Gingrich May Get Into Presidential Race

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks at a rally in Kansas City, Mo., Saturday, May 12, 2007. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner) (Orlin Wagner - AP)

Dodd, a senator from Connecticut, is spending more than $120,000 in the ad campaign, which will air in Iowa, New Hampshire and on national cable. Though the ad does not mention his rivals by name, it is designed to compare his stand on Iraq with that of Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden and former Sen. John Edwards.

Clinton supports a measure with Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., that would repeal the authority Congress gave Bush to use force against Iraq. Edwards has called for the immediate withdrawal of 40,000-50,000 troops from Iraq and a complete pullout of combat troops within 12 to 18 months.

Obama and Biden have called for the withdrawal of most troops by March of 2008 or earlier but they have opposed an outright shutoff of money. Biden also has called for partitioning Iraq into Kurd, Sunni and Shiite regions.

Dodd, Clinton, Edwards and Biden all voted for the 2002 resolution giving Bush authority to use force in Iraq. Obama was not in the Senate then and has said he would have opposed it.

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TETERBORO, N.J. (AP) _ Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Monday he won't take the black vote for granted, especially since rival Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, former President Clinton, have established strong ties with the community.

"I expect to have to earn it," said Obama, who also accepted the endorsements of two mayors. "I think that the African-American community is sophisticated, like any group of voters, and they're going to make up their minds based on whether they think I have the leadership capacity and the agenda that's going to make their lives better."

Obama received the backing Monday of Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy.

The Newark mayor said over the weekend that he also would be part of Obama's campaign leadership in New Jersey. Booker has been linked with Obama as part of a new generation of black leaders.

"It's time that we have a national leader that's going to raise us around our highest common ideals and remind us that we have more in common as a people than we do that divides us," Booker said Saturday.

Later, at a rally in Trenton, N.J., Obama drew cheers from union workers when he repeated his campaign pledge to make health insurance available to all Americans by the end of his first term.

"We can have universal health care by the end of the next president's first term, by the end of my first term," Obama said, bringing 600 union workers to their feet during a question-and-answer session with members of AFL-CIO affiliated unions. The appearance was part of the labor organizations' presidential endorsement process.