If that’s the case, then it’s probably a good thing McCain rejected overtures from Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, to form a bipartisan ticket and run with Kerry as his candidate for vice president.

Kerry had no kind words for his Senate colleague, accusing McCain of poor decision-making on everything from backing tax cuts for the wealthy to making support for continuing the U.S. military presence in Iraq the centerpiece of his presidential campaign.

“John McCain … has proven that he has been wrong about every judgment he’s made about the war. Wrong about the Iraqis paying for the reconstruction, wrong about whether or not the oil would pay for it, wrong about Sunni and Shia violence through the years, wrong about the willingness of the Iraqis to stand up for themselves,” Kerry, who supports Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“If you like the Bush tax cut and what it’s done to our economy, making wealthier people wealthier and the average middle class struggle harder, then John McCain is going to give you a third term of George Bush and Karl Rove,” the Massachusetts senator added, echoing an Obama campaign talking point.

Kerry later said the McCain of 2008 isn’t the McCain he courted in 2004.

“John McCain has changed in profound and fundamental ways that I find personally really surprising, and frankly upsetting. It is not the John McCain as the senator who defined himself, quote, as a maverick, though questionable,” Kerry said. “This is want-to-be president John McCain. The result is that John McCain has flip-flopped on more issues than I was even ever accused possibly of thinking about.”

McCain adviser Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said McCain was the one who stood up to the administration and urged President Bush to send more U.S. troops to Iraq to help control violence. Obama did not support the addition of troops.

Violence in Iraq has dropped to its lowest level in more than four years as a result of the 2007 buildup of forces.

“We’re winning because John McCain understood Iraq better than anybody else,” Graham said. “The surge has worked. The political, economic and military progress in Iraq is undeniable.”

Not too long ago, Kerry might have described McCain, a fellow Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war, as a bipartisan ally who could provide guidance on national security issues.

McCain came to Kerry’s aid in March 2004 after Bush and his campaign tried to paint the Democrat as weak on defense. He rejected the suggestion in broadcast interviews and chided both parties for waging such a “bitter and partisan” campaign.

The two senators also discussed the vice presidency several times before McCain finally rejected Kerry’s overtures to form a bipartisan ticket. Kerry ultimately selected then-Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., to join the ticket.

For the record, Kerry is not among those being mentioned as possible running mates for McCain.

Previewing a week of economic issues to be touted on the trail, former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley and Obama economic advisor Jason Furman pledged that families making under $250,000 a year will not see their taxes increase in an Obama administration. Furman added that the threshold for singles to not pay more taxes “is just a little bit lower than that $250,000.”

Furman said that Obama’s plan to increase the capital gains dividend to between 20 and 28 percent also will not affect middle income earners.

“If you make below $250,000, none of your taxes go up and, in fact, most likely you’re going to end up getting a tax cut and it’s likely one that’s bigger than what John McCain has to offer. … What Barack Obama has called for is that for families making over $250,000 a year, setting a new tax rate for capital gains somewhere between 20 and 28 percent. He said (it) will probably be closer to 20 percent and we believe we can get closer to that number in the context of our overall budget. And that’s below the rate that Ronald Reagan set in 1986 and the decade following Ronald Reagan’s tax increase of the capital gains rate, the stock market went up 27 percent. So no middle class families would be affected,” he said.

The two advisers argued that Obama’s plan will help the middle class while McCain’s plan helps corporations and ignores the middle class.

McCain “essentially has no ideas to get the economy going and create jobs in the short run, and has ideas about the long run economy that are rooted in a failed economic philosophy, the belief that tax cuts for corporations and the most affluent are the way to help middle class families prosper and succeed in the economy,” Furman said.

The two also said Obama’s long-term plan would be paid for by telling “some of the most affluent families that you’ve had a lot of tax cuts from George Bush. Some of them you’re not going to get to keep.”

Click here to read talking points on the economy from the Obama campaign.

FOX News’ Bonney Kapp contributed to this report.

Duhaime is the first hire by Steve Schmidt since he took over operational control of the campaign last week.

Before working on the former New York City mayor’s unsuccessful campaign bid, Duhaime was political director of the Republican National Committee. He also served as a regional political director for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004.

Duhaime is a protege of former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, who developed an elaborate national get-out-the-vote effort for the Bush campaign in 2004.

FOX News’ Carl Cameron contributed to this report.

Even the optimism that surrounds a new president taking office can’t resurrect home values overnight, and presidents have no direct ability to reduce rising mortgage rates. Nevertheless, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain both promise help for homeowners facing foreclosure.

Obama calls for a broader role for government than McCain, but both candidates envision the Federal Housing Administration providing new, cheaper mortgages to distressed homeowners who otherwise would have difficulty refinancing into more secure government-insured loans with lower monthly payments.

For the plans to work, lenders would have to be willing to take a substantial loss by reducing the amount owed on the loan. But some would have a powerful incentive to do so because a refinancing deal could allow them to recover far more money than they would get from the costly process of foreclosing on the property and trying to resell it.

Obama supports legislation along these lines by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., which would help around 400,000 strapped homeowners. People wouldn’t have to have good credit to qualify as long as they could show they are able to afford the new payments.

“If the government can bail out investment banks on Wall Street, we can extend a hand to folks who are struggling on Main Street,” Obama said.

McCain’s plan would provide relief to 200,000 to 400,000 homeowners but would be open only to people who could show they were creditworthy when they got their original loan.

McCain said his plan offers “every deserving American family or homeowner the opportunity to trade a burdensome mortgage for a manageable loan that reflects the market value of their home.”

The FHA piece of the Dodd plan would cost close to $1 billion, which would come from diverting money in the early years from an affordable housing fund financed by the profits of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. McCain’s FHA provision is estimated to cost from $3 billion to $10 billion and would be paid for by either cutting government spending elsewhere or having the federal government borrow more. The first choice is to cut government spending, a McCain aide said.

Experts predict foreclosures will continue to climb well into 2009. Some believe there’s a chance for improvement in late 2009, but more think that won’t happen until 2010.

Why? A long-term solution is tied to a turnaround in house prices. Slumping home values are blamed for the bulk of the rising tide of foreclosures. Troubled borrowers are left owing more to the bank than their homes are worth, so they walk away from their homes. Dumping more empty houses on the market adds to the pile of unsold homes, and that drives home prices down further. It’s a vicious cycle.

“This is uncharted territory,” said Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate and finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

Some predict house prices won’t turn up until the spring selling season of 2010 — at the earliest.

Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration, predicted more than 2 million foreclosures are coming over the next two years, and up to 15 million homeowners will owe more than their house is worth, as house prices continue to fall.

Fifty-seven percent of Americans say housing prices are important to them personally, according to a recent AP-Yahoo News poll. For many, their home is their biggest asset. As home prices dropped, so did Americans’ net worth — leaving people feeling less financially secure and more gloomy about the economy’s direction.

Which candidate would do a better job of handling housing prices? Twenty-five percent said Obama, while 17 percent thought McCain. Nearly 30 percent said neither.

Although most voters think the next president will have a “great deal” or “some” influence over housing prices, the reality is there’s no quick fix.

“The odds of that are slim to none,” said Cal Jillson, political science professor at Southern Methodist University. If the next president can make people more optimistic about the future, “the slow rebuilding of confidence will help to increase home values,” he said.

When it comes to handling the broader economy — the top concern of voters, 32 percent picked Obama, while 28 percent went with McCain, the poll said.

There’s another complicating factor that could push up foreclosures and that presidents don’t control: Federal Reserve action. If the Fed is forced to boost interest rates to fend off inflation that would hike payments for struggling homeowners whose mortgage rates are resetting. “We are very exposed to interest rate risks and mortgage payment shocks in 2009,” Wachter said.

Mortgage rates, including those on 30-year home loans, already have been climbing — pushed by inflation worries.

In addition to his FHA proposal, Obama calls for creation of a $10 billion foreclosure prevention fund that boosts counseling for distressed homeowners before they slide into foreclosure, helps people sell homes they bought but couldn’t afford and teams with state governments, community groups and lenders to make sure loans can be modified in a timely manner to avoid foreclosure or bankruptcy.

His approach, which reflects the traditional Democratic preference for more government intervention, also would create a 10 percent mortgage credit for people who don’t itemize their taxes. That would provide 10 million homeowners, most of whom earn under $50,000 a year, with an average of $500 in savings, his campaign says. And, that should help those struggling to keep up with their mortgage payments.

Obama also supports changing bankruptcy laws so that homeowners going through that process can renegotiate terms of their mortgages — just as people or investors who own multiple homes or vacation homes can do.

And, Obama also would move to combat mortgage fraud and improve mortgage disclosure. Deficiencies in those areas contributed to lax lending that allowed people to take out home loans that their incomes couldn’t support, critics say.

“This kind of transparency won’t just make our homeowners more secure, it will make our markets more stable, and keep our economy strong and competitive in the future,” Obama said.

McCain prefers a more limited government role in dealing with the housing crisis, consistent with traditional GOP leanings. The other component of his plan calls for the Justice Department to set up a task force to investigate possible wrongdoing in the mortgage industry. The Justice Department has been pursuing cases of fraud and other mortgage-related matters.

“In some cases, lenders and borrowers alike were caught up in the speculative frenzy that has harmed the housing market,” McCain said. “And it is not the responsibility of the American public to spare them from the consequences of their own bad judgment.”

Congress has been working on a broad housing rescue package that would allow the FHA to help struggling homeowners. Differences have to be worked out between Dodd’s plan, which is pending in the Senate, and a similar House-passed package by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and with the White House, too. The White House has repeatedly threatened a veto but is working behind the scenes with congressional leaders to find common ground.

The rescue plans envisioned by Obama and McCain — and Congress — would deliver short-term help but aren’t a cure-all, housing experts said.

Long-term strategies are needed to prevent a repeat of the foreclosure crisis, experts said, and that must revamp the regulatory structure to improve oversight of players and borrowers in the mortgage finance system. The political debate on such a broad overhaul has already started in Washington and will likely spill over to next president and Congress. Both Obama and McCain have indicated they favor tougher regulation.

The Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting has proposed that everyone buying health insurance get a refundable tax credit, $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families. At the same time, he would treat employer contributions toward health insurance like income, meaning workers would have to pay income, but not payroll, taxes on it.

McCain’s Democratic rival, Barack Obama, says the plan would “shred” the employer-based system that provides health insurance to about 158 million workers.

Most health analysts won’t go that far, but both liberals and conservatives say McCain’s approach would strengthen the individual and small-group insurance market. And by strengthening that market, it will pull in workers now covered through their jobs.

The workers most inclined to make that transition will be younger, healthier ones who most likely will be able to buy a policy on the individual market for less than their tax credit, said Paul Fronstin, a senior research associate at the Employee Benefit Research Institute, which studies employee benefits.

To the degree that happens, the employer-based market will become less healthy as sicker, older workers stay with their employer-based coverage while more of the healthier workers move to the individual market.

“What you’ll see happening is average cost in the employer-market will go up and average cost in the individual market will go down,” Fronstin said. “You’ll start to get into a cycle where people at the margin start to leave employer coverage for individual coverage. At some point, employers will start to ask: Why am I doing this if my workers don’t value it anymore? If I don’t need to do this to be competitive in the labor market, why should I do it?”

Joseph Antos, who studies health care policy at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, said it’s predictable that McCain’s proposal would move more people into the individual market because some workers could simply get a better deal there. Not only are the premiums typically cheaper for younger, healthier workers, but any difference between the tax credit and the premiums can be redirected into a health savings account.

“This stuff about shredding the employer market, that’s just campaign rhetoric in the sense that nothing changes real quickly in this country,” Antos said. “We’re not going to see employers drop coverage en masse, and the reason is health insurance benefits remain an important tool for attracting good employees and retaining good employees.”

Employers began offering health insurance as a benefit during World War II, when a labor shortage increased competition for workers. Wage controls limited employers’ ability to offer higher salaries, so they offered benefits like insurance, pensions and longer vacations to attract the best employees. Health benefits were not a major expense initially, but they have become a significant part of payroll as health care costs have spiraled upward.

As much as Americans complain about the cost of health care, they like the fact that employers pick up most of their health insurance expenses. They also like that their share is taken from their paychecks on a pretax basis, and fear anything that could jeopardize that prized benefit.

A poll of employer-insured voters conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that nearly two-thirds thought it would be harder to find a plan that matches their needs and handle administrative issues if they were buying insurance on their own. Eight in 10 said they thought it would be harder to get a good price for insurance or get coverage if they were sick.

Antos said large companies that compete vigorously for workers would keep the benefit. Individual losers could include those workers with high insurance premiums, such as company executives or union workers in the automobile industry. Winners would be younger people who find a basic policy without many bells and whistles appealing.

“It would be a mixed bag for the employer system. On the one hand, it’s a much more generous tax subsidy than what currently exists for low- and middle-income workers,” said Len Burman, co-director of the Tax Policy Center, a part of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. “On the other hand, since you can get the credit outside work, some employers would probably drop coverage.”

Burman said a family earning $60,000 with a typical employer-provided insurance policy that costs $12,100, of which the employer pays more than 70 percent, gets a tax subsidy amounting to about $3,400 under current tax law. Under McCain’s proposal, that subsidy increases to $6,700, Burman said.

Dan Crippen, an adviser who helped McCain craft his health plan, rejects contentions that there would be any kind of rapid transition from the employer-based system. He said the benefit of the plan is that it would give people who change jobs frequently a policy they can take with them.

“We’ve talked to a lot of employers who have no interest in giving up their insurance now no matter what the system would be,” Crippen said. “Frankly with the demographics coming into all of this, the retirement of my generation, our country is going to be hard up for workers and employers are going to once again be needing to attract workers, just like the onset of the employer-based system in World War II. That’s what employers are telling us they will have to continue to do to attract workers.”

The ad, titled Balance TV, calls John McCain a crusader for climate change, unlike his rival Barack Obama, which the ad claims is following Democrats in refusing to allow more gas production at home.

McCain is “pushing his own party to face climate change,” says the announcer. “Barack Obama: Just the party line.

Obama’s campaign responded with a long list of positions McCain has taken that the Obama camp says would raise prices for gasoline.

“What we need to solve our energy crisis is an honest debate about the choices before us, not more attack ads that mislead voters about the facts. There’s a real choice in this election between John McCain’s promise to continue the Bush approach of trying to drill our way out of our energy crisis — which even he admits won’t lower prices this summer — or Barack Obama’s plan to provide meaningful short-term relief for our families and to make a historic investment in alternative energy development that will create millions of new jobs, keep the cost of energy affordable and secure our energy independence once and for all,” said Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan.

The RNC’s independent expenditure unit was set up to satisfy the Byzantine rules of U.S. campaign financing, which limits to about $20 million the amount of money the party can spend in coordination with the McCain campaign.

The McCain campaign has no involvement with the ad launch undertaken by the RNC’s independent expenditure unit, or any other activity it may undertake.

In fact, neither does the RNC itself. The independent expenditure unit, as the name implies, is walled off from the RNC and the McCain campaign. The RNC merely hired the group to decide what the ads should say and where they should run. The group is then given a checkbook and that is basically the end of the RNC’s involvement.

FOX News’ Corbett Riner contributed to this report.

The group, Vets for Freedom, plans to launch its four-month campaign next week, called “Four Months, for Victory.”

Chairman Pete Hegseth said the group’s first ad buy will not mention either Obama or John McCain. He said the group has not endorsed anybody in the presidential race.

But Vets for Freedom, made up of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, considers McCain a key ally and could provide the Republican presidential candidate with a boost, simply by espousing the kind of stay-the-course strategy he has advocated. The 25,000-member group is a firm proponent of the troop buildup in Iraq.

Hegseth, in an interview with FOXNews.com, said he hopes to outmatch the message coming out of MoveOn.org — which has endorsed Obama and is already running ads accusing McCain of wanting to wage a near-endless war in Iraq.

“We would love to counter their message. I think the American people would rather hear from those who served than those who … call our generals traitors,” Hegseth said. “We need to ensure that we capitalize on the successful efforts (in Iraq) and ultimately do what we can to finish the job and get our troops back with honor.”

He said the first ad buy, which would run for two weeks, will cost about $1.5 million. He noted that that is more than the $500,000 MoveOn.org spent on their most recent ad, which was scheduled to run one week.

That ad was paid for by MoveOn.org and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. It featured an actress who, holding an infant named Alex, addressed McCain and said “when you say you would stay in Iraq for 100 years, were you counting on Alex? Because if you were, you can’t have him.”

The ad was scheduled to air nationally on select cable networks and in the Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin markets.

Hegseth said his group is also targeting such battleground states. He said the first ad will run in Virginia, Ohio, Colorado and Michigan. And he said $1.5 million is just the start.

“We hope to spend exponentially more in the next four months,” he said.

The group is a non-profit 501(c)(4) and Hegseth stressed that it was not running “attack” ads.

In a statement, the group said it would release “pointed ads” as part of an effort to “inform the American public and key lawmakers about the phenomenal success that our troops have achieved as a result of the surge and the importance of ensuring victory in Iraq, Afghanistan and the overall global war on terrorism.”

But Vets for Freedom applied pressure on Obama in May when it released a pair of Web videos criticizing the Illinois senator for not having visited Iraq since January 2006. McCain seemed to echo the group’s talking points on the campaign trail, and Obama since has begun formalizing a trip to Iraq and Afghanistan, which he’s expected to take this summer.

“The surge worked. But Barack Obama wouldn’t know that, because he hasn’t been there in over two years,” one veteran said in one of the videos.

Veterans from both wars also are expected to appear in the new ad, according to the group.

Asked if future ads would criticize Obama, Hegseth said: “There’s a possibility we may be critical of a number of legislators … that’s to be determined.”

A representative from MoveOn.org could not be reached for comment.

McCain, who trails Obama in overall fundraising, so far has not been aided by many outside groups.

The veterans’ group also is planning a ground campaign, tapping veteran members throughout the country to spread “the ground truth” about progress in both wars.

In May, two top McCain surrogates — Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham — stepped down from their positions on the policy board of Vets for Freedom to comply with McCain’s campaign guidelines prohibiting campaign operatives from working with independent political groups.

FOX News’ Judson Berger and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Making a less than two-hour stop in this battleground state, the Democratic presidential nominee implored the thousands attending a national meeting of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the nation’s largest and most politically and civically active black denominations, to help fix national and local ills.

He preached individual responsibility, saying he knew he risked criticism for “blaming the victim” by talking of the need for parents to help children with homework and turn off the TV, to pass on a healthy self-image to daughters, and teach boys both to respect women and “realize that responsibility does not end at conception.”

But Obama’s main message was the government’s duty to address what he said are “moral problems” — such as war, poverty, joblessness, homelessness, violent streets and crumbling schools — and to employ religious institutions to do it.

“As long as we’re not doing everything in our individual and collective power to solve the challenges we face, the conscience of our nation cannot rest,” he said.

Obama, who has made history by becoming the first black major-party presidential nominee, made frequent references to the civil rights movement and continuing struggles in the black community.

“We are not constrained by the accident of birth but can make of our lives what we will,” Obama said. He was greeted when he arrived in the vast hall by the most thunderous cheering, waving and screaming that he has heard all week.

It was also his most enthusiastic delivery of late, employing preacher’s cadences that were interrupted frequently by “Amens” and “yes.”

Obama repeatedly referenced his religious faith in terms that would be familiar to white evangelicals as well as his black audience. Obama has highlighted faith and personal story over the past week as he campaigned in one-time GOP strongholds and talked more about God, country, and service than about rival Republican John McCain.

He hopes to draw more support from evangelical Christian voters than is typical for Democratic presidential candidates. Analysts are skeptical he can do that because of his support for abortion, gay rights and other issues.

Earlier in the day as he flew from Montana to Missouri, Obama told reporters he was surprised at how the media has “finely calibrated” his recent words on Iraq, and reaffirmed his commitment to ending the war if elected.

“I was a little puzzled by the frenzy that I set off by what I thought was a pretty innocuous statement,” he said. “I am absolutely committed to ending the war.”

On Thursday in North Dakota, Obama said that “I’ll … continue to refine my policy” on Iraq after an upcoming trip there. With a promise to end the war the central premise of his candidacy, the Obama campaign has struggled over the past two days to push back against Republicans and others who say his recent statement could be a softening or change in policy.

Obama has always said his promise to end the war would require consultations with military commanders and, possibly, flexibility.

“The tactics of how we ensure our troops are safe as we pull out, how we execute the withdrawal, those are things that are all based on facts and conditions,” he said. “I am not somebody — unlike George Bush — who is willing to ignore facts on the basis of my preconceived notions.”

The Illinois senator also said he and rival-turned-ally Hillary Rodham Clinton plan to raise money together next week in a series of fundraisers in New York next week.

Two events are scheduled for Wednesday night — one for his campaign and one to help Clinton pay off debts from her primary race against him. A third, for Obama, is a cash-collecting breakfast Thursday morning with women.

The fundraisers will be the first joint appearances by the former foes since their lovefest in Unity, N.H., on June 27.

Obama said his aides and those to former President Clinton are still arranging their first campaign appearances together. What role Bill Clinton will play in Obama’s campaign has been a glaring question mark ever since the former president made comments earlier this year that Obama’s supporters said injected race into the nomination contest.

Obama plans to campaign next week in North Carolina, Georgia and Virginia, all Southern states that have been the province of Republicans but where his campaign thinks he can make inroads — or even win — in part because of their large black populations.

It “would be pretty foolish” not to try, Obama said.

“Democrats can’t shrink the map and win,” he told reporters. “The solid South for Republicans is part of that shrinkage of the map. … I want to be greedy.”

Before leaving Montana, Obama took a swipe at Republican rival John McCain while speaking via satellite to a conference of the National Education Association, the largest teachers union.

Of McCain, Obama said for “someone who has been in Washington for 30 years, he’s got a pretty slim record on education and when he has taken a stand it has been the wrong one.” He said McCain had voted against such popular proposals as increasing funding for higher education scholarship and hiring 100,000 new teachers.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds responded in a statement: “Barack Obama has never spearheaded education reforms while in the U.S. Senate and has no record of working across the aisle for change.”

The two former Democratic rivals plan to hold three joint fundraisers next week in New York.

One, scheduled for Wednesday night, will be used to help pay off Clinton’s primary campaign debt. Another on the same night is for Obama’s general election campaign.

Then Thursday morning, Obama and Clinton are set to attend a breakfast with female donors, also for the benefit of Obama’s campaign.

“As I’ve said before, I want to make sure that we’re providing Senator Clinton with some help just as she is going out of her way to campaign on our behalf,” Obama told reporters Saturday. “We’re gonna be united, I want us to be able to concentrate going into the convention and coming out of the convention on winning this election.”

The fundraisers would be a follow-up to the spirited rally the two Democrats held last weekend in Unity, N.H.

There Clinton addressed the bruised feelings of the primary season, and urged her supporters not to sit out the general election or vote for John McCain out of spite.

“We stand shoulder to shoulder for the ideals we share, the values we cherish and the country we love,” she said.

Obama assured the crowd the two former rivals are now friends. The event came after Obama met with top Clinton donors last Thursday night.

FOX News’ Bonney Kapp and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

]]> http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/05/obama-clinton-schedule-joint-fundraisers/feed/ http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/05/inconvenient-truth-director-seen-filming-with-obama/ http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/05/inconvenient-truth-director-seen-filming-with-obama/#comments Sat, 05 Jul 2008 14:59:09 +0000 FOXNews.com http://elections.foxnews.com/?p=3623 The director of “An Inconvenient Truth” was filming with Barack Obama on Friday in Montana, but the campaign was cagey when asked about details.

The Illinois senator first was seen with director David Guggenheim Friday afternoon when the two emerged from a museum in Butte, Mont., after spending more than an hour inside.

Reporters initially were told by the campaign that Obama was inside doing a taping for the Democratic National Convention. They later were told he was taping for the campaign’s new media division. That division shoots footage for the Obama Web site.

But a makeup artist on the press bus later spilled that the crew was inside the museum doing a documentary — for the convention.

Asked about the claim, Obama’s traveling press secretary Jen Psaki said that was incorrect. “It is a new media taping and [I] don’t have anything else to add,” she said in an e-mail to FOX News.

The confusion continued.

Reporters again spotted Guggenheim emerging from Obama’s bus after the ride back to Obama’s hotel, also in Butte, Mont., and asked him personally about the taping.

The filmmaker admitted he interviewed Obama, but then told reporters he wanted to clear it with the campaign before talking further about the interview on the record.

Guggenheim is appearing on the campaign trail with Obama after Al Gore, who starred in the award-winning documentary on global warming, endorsed Obama last month.

Guggenheim finally rode with the press to a hotel around the corner, and Psaki sent another e-mail to reporters clarifying, to an extent: “was a new media taping for the DNC. I am sorry we were not more specific. We don’t have additional details to share at this time.”

Click here to watch Guggenheim talk to reporters about his interview with Obama.

FOX News’ Bonney Kapp contributed to this report.

Even the optimism that surrounds a new president taking office cannot resurrect home values overnight, and presidents have no direct ability to reduce rising mortgage rates. Nevertheless, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain both promise help for homeowners facing foreclosure.

Obama supports a broader role for government than does McCain. Both envision the Federal Housing Administration providing new, cheaper mortgages to distressed homeowners who otherwise would have difficulty refinancing into more secure government-insured loans with lower monthly payments.

For the plans to work, lenders would have to be willing to take a substantial loss by reducing the amount owed on the loan. But some would have a powerful incentive to do so. A refinancing deal could allow them to recover far more money than they would get from the costly process of foreclosing on the property and trying to resell it.

Obama supports legislation along these lines by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., that would help about 400,000 homeowners. People would not have to have good credit to qualify as long as they could show they can afford the new payments.

“If the government can bail out investment banks on Wall Street, we can extend a hand to folks who are struggling on Main Street,” Obama said.

McCain’s plan would provide relief to 200,000 to 400,000 homeowners. The aid would be available only to people who could show they were creditworthy when they got their original loan. The plan offers “every deserving American family or homeowner the opportunity to trade a burdensome mortgage for a manageable loan that reflects the market value of their home,” he said.

The FHA piece of the Dodd plan would cost close to $1 billion. The money would come from diverting dollars in the early years from an affordable housing fund financed by the profits of the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. McCain’s FHA provision is estimated to cost from $3 billion to $10 billion and would mean either cutting federal spending elsewhere or having the government borrow more. The first choice is to trim spending, a McCain aide said.

Experts predict foreclosures will continue to climb well into 2009. Some believe there is a chance for improvement in late 2009, but more think that will not happen until 2010.

A long-term solution is tied to a turnaround in house prices. Slumping home values are blamed for the bulk of the increasing foreclosures. Troubled borrowers are left owing more to the bank than their homes are worth, so they walk away from their homes. Dumping more empty houses on the market adds to the pile of unsold homes, and that drives home prices down further.

“This is uncharted territory,” said Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate and finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

Some predict house prices will not climb until the spring selling season of 2010 — at the earliest.

Lawrence Summers, a treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, predicted that more than 2 million foreclosures are coming over the next two years and that as many as 15 million homeowners will owe more than their house is worth.

According to a recent AP-Yahoo News poll, 57 percent of people said housing prices are important to them personally. For many, their home is their biggest asset. As home prices dropped, so did people’s net worth — leaving them feeling less financially secure and more gloomy about the direction of the economy.

Which candidate would do a better job of handling housing prices? In the poll, 25 percent said Obama and 17 percent thought McCain. Nearly 30 percent said neither.

Although most voters think the next president will have a “great deal” or “some” influence over housing prices, the reality is there is no quick fix.

“The odds of that are slim to none,” said Cal Jillson, political science professor at Southern Methodist University. If the next president can make people more optimistic about the future, “the slow rebuilding of confidence will help to increase home values,” he said.

When it comes to handling the broader economy, which is the top concern of voters, the poll found that 32 percent picked Obama and 28 percent went with McCain.

An additional factor is the Federal Reserve, which presidents do not control. If the central bank were to raise interest rates to fend off inflation, the step would increase payments for homeowners whose loan rates are resetting higher. That, in turn, could push up foreclosures. “We are very exposed to interest rate risks and mortgage payment shocks in 2009,” Wachter said.

Mortgage rates, including those on 30-year home loans, already are climbing, propelled by inflation worries.

In addition to his FHA proposal, Obama wants to create a $10 billion fund to counsel distressed homeowners before they slide into foreclosure; help people sell homes they bought but could not afford; and team with state governments, community groups and lenders to ensure sure loans can be modified in a timely manner to avoid foreclosure or bankruptcy.

His approach, reflecting the traditional Democratic preference for greater government intervention, would establish a 10 percent mortgage credit for people who do not itemize their taxes. That would provide 10 million homeowners, most of whom earn less than $50,000 a year, with an average of $500 in savings, according to his campaign, and help those struggling to make mortgage payments.

Obama also supports changing bankruptcy laws so homeowners going through that process can renegotiate terms of their mortgages — just as people or investors who own multiple homes or vacation homes can do.

The Illinois senator also wants to combat mortgage fraud and improve mortgage disclosure. Deficiencies in those areas contributed to lax lending that allowed people to take out home loans that their incomes could not support, critics say.

“This kind of transparency won’t just make our homeowners more secure, it will make our markets more stable, and keep our economy strong and competitive in the future,” Obama said.

McCain prefers a more limited government role in dealing with the housing crisis, a position consistent with traditional GOP leanings. The other component of his plan would have the Justice Department to set up a task force to investigate possible wrongdoing in the mortgage industry. The department has been pursuing cases of fraud and other mortgage-related matters.

“In some cases, lenders and borrowers alike were caught up in the speculative frenzy that has harmed the housing market,” the Arizona senator said. “And it is not the responsibility of the American public to spare them from the consequences of their own bad judgment.”

Congress is working on legislation that would allow the FHA to help struggling homeowners. Differences have to be worked out between Dodd’s plan, still in the Senate, and a similar House-passed proposal by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and with the White House, too. The White House has threatened a veto but is working behind the scenes with congressional leaders to find common ground.

The plans envisioned by Obama and McCain — and Congress — would deliver short-term help but are not a cure-all, housing experts said.

Long-term strategies are needed to prevent a repeat of the foreclosure crisis, experts said, and that must revamp the regulatory structure to improve oversight of players and borrowers in the mortgage finance system. The debate on such a broad overhaul has already started in Washington and will likely spill over to next president and Congress. Both Obama and McCain have indicated they favor tougher regulation.

The Illinois senator has so far been impervious, at least in the polls, to the various labels John McCain and his supporters have thrown at him since he clinched the nomination a month ago.

They tried labeling him as a liberal, and an elitist, and then a pessimist, calling him “Dr. No” on energy issues. McCain has recently settled on the theme that Obama cannot be trusted, calling him out for reversing course on several topics.

But until Thursday, those positions were issues like public financing — a topic unlikely to sway voters in large numbers in November.

With the difficulty Obama showed in explaining his Iraq withdrawal policy, he is dancing on a position that has been integral to his campaign.

Republicans seized on his comments Thursday, when he said he’s willing to “refine” his Iraq policy. They are attempting to drive home the developing message that Obama will say anything for the sake of his political advantage.

“It is a flip-flop,” Republican strategist Angela McGlowan told FOX News. “He’s changing his tune to be more attractive to the whole country, and I think he’s going to flip-flop on more things.”

Unequivocal opposition to the Iraq war drove Obama’s entrance into the presidential race. It helped him defeat Hillary Clinton for the nomination. It made him a darling of the anti-war activists who are now prominent and influential in the Democratic Party.

He repeatedly said during the primary that he would end the war in 2009, and that he would withdraw all U.S. brigades from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.

Obama called a second press conference Thursday to explain that he has always been consistent on the topic and that he was not talking about refining his withdrawal timeline. He said his upcoming trip to Iraq and the discussions he plans to hold with commanders on the ground will “inform” his plans, but that he intends to end the war as president.

“I have not equivocated on that position, I am not searching for maneuvering room with respect to that position,” he said.

However, he again seemed to leave the door open for revision.

“If it turned out, for example, that we had to, in certain months slow the pace (of withdrawal) because of the safety of American troops … of course we would take that into account,” he said.

“I would be a poor commander in chief if I didn’t take the facts on the ground into account.”

It was not clear how Obama could slow the pace of withdrawal without extending his timetable.

Republicans portrayed the words as a prelude to, and even an admission of, a total reversal.

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote, “the reversal is coming” and repeated a claim that “by Election Day Obama will have erased all meaningful differences with McCain on withdrawal from Iraq.”

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said in a statement that “Barack Obama has changed course and proven his past positions to be just empty words.”

Rogers, sarcastically, congratulated Obama for accepting McCain’s “principled stand” on Iraq.

And Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant said Iraq is “defining him as the self-interested, typical (politician) he really is.”

The flip-flopper charge was a hallmark of the GOP campaign against 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry.

Republicans branded as a “flip-flop” even the slightest rhetorical or policy change, and it was eventually successful.

Obama’s perceived rhetorical shift was indeed slight Friday, but it was widely interpreted to have broader meaning.

Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and Iraq expert, said Obama was taking “contradictory” positions.

But Democrats said the Iraq statement was nowhere close to a flip-flop.

“He’s not walking back, he’s reaffirming his policy and basically saying that he’s got to listen to the best military and strategic and national security advice that he can get,” New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, an Obama supporter, told FOX News.

Democratic strategist Bob Beckel said Obama “said exactly what he should say.”

“If he didn’t do that, he would be jumped on as someone who’s unwilling to change,” Beckel told FOX News. “He still said he’s gonna get these troops out within 16 months, the question is the pace of removal.”

The Iraq flap comes as Obama tries openly to court voters in traditionally Republican states. He was in Montana Friday for the Fourth of July, after stopping in Colorado and North Dakota earlier in the week.

Both candidates are trying to court moderates and independents, and are modifying their post-primary message.

McCain has put extra emphasis on issues of energy independence and energy efficiency, and is distancing himself from President Bush.

Obama has taken positions recently that could appeal to moderates and Republicans.

He not only embraced but promised to expand Bush’s program to give more anti-poverty grants to religious groups, a split with Democratic orthodoxy.

Obama also said “mental distress” should not count as a health exception that would permit a late-term abortion, saying “it has to be a serious physical issue,” addressing a matter considered crucial to abortion rights activists.

His campaign announced that next week Obama will “continue his aggressive effort to expand the 2008 electoral battleground by campaigning in states that President Bush won during the general election in 2000 and 2004.”

The Obama campaign heads next week to Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia and Ohio.

FOX News’ Major Garrett and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

]]> http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/04/obama-leaves-opening-for-gop-with-iraq-policy-remarks/feed/ http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/04/obama-family-celebrates-independence-day-in-montana/ http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/04/obama-family-celebrates-independence-day-in-montana/#comments Fri, 04 Jul 2008 20:17:11 +0000 Associated Press http://elections.foxnews.com/?p=3618 BUTTE, Mont. — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama celebrated the Fourth of July with his family in Montana.

Cheers greeted Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters as they arrived to watch the town parade. The crowd also broke into song, singing a rendition of “Happy Birthday” for Obama’s oldest daughter, Malia, who turned 10 on Friday.

Obama joked that he told the birthday girl not to get caught up in all the fuss.

“All the fireworks and stuff are not just for her,” he said to laughs.

After the parade, the Obamas were hosting a “family picnic” for hundreds of people — part campaign rally, part birthday party for Malia.

They also were to spend part of the afternoon sitting for interviews with such family friendly magazines as People, Essence and Parenting. Aides were seen carting Hula Hoops, coloring books and whiffle balls so the girls could be photographed while playing.

At the parade, Obama praised Montana’s beauty, saying he was making a play for every state in November, including reliably Republican ones like Montana. He delivered a shorter version of his campaign speech, and asked the audience to remember those suffering amid all the Independence Day celebrations.

He shook a few hands afterward and then sat in the stands to watch the floats pass by.

Obama apologized for not walking the parade route, citing security concerns that would have required everyone to show their hands to Secret Service agents along the route. He said that might have ruined everyone’s fun.

Franken, a Democrat, best-selling author and former “Saturday Night Live” cast member, once penned a racy piece for Playboy that has offended the Midwestern sensibilities of some Minnesotans. It is that history as a satirist and comedian, Franken says, that puts him “in a little uncharted territory” as he tries to woo voters.

At his nomination speech a few weeks ago, Franken acknowledged that some of his past writings and comments were “downright offensive.”

“There were some things that I said that gave some people reason to believe I wouldn’t fight for all Minnesotans, specifically for women,” Franken said in a telephone interview. “I said I was sorry for that, ’cause that’s not who I am.”

If he can overcome his past, colorful commentary, Franken would join a long list of entertainers who have found a second or third career in elected office, most notably former President Reagan. They include:

–Helen Gahagan Douglas, a 1930s actress and opera singer who was a Democratic congresswoman before losing the 1950 California Senate race to Richard Nixon in a landslide. In that race, the future president called her “pink right down to her underwear” and earned the nickname “Tricky Dick.”

–Tough-guy actor and director Clint Eastwood, who became mayor of Carmel, Calif.

–Fred Grandy, Gopher on the TV show “The Love Boat,” who became a Republican congressman from Iowa.

–Sonny Bono, of “Sonny and Cher” fame, a Republican who became mayor of Palm Springs, Calif., and then a California congressman.

–Ben Jones, who played the mechanic Cooter on the TV show “The Dukes of Hazzard” before winning a congressional seat from Georgia as a Democrat.

–Jesse Ventura, a professional wrestler and actor who served one term as Reform Party governor of Minnesota.

–Movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, now Republican governor of California.

–Song-and-dance actor George Murphy, a Republican senator from California in the 1960s.

–Fred Thompson, a congressional staffer who became an actor and then a Republican senator from Tennessee and presidential candidate.

Also, actor Sonny Landham, who appeared in “48 Hours” and “Predator,” is mounting a Libertarian challenge to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Not all entertainers have been able to make the switch. In 1967, former child actress Shirley Temple Black, a California Republican, stressed to voters, “Little Shirley Temple is not running,” but lost the congressional election anyway. The little curly haired girl went on to serve as U.S. ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia.

Entertainment is good preparation for politics, said Rep. John Hall, a New York Democrat who had been frontman for the band Orleans (big hit “Still the One”).

“The advantage to being a performer is that I’ve always been the product — I’m used to getting up in front of people and selling myself and my ideas,” he said. “They may be musical or lyrical ideas, but they’re ideas nonetheless.”

But some of Franken’s writings are a little stronger than, say, “You’re still the one I want to talk to in bed,” and Franken’s Republican opponent, Sen. Norm Coleman, has highlighted the “Porn-O-Rama!” column Franken wrote for Playboy in 2000.

“Eight years ago I was making the streets of St. Paul safer,” said Coleman, the city’s former mayor, “and he was writing porn.”

When Reagan ran for governor of California in 1966, his Democratic opponent, Gov. Pat Brown, also ridiculed Reagan’s past career.

“While we’ve been building a dynamic working society in California, he was off making such film epics as ‘Bedtime for Bonzo’ and ‘Tugboat Annie Sails Again,”‘ Brown said. But the strategy didn’t work; Reagan won in a landslide.

By the time Reagan mounted his first successful presidential bid in 1980, he was invoking “Bedtime for Bonzo” — which featured Reagan and a chimpanzee. Responding to hecklers at a campaign event, he said, “A little while ago they were calling out ‘Bonzo.’ They’d better be careful. Bonzo grew up to be King Kong.”

Reagan biographer Lou Cannon said Franken has a bigger credibility hurdle to clear than Reagan did.

“Franken is a comedian, who writes these outrageous lines and books,” he said. “Reagan had most recently been host of the very dignified GE Theater. I also think that Minnesota is a different political culture than California, which was welcoming to stars.”

Still, Franken wouldn’t be the first entertainer to win in Minnesota; the state elected Ventura governor in 1998.

Ventura said he was on a flight with Franken a couple of years ago and warned him: “If you have any ghosts in your closet, get ready, because they’re going to be splattered all over the front page of the world.”

“It’s a shame,” added Ventura, who says he’s considering running against Franken and Coleman as an independent. “Take my opinion on his Playboy article — it’s irrelevant. He was asked to do a job, he’s a writer, whatever it is he does. I more worry about how he will govern.”

Ventura said his own celebrity status had been a boon in the ‘98 campaign — “you’re already a household word, so you don’t have to purchase that.”

Grandy had a similar take. He said his previous career on “The Love Boat” was a “secret weapon,” because people thought it would be a disadvantage. In fact, it provided instant name recognition.

“It’s better to start with a negative impression than none at all, because you can always turn that around,” Grandy said.

He said he didn’t have much show business baggage, having been on a “fairly white bread show. There was really not much there that you could call salacious or controversial.”

The two people told The Associated Press on Thursday that the plan is under consideration, but nothing has been confirmed yet.

Obama campaign spokeswoman Shannon Gilson said no decisions have been made.

Representatives for the convention host committee and Mayor John Hickenlooper declined to comment or said they did not know about the proposal. Colorado Democratic Party Chairwoman Pat Waak did not return a phone message seeking comment.

Democratic National Convention Committee spokeswoman Natalie Wyeth said, “There’s nothing to announce.”

The convention is scheduled for Aug. 25-28.

The Pepsi Center’s Web site says it can hold 21,000 people for special events. Invesco Field at Mile High, where the Denver Broncos play, can seat more than 76,000.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is spending his Fourth of July weekend in several Republican states, as polls show him taking some surprising leads over his GOP rival.

He and his family attended an Independence Day parade Friday in Butte, Mont., and were hosting a “family picnic” later in the day.

Only two Democratic presidential candidates have carried the state in the general election since 1948. But Montana was the site of Obama’s final victory in the Democratic primary. It is just the kind of overlooked state that helped him build his delegate lead against Hillary Clinton and is one of several untraditional states the Illinois senator wants to put in play this November.

“I’m a firm believer that 90 percent of success is showing up,” Obama said Thursday in North Dakota, another red state. “And Democrats haven’t been showing up in these places and talking to people.”

His campaign promises “significant” investment in Montana and already has been spending a sizable amount of time and money there, hiring a state director and staff while running TV ads detailing his background and qualifications.

One new poll shows he actually has taken the lead in Montana.

A Rasmussen Reports survey out Thursday showed Obama leading John McCain 48-to-43 percent. That’s the reverse from a similar Rasmussen poll in April.

“I think there’s the possibility of significant realignment, politically, in this election,” Obama said Thursday.

Obama also has taken the lead in Colorado, another typically Republican state. He visited Colorado Springs Wednesday during his weeklong tour discussing “American Values.”

Obama plans to campaign in the battleground of Missouri on Saturday. And he plans to visit North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio and Virginia next week.

In Montana, Republicans hold the historical advantage, but McCain has no staff there and has yet to visit this election year.

The McCain campaign remains confident.

“The more often Barack Obama travels to Montana, the more voters will be reminded of why they disagree with him on the issues they care about most,” McCain spokesman Tom Steward said.

As Obama tries to expand his base, McCain is trying to expand his — reaching out to former Hillary Clinton supporters and independent voters and making a play for the Hispanic vote.

The Arizona senator launched a Spanish radio ad Thursday, as he was about to return from a three-day trip to Colombia and Mexico. In the ad, a Latino McCain supporter says McCain has “earned the trust of Latinos” and that “it seems to me that the other candidate has just discovered the importance of the Hispanic vote.”

FOX News’ Bonney Kapp and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

McCain held his final session with reporters on his three-day trip to Latin America in a massive plane hangar. But even though the press conference was indoors, it was interrupted by a six-minute rain delay.

Rain was falling so hard, it overpowered the speakers, as McCain attempted to praise Mexican President Felipe Calderon for his efforts to stem the drug trade. The Arizona senator then asked the 50 American and Mexican journalists to move closer, so they ran to the foot of the stage and sat on the floor for the duration of the press conference.

“It’s certainly the most unusual (press conference),” McCain said.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama was asked a question he’s never been posed in his more than 17 months of campaigning at a town hall in Fargo, N.D.

A woman in the audience asked Obama if he would consider redecorating the Lincoln Bedroom with Kente cloth, a woven fabric native to Ghana.

In a word, the candidate responded, “No.”

He paused, chuckled and added, “That was an easy one.”

But Obama shared a little-known detail about the famed bedroom — alongside the historic furniture and trinkets, there is a flat screen TV.

“I thought to myself, ‘Now, who stays in the Lincoln Bedroom and is watching Sports Center and you’ve got your clicker?’” he said.

“I mean that didn’t seem to me appropriate, but — so I might take out the TV, I don’t know,” he said with a grin. “You should read or something when you’re in the Lincoln Bedroom. Reread the Gettysburg Address. Don’t watch TV!”

FOX News’ Bonney Kapp and Mosheh Oinounou contributed to this report.

]]> http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/03/lincoln-bedroom-makeover-rapt-press-corps-keep-candidates-on-toes/feed/ http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/03/minneapolis-teen-charged-for-trying-to-sell-his-vote-on-ebay/ http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/03/minneapolis-teen-charged-for-trying-to-sell-his-vote-on-ebay/#comments Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:44:57 +0000 Associated Press http://elections.foxnews.com/?p=3609 MINNEAPOLIS — A University of Minnesota student claimed it was all a joke when he put his vote in this fall’s presidential election up for sale on the Web auction site eBay. But prosecutors didn’t see the humor in the stunt.

Max P. Sanders, 19, was charged with a felony Thursday in Hennepin County District Court after allegedly asking for a minimum of $10 in exchange for voting for the bidder’s preferred candidate. “Good luck!” Sanders wrote under the eBay handle zepdrummer612. “You’re (sic) country depends on You!”

Sanders was charged with one count of bribery, treating and soliciting under an 1893 state law that makes it a crime to offer to buy or sell a vote.

According to a criminal complaint, the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office learned about the offering on the Web site and told prosecutors. Investigators sent a subpoena to eBay and got information that led to Sanders.

“We take it very seriously. Fundamentally, we believe it is wrong to sell your vote,” said John Aiken, a spokesman for the office. “There are people that have died for this country for our right to vote, and to take something that lightly, to say, ‘I can be bought.’

“It’s a real shame,” he said. “I can imagine the conversations being held in American Legion Clubs and VFWs about whether this is a joke or not.”

The scarcely used law had its heyday in the 1920s, when many people sold their votes in exchange for liquor, Assistant County Attorney Pat Diamond said. Diamond said he believed his office responded appropriately in charging Sanders, a liberal arts major from Edina.

“There are two things going on here in terms of why it’s a crime,” he said. “One is the notion that elections should be a contest of ideas and not of pocketbooks — at least not in the sense of straight-out ‘I can buy your vote.’ The second notion is that everybody gets one vote and you don’t get to buy another one.”

Sanders and his attorney, Steven Levine, declined to comment Thursday. The charge carries up to five years’ imprisonment and a $10,000 fine.

As for the offer on eBay? It got no bids.

Crist, 51, asked Carole Rome to marry him Thursday morning at his St. Petersburg apartment, giving her a blue sapphire ring surrounded by diamonds. She immediately said yes.

“I’m very happy and couldn’t be more pleased. What a great way to celebrate America’s birthday,” said Crist, who has been mentioned as a potential running mate for Republican presidential candidate John McCain. “We’ve been talking about it for quite a while. I asked her while we were looking out over Tampa Bay and I couldn’t think of a better place to do it.”

Rome, 38, is the president of Franco American Novelty Co., her family’s New York-area Halloween costume company, though she stopped managing its daily business when she moved to Fisher Island near Miami in 2006. Crist said they met at a dinner where he and friends were discussing fundraising.

Asked what made him fall in love, Crist said, “Her beautiful smile, her sweetness, her brilliance — all of it.”

Crist was briefly married while in college, but was divorced in less than a year. That experience contributed to the long wait between commitments.

“It made me be very selective, candidly. Those things tend to make you gun-shy a little bit, but I’m so blessed to have found such a wonderful woman,” Crist said. “It sure is great to find the right one.”

The couple has been seen together frequently, from a Jimmy Buffett concert in Tampa last November to sporting events and on the campaign trail with Republican presidential candidate John McCain. At a Republican Party of Florida dinner last month, Crist told a crowd of 700 donors that he is lucky to have Rome in his life.

The couple is discussing a fall ceremony. Crist said the wedding will likely be a more intimate gathering in St. Petersburg followed by a larger reception at the governor’s mansion.

“It will be awfully nice to have her at the mansion. It’s a big place to have to be alone in,” he said.

Crist took office in January 2007 and previously served as attorney general, education commissioner and in the state Senate.

Rome was previously married to Blue Star Jets president Todd Rome. She has two daughters, aged 9 and 11, but Crist said he hopes the couple has a child of their own someday.

In an interview this week with “Relevant,” a Christian magazine, Obama said prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain “a strict, well defined exception for the health of the mother.”

Obama then added: “Now, I don’t think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.”

Last year, after the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on late-term abortions, Obama said he “strongly disagreed” with the ruling because it “dramatically departs form previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women.”

The health care exception is crucial to abortion rights advocates and is considered a legal loophole by abortion opponents. By limiting the health exception to a “serious physical issue,” Obama set himself apart from other abortion rights proponents.

The official position of NARAL Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group that endorsed Obama in May, states: “A health exception must also account for the mental health problems that may occur in pregnancy. Severe fetal anomalies, for example, can exact a tremendous emotional toll on a pregnant woman and her family.”

The 1973 landmark abortion case, Roe v. Wade, established a right to an abortion, and a concurrent case, Doe v. Bolton, established that medical judgments about the need for an abortion could include physical, emotional and psychological health factors.

“Senator Obama has consistently maintained that laws restricting abortions must contain exceptions for the health and life of the mother,” Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said Thursday. “Obviously, as he stated in the interview, he has consistently believed those exceptions should be clear and limited enough to ensure that they don’t undermine the prohibition on late-term abortions.”

In a statement, NARAL Pro-Choice said Obama’s magazine interview is consistent with Roe v. Wade.

“Sen. Obama has consistently said he supports the tenets set forth by Roe, and has made strong statements against President Bush’s Federal Abortion Ban, which does not have an exception to protect a woman’s health,” the organization’s statement said.

A leading abortion opponent, however, said Obama’s rhetoric does not match his voting record and his previously stated views on abortion rights.

David N. O’Steen, the executive director of National Right to Life, said Obama’s remarks to the magazine “are either quite disingenuous or they reflect that Obama does not know what he is talking about.”

“You cannot believe that abortion should not be allowed for mental health reasons and support Roe v Wade,” O’Steen said.

In the interview with Relevant, conducted on Tuesday, Obama also defended his opposition to restrictions on induced abortions where the fetus sometimes survives for short periods. Obama voted against such a bill when he was in the Illinois Senate. He has said he supported a federal version of the law that contained more specific language because he feared the Illinois proposal would have applied to all abortions.

“There was a bill that came up in Illinois that was called the ‘Born Alive’ bill that purported to require life-saving treatment to such infants. And I did vote against that bill,” Obama said Tuesday. “The reason was that there was already a law in place in Illinois that said that you always have to supply life-saving treatment to any infant under any circumstances, and this bill actually was designed to overturn Roe v. Wade, so I didn’t think it was going to pass constitutional muster.”