WASHINGTON (AFP) - Americans are deeply dissatisfied with their health care choices and want the 2008 presidential candidates to put health care reform high on their campaign agenda, according to a poll released Thursday.

The survey by the non-profit Commonwealth Fund, a charitable group promoting health care reform, found that 82 percent of adults surveyed believe that the US health care system is in need of a complete overhaul.

The random telephone survey of 1,004 adults found broad agreement that the health system should be reorganized to ensure better access and flow of information between doctors and patients.   

The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive in May 2008, found respondents at all income levels dissatisfied with the country's health care system and health insurance programs.  ….continue reading

Senator Hillary Clinton answers a question posed by LRGHealthcare CEO Tom Clairmont during a health care forum held by Clinton in Laconia last year prior to the Presidential Primary.

By David Montero, Carrie Porter

The hottest ticket in town was literally burning the ears of the phone operators Thursday.

That would be the ticket for Barack Obama's Aug. 28 nomination acceptance speech at Invesco Field at Mile High - an event expected to draw 75,000 people on the final night of the Democratic National Convention.

In about a 24-hour period, 60,000 Coloradans had submitted requests for tickets - forcing the Obama campaign to start a waiting list.

The campaign and the Democratic National Convention Committee said more than half of the available seating would go to Colorado residents.

"We're pleased that so many people want to be part of this historic event," Obama spokesman Matt Chandler said. "We've said from the start this is going to be America's convention, and I think we've seen today that it's truly going to be Colorado's convention, too."

An aerial view of Denver's Invesco Field at Mile High looking west from downtown Denver.  An estimated 75,000 people are expected to fill the stadium to hear Senator Barack Obama deliver his nomination acceptance speech.

Using the Obama Web site and a toll-free number, the campaign launched the ticket giveaway Wednesday afternoon.

From 3 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, about 20 volunteers sat in a windowless room at the Pipefitters Local Union 208 in Denver taking calls.

Then, at 9 a.m. Thursday, volunteers again began taking ticket requests. Internet requests could be filled out overnight.

Each phone call took about five minutes.

Volunteers followed a strict script, asking questions to confirm transportation plans, accommodations for disabled visitors, and explaining the two types of tickets offered.    ….continue reading

By Anne E. Kornblut

With the clock running out on preparations for the Democratic convention, advisers to Sen. Barack Obama are scrambling to reach a compromise with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to appease her supporters and find roles for her and her husband.

The Obama and Clinton camps said this week that they agree on a central point: They would like to avoid an embarrassing display of discord from Clinton's most ardent backers when the national convention begins in just over two weeks. Conversations about how to achieve that have increasingly focused on the question of whether Clinton's name will be offered in a roll-call vote by delegates to determine the nominee, even though she has said she is not challenging Obama's claim as the party's standard-bearer.

By Thomas Frank

History records that Paul Weyrich, one of the founders of the Moral Majority, the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups, used to present himself as a soul-brother to the American worker. In his heyday he railed against the "elitist upper class" and established his bona fides by saying, "I come from a poor district of working-class people."

Writing in the Washington Times last week, Mr. Weyrich was back in his old rhetorical neighborhood. The subject was Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, and Mr. Weyrich was writing to celebrate "the best record of accomplishment of anyone in the Bush administration." Read closely, and you get the impression that Ms. Chao's the best secretary of Labor ever. After all, as Mr. Weyrich notes, she has applied stricter regulations to labor unions and has held the line against card-check unionization, which would allow workers to organize a union by signing cards instead of casting ballots.    ….continue reading

Clinton and Obama embrace at Unity, NH.

Clinton confidante Cheryl Mills is working directly with Obama campaign manager David Plouffe to reach an accommodation, both sides confirmed. Clinton has been told that she will probably speak Tuesday night, Aug. 26, two nights before Obama's acceptance speech, and she is working on her remarks, which will touch on her breakthrough as a woman but will be, in the words of one associate, largely "forward looking."    ….continue reading

By John Whitson

MANCHESTER - Trying to differentiate themselves, Jeb Bradley pointed to the practical while John Stephen turned philosophical.

But the 1st congressional district candidates spent most of their hour-long radio debate yesterday morning finding common ground.

Bradley said the main thing that sets him apart from Stephen is a practical reality that should be important to every Republican voter.

"I can beat Shea-Porter," said Bradley. "I'm one of two Republicans in the country polling ahead of a sitting Democrat."

Stephen said there's a more philosophical way to distinguish himself from Bradley.

"I'm a fiscal conservative," said Stephen. "The only one in the race."    ….continue reading

LIMA -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain continued to press his energy policy today, telling an overflow crown of more than 1,000 people that the United States needs to increase off-shore drilling immediately.

Traveling with his wife Cindy and children, Meghan and Andy, the Arizona senator spoke for about an hour at the Veterans Memorial Civic and Convention Center.

He repeatedly called Ohio the Battleground State, and said, "We can win in November if we carry Ohio."

A recent Quinnipiac University poll has Obama 46 percent to 44 percent over McCain in Ohio, but the Quinnipiac pollsters see that as a dead heat, not a lead. But the new poll shows, they said, that in Ohio, McCain closed what had been Obama's earlier lead.    ….continue reading

Senator McCain during a visit to the Lakes Region.

By Brett Zongker

BERWYN HEIGHTS, Md. - Mayor Cheye Calvo got home from work, saw a package addressed to his wife on the front porch and brought it inside, putting it on a table.

Suddenly, police with guns drawn kicked in the door and stormed in, shooting to death the couple's two dogs and seizing the unopened package.   ….continue reading

By Edwin Chen

(Bloomberg) -- On June 10, John McCain lambasted Barack Obama for advocating a new Social Security payroll tax on the wealthy.

``In a time of real crisis, the last thing we want to do is raise people's taxes,'' the Republican presidential candidate said in an interview on Bloomberg Television.

That echoed his refrain throughout the campaign's primary season: As president, he would oppose all tax increases, including those on wages that fund Social Security.

On July 27, he struck a different note.

Asked on ABC Television if he'd consider raising payroll taxes to keep the pension program from going bankrupt, McCain said, ``Everything has to be on the table if we're going to reach a bipartisan agreement.''

That, too, was consistent with his frequent references during the campaign to a 1983 Social Security deal brokered by President Ronald Reagan, House Speaker Tip O'Neill and economist Alan Greenspan, who led a bipartisan commission. What McCain never mentions in his praise of that panel is that it urged hefty tax increases on businesses and employees. McCain, then a newly elected congressman, voted for the proposals.    ….continue reading

By Jerry Markon and Josh White

GUANTANAMO BAY -- A former driver for Osama bin Laden was sentenced by a military jury Thursday to 5 1/2 years in prison for supporting terrorism, a far shorter term than demanded by government prosecutors. The judge gave Salim Ahmed Hamdan credit for five years and one month of his pretrial incarceration at Guantanamo Bay, making him eligible for release from custody in five months.  ...continue reading

By Michael Luo

Updated Senator John McCain's presidential campaign will return all of the contributions solicited by the Jordanian business partner of one of Mr. McCain's most prolific fund-raisers.

The decision caps a frenetic two days in which both the Washington Post and The New York Times published articles scrutinizing a cluster of more than $50,000 in unusual contributions from a single extended family, the Abdullahs, in California and several of their friends.

Several of the contributors, who seemed to be unusual major donors to a political campaign, expressed in interviews indifference or even hostility to Mr. McCain's candidacy.

The donations were credited to Harry Sargeant III, who is the finance chairman for the Florida Republican Party and part-owner of a major oil trading firm. But the contributions were actually solicited by Mustafa Abu Naba'a, a longtime business partner of Mr. Sargeant's.    ….continue reading