Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of the former senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards, called to apologize to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday following reports that she had described the former first lady as leading a relatively unhappy life, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton said.
Mrs. Edwards, who is on a book tour, had been quoted as saying that she and Mrs. Clinton “are from the same generation” during a luncheon on Thursday sponsored by the Ladies’ Home Journal.
“We both went to law school and married other lawyers, but after that we made other choices,” Mrs. Edwards said, according to The Associated Press. “I think my choices have made me happier. I think I’m more joyful than she is.”
The top Republican presidential candidates spent more than their Democratic counterparts in the first six months of the year, even though the Republican contenders raised less money, the latest campaign-finance reports show.
Republicans Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain outspent Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards by more than $20 million, a USA TODAY analysis found. The three Republicans lag the top Democrats in total receipts by $40 million and have $61 million less in the bank.
Just moments before he arrived, Senator Barack Obama had said goodbye to a less exclusive crowd of 10,000 that had gathered to hear him speak across the bay in Oakland. They paid nothing to hear him, but spent $40,000 on Obama T-shirts, baseball caps, buttons and other knickknacks. And the Obama campaign registered each of the purchasers as one of the record 258,000 contributors it signed up in the first six months of the year.
Since he got into the race, Mr. Obama has hopscotched from big-ticket to big-crowd events across the country, trying to turn the early excitement about his candidacy into campaign cash and a national political organization.
Like other candidates, he has worked hard to cultivate a network of bundlers, who can solicit the checks from individual donors for the legal maximum of $2,300 that are the mainstay of any major campaign. But to capitalize on his celebrity, Mr. Obama’s campaign has also employed novel tactics — like counting sales of $5 speech tickets or $4.50 Obama key chains as individual contributions — to pump up his numbers and transform grass-roots enthusiasm into more useful forms of support. No other campaign is known to have listed paraphernalia sales as donations.
Brian Jones, McCain’s communications director, and his two deputies, Matt David and Danny Diaz, stepped down but plan to stay on through the week. Two others in the communications shop at the campaign headquarters also are leaving, as are two staffers apiece in Iowa and South Carolina.
Jill Hazelbaker, McCain’s current New Hampshire communications director, is expected to take over for Jones and head up a slimmed-down media operation.
Note to Internet, enough with all these ‘girl’ videos. Obama Girl, Giuliani Girl, Hot 4 Hill. It seems like the net is now operating the same as regular television. One person sees a trend and ninety copies show up the next day.
