WASHINGTON (AP) - Which of the top presidential candidates would you prefer having at your summer cookout?
An Associated Press-Yahoo News Poll finds that people who were surveyed would rather barbecue burgers with Barack Obama than John McCain, by a 52 percent to 45 percent margin.
Men are about evenly divided between the two while women prefer Obama by 11 percentage points. Obama is a more popular guest with younger voters while McCain does best with the oldest.
Party label means a lot, with three-quarters of Democrats picking Obama and the same number of Republicans picking McCain. Independents are about evenly split.
The AP-Yahoo News survey of 1,759 adults was conducted online by Knowledge Networks from June 13-23 and had an overall margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points. The margin of sampling error for subgroups was larger.

Fooey! Vote08 doesn’t believe in false choices! I love that the premise of this quadrennial poll is that you actually have to make a choice among these candidates, as if they’re knocking on your door & you can only let one of them in. Let’s have a 4th-of-July-Eve-Eve fantasy in which ALL of the recent presidential candidates stop by for a bite, shall we?

Okay, fellow barbecue lovers! Let’s hear from you! Which candidate(s) would you like to see at your 4th-of-July barbecue, & what specific dish would you ask them to bring? We eagerly await your comments!

ADDENDUM: (from the Wall Street Journal, March 2nd)

“McCain, dressed in a sweatshirt with a family photo embossed and jeans, spent much of the afternoon turning ribs and chicken over the grill on the wraparound deck of his cabin. He happily disclosed his recipe: a dry rub made up of one-third black pepper, one-third garlic powder and one-third salt. Fresh lemon juice is squeezed over the ribs during a slow cook. The slow cook, he assured observers, allows all the fat to drip away. He promised skeptical eaters that the ribs were practically fat free.”

UPDATE: I asked the entire newsroom to give their responses. Here’s what I have so far:

“You can imagine that I’d love to have Senator Clinton at my next backyard BBQ. I feel confident she shouldn’t be asked to contribute to the meal… but I’m equally confident that the conversation would fill my constant hunger for stimulating conversation. How ’bout seeing what you can arrange?”

“Most elected politicians could supply/bring their own “pork” at your expense of course.”

What say you?

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A spokesman for Ron Paul says the Republican presidential candidate is ending his campaign.
Spokesman Jesse Benton says Paul will make the announcement Thursday night during a speech in Austin, Texas. Paul also will announce that he is beginning a new effort to elect libertarian-leaning Republicans like himself to public office nationwide.
Benton says the announcement was not a disappointment, but rather is exciting.
Paul’s announcement will be a formality. The Texas congressman won few delegates during the Republican primaries, but he raised millions of dollars online and developed a large, grass-roots following among those backed his call for ending the war in Iraq and smaller government at home.

An interesting pair of twists & turns today.

Connecticut Senator & former Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Lieberman (I) writes an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal criticizing the foreign policy of Barack Obama:

 “There are of course times when it makes sense to engage in tough diplomacy with hostile governments. Yet what Mr. Obama has proposed is not selective engagement, but a blanket policy of meeting personally as president, without preconditions, in his first year in office, with the leaders of the most vicious, anti-American regimes on the planet.

Mr. Obama has said that in proposing this, he is following in the footsteps of Reagan and JFK. But Kennedy never met with Castro, and Reagan never met with Khomeini. And can anyone imagine Presidents Kennedy or Reagan sitting down unconditionally with Ahmadinejad or Chavez? I certainly cannot.”

& Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel (R) spoke out yesterday to criticize John McCain:

“I’m very upset with John with some of the things he’s been saying. And I can’t get into the psychoanalysis of it. But I believe that John is smarter than some of the things he is saying. He is, he understands it more. John is a man who reads a lot, he’s been around the world. I want him to get above that and maybe when he gets into the general election, and becomes the general election candidate he will have a higher-level discourse on these things.”

Guys, just switch parties already!

What do you think?

(above: example of my handwriting, age 4)

What does each of the candidates’ handwriting say about their personalities?

The Los Angeles Times delves into a little graphology to come up with the answer:

Does this mean anything? Is it an accurate portrayal of the candidates? Who knows? We eat this stuff up, nevertheless.

Signed,

As you can see, four - or in this case eight - years in the White House takes its toll on a President’s facial features (this applies to all presidents, not just the current one.)

The folks at PopPhoto.com provided some helpful insight into how four years of the presidency would change the appearance of each of the three major candidates.

& no, it’s not pretty.

Click “read the rest of this entry” to peer into the future — if you dare!!!!!!!

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#5.

#4.

#3.

#2.

#1.

One of the major failings of the Bush administration since September 11th, 2001 has been the lack of any kind of call for national sacrifice (& no, we’re not counting the call from the President to “go shopping“).

After the jump, we offer some thoughts on how the next president needs to change this.. even though we have evidence they’ve given no indication they’ll do so. 

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Today General David Petraeus & Ambassador Ryan Crocker gave the Senate Armed Services Committee an update on the Iraq war.

View clips of Petraeus & the candidates after the jump.

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This is a great piece on how one well-placed phrase or speech, or one badly-placed sentence or misstep can determine the outcome of a presidential campaign.

Has a ‘make-or-break’ moment already happened this year? Post a comment & give us your thoughts!

Yesterday spokespeople for the McCain, Clinton & Obama campaign wrote a piece in the Washington Post on how each of their candidates would solve the current economic crisis.

Read more after the jump.

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(from Yahoo News)

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - After a failed run for president, Fred Thompson is getting back to pretending to be commander in chief.

Hollywood’s high-powered William Morris Agency announced this week that it has signed the actor/politician, signaling a return to the screen for the former senator from Tennessee.

Thompson most recently appeared as grizzled district attorney Arthur Branch on “Law & Order” and has played authority figures in the films “The Hunt For Red October,” “Die Hard II” and “In the Line of Fire.”

Thompson dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination on Jan. 22.

Not every member of Team Fred has bounced back in the real world so easily.

The designer of his website -Fred08.com- has been forced to abandon his conservative principles & beg for employment on his blog:

“After Fred Thompson ended his Presidential run I thought landing a new job wouldn’t be as hard as it has been. I’ve had some interviews, but they haven’t panned out. I’m blasting out my resume to any openings I’m finding online, but haven’t had any bites… If you know of any leads let me know and pass my resume along. If you could I would really appreciate a link from your weblog. Getting more people knowing I’m available for hire would really help. Also, my finances are pretty tight. I wish I didn’t have to do this but I would really appreciate you putting a few bucks into my tip jars.“

Remember, this was the guy (apparently) who was responsible for this Vote08 post.

The current Vice President & former President both made statements in the last week that for two former supporters, was the tipping point.

Read how they both explained why this was the last straw, after the jump.

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Yes, we know St. Patrick’s Day was a week ago, but on that day candidate Hillary Clinton claimed that as First Lady in 1996, she flew to Bosnia to help the peace process there, & said that she had to ‘endure sniper fire’ on the airport’s tarmac when she got off the plane.

Video has surfaced that seems to be contrary to that statement. Watch for yourself, first a 1996 news clip of her on that airport, followed by her statement she made last week.

The Washington Post has more on the story -or rather both stories- here.

‘Comedian’ Sinbad was also on the flight (with singer Sheryl Crow), & also doesn’t remember it the way Clinton is describing it.

This morning Clinton’s not the only one facing charges of embellishment. Barack Obama is, too.

UPDATE/4:46pm: The Clinton campaign now says she “may have misspoke” about the specifics of her Bosnia trip.

What do you think?

Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander was in the NewsChannel studios Thursday & was interviewed by Don Welch for ThisNThat. An excerpt aired on Thursday, & more will air on the show in the coming days. (it comes on at 12:30pm).

But you can watch the full interview right now on NewsChannel9.com.

Click here for the video link. The interview lasts about 11 minutes.

Highlights on the Presidential race:

• He says he would not be McCain’s Vice President if asked. He said he’d pull a list of names of better candidates out of his pocket to prove why he wouldn’t be the right guy.
• He thinks Mike Huckabee (who won the Tennessee primary) would make a good vice president.

Alexander has just kicked off his reelection bid, as his 6-year term is up this year.
Watch the interview & come back here to share your thoughts!

needs to be honest with you. The presidential race is the only contest we really care about.

But we realize with March Madness in full swing we need to do a college basketball tourney post.

So, after the jump, find out if Barack Obama’s - & any other candidates(?) - NCAA tourney bracket comes close to yours!

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