Rice rejects Huckabee criticism
WASHINGTON (AP) - In a brief foray into politics, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday denounced comments by Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee that the Bush administration's foreign policy is arrogant and unilateral.
"The idea that somehow this is a go-it-alone policy is just simply ludicrous," she said at a State Department news conference. "One would only have to be not observing the facts, let me say that, to say that this is now a go-it-alone foreign policy."
Her remarks came in response to a question about criticism from Huckabee, who has surged in the polls to become a front-runner in the upcoming Iowa caucuses for the GOP presidential nomination. Huckabee recently said the administration's foreign policy was characterized by a "bunker mentality."
Rice did not mention Huckabee by name in her response and at first declined to respond, saying dismissively: "Look, I don't comment on other people's comments. I don't have time, all right. I really don't have time to worry about this."
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Edwards: 'My people will be there'
JOHNSTON, Iowa (AP) - Democrat John Edwards, locked in a tight race in the state's leadoff caucuses, said his experience in the last Iowa contest gives him an edge with voters in the closing days.
"They're looking for energy and passion and focus and that's what they're going to get from me," said Edwards, who took a swipe at leading rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, suggesting they are running far more cerebral campaigns that lack the kind of energy that his campaign offers.
"Having been through this before, I know what you have to do, I know what you have to do to close and what Iowa caucus-goers are looking for," said Edwards, who finished second to John Kerry in 2004. "They're not looking for academic, they're not looking for analytical, they're looking for somebody who speaks from right here, from their gut, and who believes deeply and passionately in what they're talking about."
Edwards spoke during a taping of Iowa Public Television's "Iowa Press" program airing later in the weekend, assessing a race that virtually all polls show is a virtual dead heat less than two weeks before activists launch the presidential nominating season on Jan. 3.
Roughly 124,000 Democratic activists showed up in 2004, and Edwards declined to predict turnout this time, but did offer one view.
"What I know is my people will be at the caucus," said Edwards. "If you come to my events, they look like caucus-goers. My people are strongly for me, that's what I know."
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Clinton builds on support in NH
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to shore up support among independent and female voters on Friday, attempting to maintain a strength in those blocs with her biography and testimonials from registered Republicans.
Clinton, in a tight race with Sen. Barack Obama, planned to spend the day telling New Hampshire voters how she reached across party lines and produced results
- echoing television ads already on the air. The New York senator brought along her mother Dorothy Rodham, daughter Chelsea Clinton and other well-known female supporters during a two-day swing in New Hampshire.
She also dispatched supporters to vouch for her record and soften the sometimes harsh public caricature that has frustrated her front-runner campaign.
"This is a person who can reach common ground and never compromise her principles," said Jeff Volk, a Republican from New York, telling the story of being stuck in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit there. He has given the maximum of $2,300 to Clinton's campaign and $5,000 to Clinton's political action committee in 2007.
The latest New Hampshire survey, conducted by USA Today/Gallup Poll, shows Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama in a dead heat among likely Democratic voters 2 1/2 weeks before New Hampshire's Jan. 8 primary.
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Liberal group hits Obama in ad
WASHINGTON (AP) - A liberal activist group that targeted Hillary Rodham Clinton in a cable television ad earlier this month is now going after Barack Obama, depicting him as a bad Santa delivering coal to Iowa voters.
The group, Democratic Courage, plans to air the ad in Iowa during the holiday season, though it's unclear how many people will see it. Democratic Courage president Glenn Hurowitz said the group was still working out details on the size of the ad. The group spent a mere $2,500 on its Clinton ad buy.
In the ad, an announcer criticizes Obama's votes in favor of a 2005 energy bill as well as a vote against an amendment that would have limited the amount of interest charged on any extension of credit to 30 percent. Obama voted with 18 other Democrats and all of the Senate Republican to defeat that amendment.
The ad also echoes criticism leveled by Clinton and Democrat John Edwards against Obama's health care plan, claiming it would leave "millions out in the cold." Obama's health proposal does not include a requirement that workers obtain health insurance, like Clinton and Edwards do.
Hurowtiz, who supports Edwards, said Democratic Courage has not endorsed a candidate but said Edwards is someone they would consider as a "progressive, courageous and winning alternative."
Democratic Courage is a political action committee, financed by contributions of no more than $5,000 per person.
