Biden drives Net petition for Iraq bill

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has launched an online petition drive to rally support for legislation he co-sponsored to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by next March.

In an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, the Delaware senator called the Iraq conflict "the big boulder in the road" and said it must be resolved for the U.S. to regain credibility on the world stage.

"I am convinced there is a fundamental disconnect between where the American people are and where the president is on this war," he said. "What I'm trying to do is to visibly pound away, every single day, to get this president and my Republican colleagues to change course."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., has scheduled a vote on the resolution sponsored by Biden and Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich. Only a handful of Republicans are expected to support the bill, which would seek to bring almost all U.S. troops home by March 31, 2008 while leaving a residual force to help train and equip Iraqi troops and participate in counter-terror operations.

Biden is also continuing to push his plan to divide Iraq along ethnic lines, with a central government responsible for border security and allocation of oil.

Biden dismissed his standing in national polls, which show him trailing far behind front-runners Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record).

"The front-runner status is virtually meaningless at this point," Biden said, while adding he did not mean to "criticize or denigrate" Clinton or Obama.

The online petition drive is at http://www.endingthewar.com.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) is packaging some of its Web features — including its photo-sharing service, discussion groups and news stories — to create a new online site to connect politics junkies and the presidential campaigns.

The company's effort, available on the Web at election.yahoo.com, is aimed at driving Internet traffic to what it describes as a nonpartisan platform and helping all the campaigns — Democrats and Republicans alike — communicate with potential voters.

Yahoo officials expected to meet this week in Washington with campaigns to describe the service, which is free. It also will include some of Yahoo's recently acquired features, such as Upcoming.org, a social events calendar, and MyBlogLog, aimed at making popular Web diaries more interactive.

Yahoo's Web properties are among the Internet's most popular destinations.

Yahoo said it is prevented under its privacy rules from sharing personal information about any of its users with the campaigns or other organizations. But it said it will occasionally disclose data on its Web site and for the campaigns about how many users search for information about specific candidates and issues and where those users live.

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BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain (news, bio, voting record) will miss another event for conservative activists this month while he's on a trip to Iraq, but he says he's not sidestepping invitations to appear before right-leaning groups.

The Arizona senator will not attend the Club for Growth's annual winter conference in Palm Beach, Fla., that starts March 31, an event that will feature speeches by Republican candidates Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Sam Brownback (news, bio, voting record).

"I've had this trip to Iraq scheduled for a very long period of time," McCain told reporters Tuesday outside a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser. "And I think it's more important, as the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to visit regularly Iraq, particularly during this very critical time as we go through this new strategy."

McCain was the only leading Republican candidate to skip the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this month, and the mention of his name there drew occasional boos. The senator also bypassed a retreat for members of the Heritage Foundation and a conservative summit hosted by the National Review Institute.

Club for Growth President Pat Toomey said he took McCain's explanation at "face value," but added that with McCain failing to show at a string of conservative-sponsored events "it starts to look like a pattern emerging."

In another sign of friction, the Club for Growth issued a statement Monday that said McCain's record on economic issues was "tainted by a marked antipathy towards the free market and individual freedom."

Campaign spokesman Matt David said McCain "is the only leading Republican candidate with a 24-year record as a fiscal conservative."

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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A prominent Iowa Democrat says he is troubled by Sen. Barack Obama's comment about the Palestinians and pressed the Democratic presidential candidate to clarify his remarks.

Obama, speaking to a small group of Democratic activists in Muscatine on Sunday, was quoted in the Des Moines Register as saying, "Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people."

David Adelman wrote a letter Tuesday to Obama calling the comment "deeply troubling." Adelman is a member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which lobbies in support of a strong relationship between the United States and Israel, and the Greater Des Moines Jewish Federation.

Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Obama, said the senator's comments were consistent with his previous statements.

"Senator Obama has always said that the security of Israel should be America's starting point in the Middle East," Vietor said. "As he stated in his speech (at AIPAC) and again in Iowa, he also believes that in the end, the Palestinian people are suffering from the Hamas-led government's refusal to renounce terrorism and join as a real partner in the peace process."

Adelman, a Des Moines attorney, is a politically active Democrat and works as a lobbyist, but he said he has not yet made a choice on whom he will support in 2008.

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GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said Tuesday his campaign would seek to eliminate its contribution to global warming by becoming "carbon neutral."

Speaking to a crowd of college students at Bennett College, the former North Carolina senator urged all Americans to help reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

"It's time for the president of the United States to ask Americans to be patriotic about something other than war," Edwards said. "This is an emergency. This requires action now."

Edwards said his campaign will consult with experts to calculate its total carbon emissions — covering everything from his campaign travel to the energy used at his headquarters office in Chapel Hill.

Along with taking a series of steps to improve its energy efficiency, the campaign will buy carbon offsets, or credits sold by those who have reduced their emissions of carbon dioxide. He declined to give an estimate of how much the offsets might cost, other than to say it would be expensive.

Edwards said that while the United States is home to 4 percent of the world's population, the country is the source of roughly one-quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

"We are not a good example for the world," he said. "We need to start by cleaning up our own house."

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PHOENIX (AP) — Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney says more state and local police agencies ought to consider making deals with the federal government to have their officers trained in enforcing federal immigration law.

While state and local police have generally stayed out of immigration enforcement in the past, an increasing number of agencies nationwide have applied to have their officers trained to make immigration arrests or speed up deportations.

Near the end of his tenure as governor of Massachusetts, Romney signed a deal to have 30 state troopers trained to make immigration arrests. His successor, Gov. Deval Patrick, rescinded the policy. Officials were renegotiating the deal with the goal to train corrections officers to help identify illegal immigrants.

"I think it's a good idea for us to communicate that we intend to enforce our laws," Romney said Tuesday.

Romney said the government ought to impose punishments on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, and he criticized proposed pathways to legal status for illegal immigrants.

"If people would like to apply to become a United States citizen to get a green card, they are welcome to do so," he said. "But there should not be an advantage given to people who are here illegally to do so."

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Associated Press writers Henry C. Jackson in Des Moines, Iowa, Ted Bridis in Washington, Michael R. Blood in Beverly Hills, Calif., Mike Baker in Greensboro, N.C., and Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix contributed to this report.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070314/ap_on_el_pr/on_the2008_trail [link]