Obama Raised Record $66m in August

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Senator Obama again set a monthly record for presidential fund raising, bringing in $66 million in August that included donations from half a million new people, according to his campaign. Mr. Obama’s August total easily outpaced Senator McCain, who raised $47 million during that month, a personal best. Mr. Obama started September with $77 million in the bank and, because he opted out of the public financing system, will be able to raise as much as he can between now and Election Day. Mr. McCain opted to take public money, limiting him to the $84 million he received September 1. Nevertheless, Mr. Obama may not have an overwhelming financial advantage against Mr. McCain because of a strong effort by the Republican National Committee, which has outraised its Democratic counterpart for months.

ROVE: CAMPAIGNS ARE TOO NEGATIVE

Leading Republicans yesterday faulted both presidential campaigns for the increasingly negative tone of their advertising, suggesting the bitter attacks undermine Senator McCain and Senator Obama’s credibility with voters and could backfire. “Both campaigns are making a mistake, and that is they are taking whatever their attacks are and going one step too far,” a former White House political adviser, Karl Rove, said. “They don’t need to attack each other in this way. There ought to be an adult who says, ‘Do we really need to go that far in this ad? Don’t we make our point and won’t we get broader acceptance and deny the opposition an opportunity to attack us if we don’t include that one little last tweak in the ad?'” Mayor Giuliani said Messrs. McCain and Obama need to engage more openly in town hall meetings rather than back-and-forth negative advertising. Mr. Rove spoke on “Fox News Sunday,” while Mr. Giuliani appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

CLINTON CALLS OUT PALIN IN OHIO

Campaigning for Senator Obama in battleground Ohio, Senator Clinton singled out Governor Palin yesterday by using a revised applause-line delivered at last month’s Democratic convention. Mrs. Clinton told about 1,650 supporters in an Akron high school gymnasium that Mrs. Palin and Senator McCain would only continue the failed policies of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. “To slightly amend my comments from Denver: No way, no how, no McCain, no Palin,” she said as the audience cheered.

OBAMA, BUSH SIMILAR ON FOREIGN POLICY

Senator Obama contends that a John McCain presidency would amount to little more than President Bush’s third term. But as it turns out, an Obama presidency might look a bit like Mr. Bush’s second. On a range of major foreign policy issues over the past year, Mr. Bush has pursued strategies and actions very much along the lines of what Mr. Obama has advocated during his presidential race, according to the Illinois Democratic senator’s campaign and many diplomatic and security experts. The administration has pushed ahead with high-level diplomatic negotiations with Iran and North Korea, agreed to a “time horizon” for a reduction of American forces in Iraq, and announced plans last week to shift troops and other resources to Afghanistan from Iraq.

SEIU LAUNCHES ANTI-McCAIN AD CAMPAIGN

A powerful service workers union backing Senator Obama started a $2.1 million ad campaign yesterday that attacks Senator McCain on the economy. The Service Employees International Union is running a TV commercial in six states that could be competitive in the presidential election: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Iowa. The union’s efforts are independent of Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign, but the ad strikes many of the same themes. “Our effort with this ad is to put [the campaign] back on the economic issues,” the union’s secretary-treasurer, Anna Burger, said in a conference call with reporters. The ad was released on the same day the Obama campaign started running a commercial saying a McCain administration would be run by lobbyists, part of a long-running debate about which campaign has closer ties to lobbyists.


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