Jewish Group Blasts Romney Over Launch

Presidential candidate and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney holds a press conference before speaking to Michigan Republicans during the Michigan GOP Convention in Grand Rapids, Mi. on Saturday, Feb. 10, 2007. (AP Photo/Adam Bird) (Adam Bird - AP)

To offset that carbon dioxide production, the campaign will pay a Vermont company, Native Energy, that invests in renewable fuels such as wind power, Earnest said. The campaign will also invite donors to contribute specifically to offset those costs.

Vilsack planned to announce the initiative during a speech on energy policy in San Francisco on Tuesday. "He will pledge to make his presidential campaign the first presidential campaign in history to be carbon-neutral," Earnest said.

"No question that this is one of the, if not the most important issue in this presidential campaign," Earnest said. "It affects national security, the economy, even the health care system."

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ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) _ Key New York political leaders indicated Monday that they favor moving the state's presidential primary up a month to Feb. 5 _ a shift that could help the 2008 campaigns of Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Rudy Giuliani.

It "would be the right thing for the state," an aide to the Legislature's top Democrat said.

A top aide to the Legislature's most powerful Republican said making such a shift was also on the GOP's radar screen.

Several other big states, including California, are already considering shifting their primaries to Feb. 5. Such a move could create a new Super Tuesday showdown just days after the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary and the follow-up South Carolina primary.

"The speaker is favorably inclined to move the date. He thinks it would be the right thing for the state and will be speaking to the governor about doing it," said Charles Carrier, a spokesman for state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat and key backer of Clinton's bid for the 2008 Democratic nomination.

New Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer had no immediate comment Monday about the plan, first reported in Monday's editions of the New York Post.

"It's something we're taking a look at," said John McArdle, a spokesman for Joseph Bruno, the state Senate's Republican majority leader. Bruno has close ties to both Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, and to Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who polls show is Giuliani's main competition for the GOP presidential nomination.

In Alabama, Republicans and Democrats are trying to move up the date of the state's presidential primary from Feb. 5 to Feb. 2, 2008, which would avoid a conflict with a Mardi Gras holiday. Party leaders said Monday they are working on legislation to move the primary.

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) _ Former South Carolina first lady Iris Campbell and one of her two sons have signed onto Republican Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign.

Iris Campbell was widowed in 2005 when former Gov. Carroll Campbell died after a public battle with Alzheimer's disease. The former governor, who served two terms from 1987 to 1995, is credited with making the Republican Party a powerful force in South Carolina, and Iris Campbell remains influential throughout the state.

"I think that if Carroll were here, he'd do the same," Iris Campbell said.

Her son, Mike Campbell, who ran unsuccessfully last year for lieutenant governor's office, was tapped to run the former Arkansas governor's South Carolina campaign as a senior national adviser.

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Associated Press Writers Bob Lewis in Richmond, Va., Marc Humbert in Albany, N.Y., Jim Davenport in Columbia, S.C., Phillip Rawls in Montgomery, Ala., and Scott Lindlaw in San Francisco contributed to this report.