President Obama Encourages Young Voters to Vote in November

Photo Courtesy - ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- On Monday, President Obama made a direct plea to young voters, urging them to re-engage in the political process and get out to the polls come November.

“Even though this may not be as exciting as a presidential election this is going to make a huge difference in terms of whether we’re going to be able to move our agenda forward over the next couple of years,” Obama said on a conference call with university journalists. “You can’t sit it out, you can’t suddenly just check in once every ten years or so on an exciting presidential election and then not pay attention during big midterm elections where we’ve got a real big choice between Democrats and Republicans.”

The president admitted the enthusiasm that young voters showed during his campaign in 2008 has not carried over during his first two years in office.

“Back in 2008 a lot of young people got involved in my campaign… I think people just generally felt that we needed to bring about some fundamental change in how we operate, this was all before the financial crisis,” Obama explained. “I think a lot of people felt that our campaign gave them a vehicle to get engaged and involved in shaping the direction of this country over the long-term. I’ve been in office for two years. We’ve been in the midst of this big financial crisis. I’ve been having all these fights with the Republicans to make progress on a whole bunch of these issues and during that time, naturally, some of the excitement and enthusiasm started to drain away because people felt like ‘Gosh, you know, all I’m reading about are constant arguments in Washington.’”

The president’s comments offer a preview of what is to come at his rally tomorrow at the University of Wisconsin. “What I want to do is just to speak to young people directly and remind them of what I said during the campaign which is change is always hard in this country. It doesn’t happen overnight. You take two steps forward, you take one step back. This is a big complicated democracy. It’s contentious. It’s not always fun and games.”

Copyright 2010 ABC News Radio

Obama Calls Republican Leaders "Irresponsible"

Photo Courtesy - The White House(WASHINGTON) -- As President Obama prepared for a four-state campaign swing to support Democratic candidates for Congress, he sharpened his opposition to the Republican “Pledge to America” platform and his differences with GOP leaders.

“What I am seeing out of the Republican leadership over last several years has been a set of policies are [sic] just irresponsible,” the President said in a live interview on NBC’s Today show. “They propose $4 trillion worth of  tax cuts and 16 billion in spending cuts, and then say we are going to somehow magically balance the budget. That is not a serious approach.”

The president was careful not to criticize Republican voters, however, saying there's “a lot of wonderful people out there who consider themselves Republicans or independents who have maybe some criticisms of my administration but who basically recognize we’ve got to solve some big problems, we’ve got be serious, we’ve got to base our decisions on facts.”

Copyright 2010 ABC News Radio

Obama And Biden Give Campaigning 'The Old College Try'

Photo Courtesy -- Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are going back to school this week. Obama travels to Madison, Wisconsin on Tuesday to headline a rally at the University of Wisconsin while Biden heads to Penn State to fire up voters -- particularly the younger crowd -- in the two key battleground states.  Why the emphasis on this segment of the electorate?  A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that only 55 percent of 18 to 28-year-old voters said they were “absolutely certain” to go to the polls this fall, compared to 78 percent of the 50 to 64-year-old crowd and 77 percent of those over 65.  As former Obama campaign manager and midterm election strategist, David Plouffe, told the Post’s Philip Rucker and Anne E. Kornblut: "A lot of these voters feel very strongly about the president, but still a lot of them aren't showing enough predilection to vote.” Plouffe also previewed the president’s speech on Tuesday: “When Obama steps onto a grass quad at the University of Wisconsin on Tuesday, he will deliver a newly tailored, more personalized campaign appeal aimed at ginning up enthusiasm, according to White House and senior Democratic officials. Plouffe said Obama will remind students of the work they put into his 2008 campaign and warn them that if they don't reengage now, ‘all that could be jeopardized.’” On Monday, the president will also host an on the record telephone briefing with college student journalists. 

Copyright 2010 ABC News Radio

Bill Clinton Hits Campaign Trail for Democrats

Photo Courtesy - ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- Former president Bill Clinton says Democrats are not yet putting up a good fight. He was on the campaign trail this weekend, playing defense deep in home territory, where, in a typical election year, Democrats would be leading comfortably: the solid-blue states of Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Clinton is campaigning for longtime politicians, including Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, a Senate hopeful, and 30-year Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, who crushed his last opponent. In three earlier races, the Republicans ran no one against Frank. Now, the president's point-man on the banking bailout is also on the endangered list.

Also on the campaign trail Tuesday will be campaigner-in-chief President Obama in Wisconsin and Vice President Joe Biden at Penn State. Next month, Democrats bring out the most popular resident of the White House: first lady Michelle Obama.

Copyright 2010 ABC News Radio

Poll: Obama's Approval Rating Hits New Low

Photo Courtesy - ABC News Radio(WASHINGTON) -- President Obama's approval rating has hit a new low, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research poll. According to the survey, just 42 percent of Americans approve of the president's performance, while 54 percent said they disapprove. “Only 37 percent of likely voters say they are more likely to vote for a congressional candidate backed by Obama," the poll found. "In contrast, half of all likely voters now say they are likely to choose a candidate supported by the conservative tea party -- contributing to the GOP's 53 to 44 percent lead when such voters are asked which party's candidate they will choose in November.”

Copyright 2010 ABC News Radio

Democrats on Defense, Negative Ads Fill Airwaves

Image Courtesy - Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- With five weeks and counting to the mid-term elections, the Democratic big guns are playing defense in Blue states, and Democrats are on the attack.

Rep. Barney Frank, of Massachusetts, has been in Congress for 30 years and for the last two decades has won re-election with huge margins, sometimes running unopposed. But in this political environment, Frank is taking no chances and over the weekend brought in former president Bill Clinton to join him on the stump.

President Obama begins a campaign Monday to four states that he won two years ago -- New Mexico, Wisconsin, Iowa and Virginia -- where Democrats today are struggling. A recent Pew poll shows independent voters favoring the Republican candidate over the Democrat by thirteen points -- 49% favoring the generic Republican, 36% backing the Democrat.

Many Democrats are taking to the airwaves to depict their opponents as personally unacceptable. Rep. Alan Grayson, of Florida, for example, did not serve in the military but is using an anonymous narrator in a television advertisement to accuse his Republican opponent for not having served either.

"It breaks an old soldier's heart to think that Daniel Webster could ever be elected to Congress," says the narrator, whom the Grayson campaign had declined to identify. "He doesn't love this country the way I do."

Factcheck.org has said the ad falsely impugns Webster's patriotism.

Copyright 2010 ABC News Radio

Fight Breaks Out at Heated Nevada Senate Debate

Photo Courtesy - ABC News(LAS VEGAS) -- On Thursday evening, a fight broke out at a Senate candidate forum in Las Vegas, Nevada featuring Republican candidate Sharron Angle and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, according to local reports.  A group of Reid’s supporters were walking out during Angle’s closing statements when the fight occurred. Kelly Tanaka, 27, told the Las Vegas Sun that an unidentified man pushed her and punched her friend in the face as they were leaving. However, no arrests were made.  Both Angle and Reid were subjected to booing and heckling, and even some cheers, as they spoke about health care and the economy.

Copyright 2010 ABC News Radio

Top Republican Rips Colbert for "Mocking" Congress

Photo Courtesy - ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- Stephen Colbert might have made some people laugh during his appearance before a House Judiciary subcommittee Friday, but the panel’s top ranking Republican was far from amused.  “I think that he mocked the hearing process,” Iowa Rep. Steve King told reporters after the hearing. “I think it was his intent to do that.”

As previously reported, Colbert had taken a serious tone in his prepared remarks submitted to the subcommittee before the hearing, but quickly morphed back into character at the hearing.

“It was clear that his written testimony that was delivered to us last night was not addressed at all,” King said. “He came with other written testimony that was delivered as a comedy routine at least in the first half of his testimony.”

“I don’t think you can take anything he testified seriously,” King added.

Copyright 2010 ABC News Radio

Obama Administration Angers Gay Groups With Defense of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'

Photo Courtesy -- ABC News.(WASHINGTON) -- The Justice Department has asked a federal judge in California not to issue an immediate injunction against the U.S. military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, despite President Obama's opposition to the policy and belief it should be overturned.

In a court filing Thursday night, government lawyers asked U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips to grant them a "reasonable" amount of time to consider an injunction. Phillips ruled Sept. 9 that the ban on openly gay and lesbian men and women serving in the military was unconstitutional and should be ended immediately.

"A court should not compel the executive to implement an immediate cessation of the 17-year policy without regard for any effect such an abrupt change might have on the military's option, particularly at a time when the military is engaged in combat operations around the globe," the Justice Department wrote to Phillips.  Phillips is now deciding whether an injunction should take effect.  The case has put the Obama administration in a political bind; it's caught between a duty to defend established law and a promise to have the law overturned. Obama has said he prefers the policy to be resolved legislatively and after the Defense Department completes its review in December.

"This filing in no way diminishes the president's firm commitment to achieve a legislative repeal of DADT," said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs in a statement. "Indeed, it clearly shows why Congress must act to end this misguided policy."

Copyright 2010 ABC News Radio. 

National Tea Party Convention Canceled Due To Lagging Ticket Sales

Photo Courtesy - ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- Organizers of the planned Tea Party Nation Convention, which had already been postponed once, announced this week  the gathering was being scrapped altogether.  Slow ticket sales are to blame, according to Judson Phillips, one of the ring leaders of the event.  The cost of the convention, which ran as high as $399, was just too much for many of the movement’s devotees.

“This decision simply came down to a matter of economics,” Phillips, the founder of Tea Party Nation who is affiliated with the group FreeAmerica.org, told The Daily Caller.  Phillips said the event fell victim to the “Obama economy.”

The convention, which had been modeled after an event earlier this year in Nashville, was scheduled for Oct. 14 at the Palazzo Hotel in Las Vegas. The Tea Party stars who were slated to make appearances included Andrew Brietbart, Lou Dobbs, and Nevada Senate hopeful Sharron Angle.

Copyright 2010 ABC News Radio