder in Fort Myers, Fla.

That campaign line is unlikely to rival Tony Bennett’s tune about his heart and San Francisco, but the Democratic vice presidential candidate is hoping it helps win over voters in swing state Florida, which crushed the party’s White House dreams in 2000.

Biden wrapped up a two-day campaign trip to the state Wednesday, talking to voters in this Gulf Coast city about matters political and personal.

The Delaware senator outlined his strong pro-Israel stand to Jewish voters in the state, scoffed at the Republicans’ push for offshore oil drilling and reminded Floridians that Barack Obama supports a national insurance backup fund and Republican John McCain doesn’t — an issue that’s timely with three tropical storms churning in the Atlantic Ocean.

And his folksy style is going over well.

"There’s two things every guy should have," he said Wednesday. "A brother-in-law with a pickup truck and a brother with a place in Florida. I used to have both."

…"I left part of me here in Fort Myers," he said. "You have one of the best hospitals in America in Lee County Memorial. They have my gallbladder."

…Presidential candidate Obama has pumped $8.5 million into television ads here while building up a state organization with 200 paid staffers and 36 offices. Polls show a competitive race.

…Democrats also have done a better job of registering voters. In the first seven months of the year, Democrats increased their numbers by nearly 253,000, compared with slightly more than 98,000 more Republicans. Overall, Florida has about 4.4 million Democrats, 3.9 million Republicans and 2.3 million voters who aren’t registered with either party.

The Democrats estimates about 600,000 registered black voters stayed home in 2004, more than Bush’s margin of victory in the state. And nearly 600,000 black Floridians aren’t registered to vote.

Biden has tried to work in issues important to Florida during his campaigning here, most notably Obama’s support for a national insurance backup fund to help make homeowners insurance more affordable and available.

…In Fort Myers on Wednesday, Biden fired up a crowd by criticizing McCain’s push for offshore drilling, saying Florida would be a prime target. Many Floridians oppose drilling because of fears it would hurt tourism and harm the environment.

From the Kennebec Journal:

During World War II, soldiers crouching in foxholes penned letters assuring their sweethearts that they’d be home soon. Now, between firefights in the Iraqi desert, some infantrymen have been sending a different kind of mail stateside: $200 to $300 — or whatever they can spare — toward a presidential election that could very well determine just how soon they come home.

According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions as has Republican John McCain.

…Despite McCain’s status as a decorated veteran and the historically Republican leanings among the military, members of the armed services overall — whether stationed overseas or at home — are favoring Obama with their campaign contributions in 2008 by a $55,000 margin.

Although 59 percent of federal contributions by military personnel for all offices has gone to Republicans this cycle, of money to the presumed presidential nominees, 57 percent has gone to Obama.

…In each of the other branches — including the Navy, in which McCain served when he was taken prisoner during the Vietnam War — Obama leads by significant margins.

"That’s shocking. The academic debate is between some who say that junior enlisted ranks lean slightly Republican and some who say it’s about equal, but no one would point to six-to-one" in Democrats’ favor, said Aaron Belkin, a professor of political science at the University of California who studies the military.

In 2000, Republican George W. Bush outraised Democrat Al Gore among military personnel almost 2 to 1. In 2004, with the Iraq war under way, John Kerry closed the gap with President Bush, but Bush still raised $1.50 from the military for every $1 his Democratic opponent collected.

…The Center for Responsive Politics’s totals are limited to donors contributing more than $200, since information is not provided to the Federal Election Commission for smaller contributions. So these figures are likely to represent the mood of officers disproportionately. They have more disposable income to spend on politics than do the lower ranks.

…Army Specialist Jay Navas contributed $250 while deployed in Iraq, but it wasn’t over the Internet.

"It took some effort to get that check. I had my mom send me my checkbook and I walked to the post office in Camp Liberty in Baghdad with an envelope addressed to Barack Obama in Chicago, Illinois," he said. "Most of my friends are conservative Republicans and they say, ‘I’m voting for Barack.’ McCain does not have a lock on the military vote, that’s for sure."

From WLFI 18:

As Republicans gathered in St. Paul, Minnesota, for their nominating convention, Barack Obama’s campaign was targeting Indiana voters.

Obama’s Deputy National Campaign Manager, Steve Hildebrand, lead a conference call with reporters Wednesday morning to explain why the campaign is focusing its efforts on Indiana and other selected states.

"Indiana could put Obama over the top," Hildebrand said. By the campaign’s calculations, if Obama carried every state won by the Democratic Party’s nominee in 2004, John Kerry, plus Iowa, he would be 11 electoral votes short of the 270 needed to win the White House. Indiana has 11 electoral votes.

… Despite the state’s record of voting Republican in every presidential campaign since 1964, former Indiana Secretary of State Joe Hogsett pointed to what the Obama campaign considers to be good omens in 2008.

…Hogsett said the Obama campaign sees further good news in 2008 numbers, with nearly 1.3 million Democratic votes cast in the May primary. "That’s 300 thousand more votes than John Kerry received in the 2004 election," Hogsett said. He also noted that more than a half million voters have registered in 2008, through September 3.