Email   |  

INDEPENDENCE, Missouri — Clearly, the lady who offered to give Barack Obama the shirt off her back rattled him more than the lady next to her, whose top was emblazoned with a biceps-flexing Hillary Rodham Clinton and the words “Hillary Can Do It.”

Obama had decided to take a stroll down one of this tiny Missouri town’s quiet streets Monday after a speech on the topic of patriotism. That sort of public appearance isn’t something the Democratic presidential candidate does often, and he encountered people welcoming him onto the porches of their bungalows and clamoring politely but energetically in small crowds to see him.

He obliged nearly everyone who wanted to shake his hand.

But he never wavered from his goal — the imposing white Victorian manse that Harry Truman called home and used as the “Summer White House” during his presidency. Proclaiming Truman “one of my favorites,” Obama would chat briefly, then resume his walk toward the tour.

Until he met Tootie Williams, that is.

The St. Louis native was wearing an oversized white T-shirt. It featured a picture of him and said: “Obama’s in the House.”

Obama said he loved it. So Williams said she’d give it to him and started to peel it off.

This caused much laughter, but also obvious consternation on Obama’s part, even after she assured him she had on another shirt underneath — which she did. As she struggled to remove the T-shirt with a mob of reporters and cameras looking on, he warned “Hold the rest of it down!”

Williams’ counterpart in the Clinton shirt, Independence native Debbie Twyman, turned out to be an Obama supporter.

“You’ve got the face of the Democratic Party right here,” she yelled, giving Williams a hug and referencing the Obama-Clinton coming-together last week in New Hampshire. “Welcome to unity.”

Obama finally reached the Truman home for a brief visit.

Email   |  

WASHINGTON — Claire McCaskill, senator from Missouri, is hardly a household name outside her home state. But Barack Obama knows who she is.

She was there when Obama needed her most, a female senator endorsing him just after he lost New Hampshire’s Democratic primary to Hillary Rodham Clinton. That was a politically risky move at the time, one that angered many of her own supporters. It came when Obama’s clinching the nomination was far from certain.

Since then, the plainspoken former prosecutor and state auditor has been all over TV news and political talk shows as a top surrogate for the campaign. Obama calls her one of his closest advisers. She’s even offering guidance on possible vice presidential picks and her name has popped up as a potential running mate.

“They want to use her so much because she’s the epitome of the target voter they’re looking for,” says Democratic strategist Jenny Backus.

For Obama, McCaskill has been crucial in reaching out to some of the female voters who flocked to Clinton during the primaries.

If Obama’s rapid rise in national politics has been remarkable, so has McCaskill’s. Three years ago, she thought her political career might be over after she lost a bid for Missouri governor.

Then she ran for the Senate — and won.

And political advisers see in her victory a blueprint for how Obama, too, can carry evenly divided swing states in the November election against Republican John McCain.

Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to Obama’s campaign, said there is no chance Obama could have eked out a narrow win in the Missouri primary without McCaskill’s strategic help. The campaign is tapping that insight for other states in the general election.

“Her insights into campaigning in the more rural areas are ones she has shared directly with Barack,” Dunn said. “Her basic thing is that you’ve got to get down there and meet with people. You’ve got to let them see you.”

As it became clearer that Obama would claim his party’s nomination, McCaskill was among those urging him to make stops in places like Cape Girardeau, Mo., and southwest Virginia — conservative country where Democrats seldom tread.

“I will make a bold statement,” McCaskill said in an interview. “Barack Obama will campaign in places that no presidential candidate has ever campaigned in, much less a Democrat.”

The need for Democrats to campaign hard in rural and conservative areas is a lesson McCaskill learned the hard way. After losing the 2004 gubernatorial race to Republican Matt Blunt, she said her biggest mistake was ignoring GOP bastions where she got trounced.

Two years later, McCaskill narrowly defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Jim Talent. She racked up huge margins in the Democratic strongholds of St. Louis and Kansas City, but it was her ability to cut into Talent’s rural support that put her over the top. McCaskill won those votes by spending weeks in an RV touring counties where Democrats are scarce.

“John Kerry never landed an airplane outside of Kansas City or St. Louis,” McCaskill says of her party’s 2004 presidential nominee. Kerry’s campaign ultimately abandoned Missouri in the waning days of the race and lost the state.

Focusing on the big cities sends the wrong signal, McCaskill said. “It sends a signal that this is about turning out Democratic voters rather than persuading everybody in America that you can be their champion.”

McCaskill’s advice has made a difference in more subtle ways, too. She says Obama sometimes has “a tendency to explain the intellectual rationale for something he’s done before he explains what was going on in his heart.”

After his remarks in Pennsylvania that rural voters bitter over the economy “cling to guns and religion,” Obama tried to explain by saying his “syntax was poor.”

“I teased him about using the word syntax,” McCaskill said. “I said, ‘Barack, where I come from that’s the tax you have to pay on beer.’ Sometimes it’s better to say ‘I screwed up’ than to say ‘I got the wrong syntax.”‘

Observers say McCaskill’s ability to come across in simple terms is what has made her so appealing as a surrogate.

“She’s an older, middle-aged, woman who speaks clearly in a language people can understand,” says Democratic strategist Dane Strother. “She fits the demographics and the geographics Obama needs, which is basically Hillary’s base.”

Asked how much the campaign intends to use McCaskill, 54, in the general election, Dunn says: “As much as possible. She’ll obviously play a huge role in Missouri and continue to be one of our top television surrogates.”

“You can’t underestimate the importance of Claire McCaskill to this campaign,” Dunn said.

Email   |  

New legislation being offered in several states aims to make sure people who walk into the nation’s voting booths are, in fact, American citizens.

In Missouri, state Rep. Stanley Cox wants a constitutional amendment that would allow the state to require proof of citizenship when people register to vote.

“That doesn’t seem like an unreasonable requirement because we certainly don’t want people who are not legal in this country deciding our future,” Cox told FOX News.

Missouri is not the only state trying to make it harder for illegals to cast ballots. Right now, 11 states are considering a proof of citizenship law.

Back in 2004, Arizona became the first state in the nation to require proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

“We have an illegal immigration problem here — that’s what triggers these laws.” said Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Arpaio has made a national reputation cracking down on illegal immigration in Arizona.

“Do you think it prevents people from voting? No I don’t. I think it prevents people who are not here legally from voting,” said Jan Brewer, the Arizona secretary of state who says since the bill passed more than 2,000 non-citizens have been bounced from voter rolls.

“I think it ensures those honest voters that they have integrity in the process and that’s what they demand and should be delivered to them,” Brewer said.

Critics say proof of citizenship also deters legal citizens from voting.

“It makes it difficult to vote if you are someone who doesn’t have the documents in hand,” said Claude Piller, a lawyer with Mi Familia Vota, an outreach group that registers new voters in Phoenix.

Piller said that getting documents like passports and birth certificates can be a challenge for the poor or elderly.
“We believe the impact will primarily be amongst those who never had to prove they were citizens,” Piller said.

If you have stories or suggestions about voter fraud, send an e-mail to FOX News’ Eric Shawn at voterfraud@foxnews.com. 

FOX News’ Eric Shawn contributed to this report.

Email   |  

As Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, prepares to address Congress on Tuesday, John McCain is making the case that the troop surge Petraeus instituted last year is showing signs of measurable progress.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee said Monday that the decision last year to add 30,000 U.S. troops to the 130,000 already on the ground has brought violence down enough so that the Iraqi government can achieve political milestones and its people can begin to reconcile.

“From June 2007 through my most recent trip last month, sectarian and ethnic violence in Iraq has been reduced by 90 percent. Civilian deaths and deaths of coalition forces fell by 70 percent. The dramatic reduction in violence has opened the way for a return to something approaching normal political and economic life for the average Iraqi,” McCain said in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City, Mo.

“We are no longer staring into the abyss of defeat, and we can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success,” he said.

McCain said both Sunnis and Shiites are returning to their homes and concerned local citizens groups like “Sons of Iraq” are joining the fight against Al Qaeda operatives. He said success can be measured by Iraq’s efforts to establish “a generally peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state that poses no threat to its neighbors and contributes to the defeat of terrorists.”

McCain’s speech comes just a week and a half after his last congressional fact-finding mission to the region, where he met with Petraeus, head of Multi-National Forces in Iraq, and Amb. Ryan Crocker, who is also scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

McCain is closely tied to the 5-year-old American presence in Iraq, but he was intensely critical of the Bush administration’s prosecution of the war prior to Petraeus’ arrival and the execution of the surge.

Acknowledging the more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq, McCain said success will also be measured by American troops returning home “with the honor of having secured their country’s interests at great personal cost, and helping another people achieve peace and self-determination.”

McCain added that an honest appraisal of what is happening would force Democrats to change their minds about what he calls a precipitous withdrawal, which he says would result in chaos in the region and would leave the Iraqis abandoned to the Iranians. Iran’s influence was noted again last week when the Shiite militia led by Moqtada al-Sadr agreed to a cease-fire with Iraqi security forces only after a high-level meeting between Iraqi and Iranian leaders in Iran.

McCain attacked his Democratic opponents, saying that while they criticize the effort to bring stability, at the same time they recognize it would be calamitous to withdraw wholesale.

“Some would withdraw regardless of the consequences. Others say that we can withdraw now and then return if trouble starts again. What they are really proposing, if they mean what they say, is a policy of withdraw and re-invade,” McCain said, without naming his opponents. “To promise a withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, regardless of the calamitous consequences to the Iraqi people, our most vital interests, and the future of the Middle East, is the height of irresponsibility. It is a failure of leadership.”

McCain is hoping to set the tenor of the presidential race and could win a big political moment by broadly framing the election during Petraeus’ visit.

But McCain is facing an upward battle. Polls indicate that only about half of Americans support staying in Iraq, and a majority think it was wrong to enter the country in the first place. McCain’s opponents are doing all they can to tie the Arizona senator to President Bush’s unpopularity. A FOX News poll last month put the president’s approval rating at 30 percent.

“Responsible leadership means being honest about your plans for the future, not hiding behind empty rhetoric and shallow attacks. While the voters want change, John McCain is promising more of the same failed Bush policies,” said Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean.

“John McCain was wrong about the war from the beginning,” Barack Obama said. “He’s wrong to call for more resources in Iraq while the American people are struggling, and he’s wrong to support a 100-year occupation of a country that needs to take responsibility for its own future.”

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., supports Hillary Clinton for president. (AP PHOTO)

Email   |  

Many Americans are misguided in thinking that a Barack Obama win will settle the race discussion in the U.S., Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Hillary Clinton supporter who drew attention this weekend for pointed remarks about Obama, told FOX News on Wednesday.

Following up on remarks he made to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in which he described Obama as a “mediocre” orator, Cleaver said he thought the Illinois senator will win the Democratic presidential nomination, but that doesn’t mean the work will be done trying to improve race relations in America.

“I think whites would say, ‘How could anybody say we were racist, that we have any racist residue when you look what we just did (potentially electing Obama)?’ And African Americans would say, ‘Look at what we just did. So now we ought to have unblocked access to all of our dreams, all of our hopes,’” Cleaver said.

“And I think there would be great disappointment when they saw some issue of race surfacing. It would be like, ‘Oh my goodness. I thought we were past that.’”

Cleaver, a former Kansas City mayor, added that whites sometimes think that saying an African-American is “articulate” is a compliment, but in actuality it is symptomatic of latent low expectations.

“If you will remember earlier, one of the senators here referred to Senator Obama as ‘articulate.’ And I’ve never heard someone refer to Senator Clinton as articulate. I’ve never heard it,” he said.

“I mean if we’re going to have a conversation about race, we’re going to have to saying an African American is articulate is good. … We have to think, do we say this about whites? I testified before Congress in 1977 after a flood in Kansas City. And after the hearing was over, a Democrat walked over to me and said thank you for appearing before our committee and you were so articulate. I mean, they have articulate people up here before Congress all the time,” Cleaver continued.

Cleaver told the CBC over the weekend that while Obama is articulate, “in that black tradition, he would probably be mediocre.” At first denying to FOX News that he ever called Obama “mediocre,” the congressman cited other legendary black orators and stood by his views that Obama wouldn’t rate, even compared to his own controversial pastor, Jeremiah Wright.”When you consider the great African American orators, Senator Obama may not even measure up as I wouldn’t,” he said.

The second-term congressman also said that both black Americans must also get beyond the notion that once one African-American gets ahead he should show favoritism to other African-Americans.

“I will never forget, I was elected the first black mayor of Kansas City. And a week after I was elected, someone black, a black friend of mine, Robert Reid asked if I would speak to Don Hall, the owner of Hallmark Cards about a contract for a business idea he had. And I said I can’t do that. And he said, ‘Well, you’re the mayor.’ And I mean I think we’ve got to get beyond this. And if we ever have a conversation about race in this country, we have to talk about those things without inflaming the situation.”

Cleaver’s initial remarks to the CBC drew heat for again raising the issue of race on the campaign trail, something that the Clinton campaign had to deal with when former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro said Obama wouldn’t be where he is today if he weren’t black. Ferraro also said she wouldn’t have been Walter Mondale’s running mate in 1984 if she hadn’t been a woman. Nonetheless, she resigned from Clinton’s finance committee shortly after her comments went national.

Democratic strategist Michael Brown said stereotypes about race and gender continue, but he doesn’t think they have as much impact on the campaign season as some would say.

“Clearly if you look at the data of this primary season, Senator Obama is doing great among African-Americans, so clearly a lot of African-Americans don’t think he’s mediocre, they think he’s better than mediocre. So clearly the data may not be but the stereotypes still do exist,” he said.

Cleaver said that unless Michigan and Florida’s delegates are seated — both states gave Clinton the win but were penalized for holding early primaries — Obama will likely win the nomination.

He also warned that the ongoing fight over the delegates needs to be wrapped up or it could damage the party “if it continues to go downhill” and lasts up until the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August.

“I’m hoping that we will resolve the knotty problems before we get to Denver. If not, we’re going to have a problem. Senator Clinton has spoken with me. We both understand exactly that I’m still one of her supporters and I’m not going to abandon her. I’m for Senator Clinton and not against Senator Obama,” he said.

FOX News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

Email   |  

John McCain won the Missouri Republican primary Tuesday, and Democratic candidate Barack Obama pulled out a win after a long drawn-out count.

Obama ended up with about 10,000 votes more than Hillary Clinton. FOX News waited to call the race when it was determined that late vote returns around St. Louis County showed large turnout could give Obama the expected boost he needed to surpass Clinton’s half point lead.

FOX News eventually called the race around 12:32 a.m. ET. More than one hour earlier, The Associated Press had called the race for Clinton. It later withdrew its call and reversed it at 2:48 a.m. ET.

Obama won 49.2 percent to Clinton’s 48 percent with more than 820,453 votes cast. Of the 72 delegates at stake, 56 have been awarded, with Clinton and Obama each receiving 28.

McCain won the last Republican winner-take-all state Tuesday night to give him victories in six of the nine being contested. The call for him came at 11:53 a.m. ET.

Missouri voters said the economy is the most important issue the next president will take on, according to exit polls. More than 90 percent of Democrats rated the economy as not good or poor. Republican also gave the economy poor ratings.

Missouri is known as a bellwether state, having picked the winner of every presidential election except one in the past 100 years — in 1956, when Dwight Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.