The Trail

Friday, October 3, 2008

OBAMA'S JUDGMENT QUESTIONED

Ad Points to Wright, Rezko, Ayers

The Rev. Wright for the Supreme Court?

A group of conservative legal activists doesn't exactly suggest that, but it is releasing an ad featuring Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. and two other controversial figures from Barack Obama's life as part of an effort to bring attention to the issue of Supreme Court nominees and raise questions about the candidate's judgment.

The new ad is paid for by the Judicial Confirmation Network, a group closely associated with the successful confirmations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

The ad says that the next president could reshape the court because of anticipated departures over the next four years. But instead of talking about the views of either Obama or John McCain, the ad focuses on Obama's ties to Wright, his outspoken former pastor; Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a disgraced real estate developer and campaign fundraiser; and William Ayers, a 1960s radical who is now a professor.

The connection?

"We don't know who Barack Obama would choose, but we know this," the ad says. "He chose as one of his first financial backers a slumlord now convicted on 16 counts of corruption. Obama chose as an associate a man who helped to bomb the Pentagon and said he 'didn't do enough.' And Obama chose as his pastor a man who has blamed America for the 9/11 attacks."

Wendy Long, the general counsel for the Judicial Confirmation Network, said the message showed that Obama associated with those men while voting against confirmation of Roberts and Alito.

"I tried to tie it to the court," Long said. "I hope that worked. It's certainly about the court."

She said it is intended to be just the first phase of a campaign to show the "huge, huge choice" for voters on the issue, because McCain and Obama would make such different appointments to the Supreme Court and other federal courts.

She said the ad would run nationally on Fox, tied to the court's resumption of oral arguments on Monday, and in the battleground states of Ohio and Michigan.

-- Robert Barnes

EVENT CALLED NON-POLITICAL

Biden to Speak as Son Heads to Iraq

Joe Biden will speak Friday in Dover, Del., at the deployment ceremony for his son Beau, 39, who is headed to Iraq as part of a Delaware National Guard unit.

Aides to the Democratic vice presidential candidate said that the event was not political and that he was speaking as a father and senator. Beau Biden, who is Delaware's attorney general, is a member of the Army's Judge Advocate General Corps. In a news release, National Guard officials said he may serve as an army prosecutor. He will go to Fort Bliss, Tex., for training before heading to Iraq.

Biden's Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, was accused of politicizing the service of her son Track, 18, last month when she spoke at his deployment ceremony, and Biden aides have tried to avoid a similar charge. At the same time, Beau Biden introduced his father at the Democratic National Convention, and his father occasionally mentions his son's service, unlike John McCain, who has avoided discussing the experiences of his son Jimmy, 19, a Marine who returned from a tour in Iraq in February.

"I'm proud, but I have to admit to you, I wish he wasn't going, I wish he wasn't going," the senator told "Entertainment Tonight" in an interview this week. Biden's wife, Jill, said in the same interview that "there is a lot of pride" but that "there's not a morning that I open my eyes that I don't say a prayer that he comes home safely."

-- Perry Bacon Jr.

QUICK POLLING

High Marks for All After Debate

Immediate reaction polls should be taken with a load of salt, but two of the best showed three winners in Thursday night's vice presidential showdown, with both candidates gaining ground and almost all those tuning in saying that moderator Gwen Ifill treated the rivals "fairly."

In a poll by CBS News of uncommitted voters and one by CNN of all debate watchers, more said Joe Biden was the winner, but Sarah Palin scored important points.

The overwhelming focus was on the Alaska governor, and more than eight in 10 voters in the CNN poll said she exceeded their expectations. Before the debate, 43 percent of uncommitted voters said Palin is knowledgeable about important issues; after the debate, that jumped to 66 percent. At the same time, both before and after, majorities of those polled by CNN said she lacks the qualifications to be president.

Biden, too, was widely seen as doing better than predicted, and he, like Palin, saw his favorability ratings go up in both polls.

But the bottom line is how many voters will be swayed by the event, and here, the preliminary evidence is not much: 71 percent of uncommitted voters in the CBS poll said they remained so after the debate. Among those who said they had shifted, slightly more said they tilted Democratic, 18 percent to 10 percent.

-- Jon Cohen