WASHINGTON — Presidential candidate Mike Gravel told supporters Wednesday that he is leaving the Democratic Party to join the Libertarian Party.
Gravel, a former Democratic senator from Alaska, said in an e-mail that the Democratic Party “no longer represents my vision for our great country.” “It is a party that continues to sustain war, the military-industrial complex and imperialism — all of which I find anathema to my views,” he said in an e-mail in which he also asked supporters for campaign donations.
Gravel, 77, has been excluded from recent Democratic debates because he failed to meet fundraising or polling thresholds. The Associated Press
Public split on results of Obama’s race speech.
Barack Obama’s speech on race has left the public divided on whether he has sufficiently put the issue behind him, a poll shows.
Even so, the Wall Street Journal-NBC News survey released Wednesday showed that Obama’s remarks and the attention paid to comments by his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, so far have had little effect on his race with Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.
By 55 percent to 32 percent, more who had seen or heard about Obama’s speech said they were satisfied with his explanation of his association with Wright than said they were dissatisfied.
In all instances, whites were more dubious than blacks about whether Obama had handled the issue successfully. Democrats were far more supportive than Republicans, while independents were likelier to be divided.
The Journal-NBC poll was conducted Monday and Tuesday and included telephone interviews with 700 registered voters, with an oversampling of 177 black voters. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.7 percentage points for all registered voters, 4.3 points for white voters and 7.4 points for black voters. The Associated Press
$25 donor gets dinner with Obama
INDIANAPOLIS — Bonnie Locchetta has a lot to say to Barack Obama, and she’ll soon get her chance.
The 44-year-old Rushville, Ind., woman was chosen to have dinner with the presidential candidate after she donated $25 to his campaign.
“I want to ask him what he plans to do to help people like me send their kids to college and help people like me to retire who have no savings and to help people like my mother who’s struggling to afford her medication when she’s also struggling to pay her housing and all her bills,” she said Wednesday.
Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for Obama in Indiana, said the campaign wanted to invite at least two first-time donors to the dinner and chose Locchetta because of the note she submitted with her donation.
The fact that she lives in a state that has yet to hold its presidential primary also factored in. Indiana votes May 6 and has 72 delegates up for grabs. The Associated Press
Teacher’s comments probed
DOVER, Del. — A Delaware state human relations commission is investigating allegations that a fifth-grade teacher told her class she wouldn’t vote for Barack Obama because he is “scary” and a Muslim.
The mother of a 10-year-old student complained, saying her daughter’s teacher made the comments during a mock primary on Super Tuesday last month at a southeastern Delaware elementary school.
The student is a Muslim.
The Democratic presidential candidate is a Christian, but he’s had to fight against false Internet rumors suggesting he’s really a Muslim. The Associated Press
