LACONIA - A dozen-and-a-half local residents were afforded an unusual treat Saturday afternoon at the Woodside at the Taylor Community.  For nearly two hours they took advantage of an opportunity to sit and converse with First District U.S. Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter who was a guest of Taylor Community resident Peg Plummer.

"This is the kind of experience we've come to treasure here in New Hampshire," observed NH Rep. Judie Reever, who, with Ms. Plummer, co-hosted the event.  "I don't know of anyplace else in the country where voters enjoy and expect this kind of access to their elected officials."

U.S. Representative Carol Shea-Porter led a group of local residents in a discussion on issues and the upcoming elections during a gathering at the Taylor Community in Laconia on Saturday.

Although Reever had hoped for a larger turnout she acknowledged that the modest gathering allowed for an unusually intimate conversation, with participants seated in a circle wide enough to accommodate everyone, and yet tight enough that everyone could comfortably hear and join in the discussion.   ….continue reading

By Anne E. Kornblut

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Sen. Barack Obama introduced Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. as his vice presidential running mate here on Saturday, embracing him as a "statesman with sound judgment" who had never forgotten his humble roots or lost his fundamental decency.

"Joe Biden is that rare mix. For decades, he has brought change to Washington, but Washington hasn't changed him," Obama (Ill.) said.

The announcement -- made official only hours earlier -- capped weeks of speculation and brought an infusion of experience and aggressiveness to the Democratic ticket two days before the start of the convention in Denver.

Presumptive Democratic Party Presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and his wife Michelle join Jill and her husband Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.), Obama's choice as a running mate in waving to the crowd on a hot, sweltering day in Springfield, Ill. where the formal announcement of Biden's pick was made.

Biden, 65, a sharp-witted and energetic foreign policy expert who has held two of the most critical Senate chairmanships, bounded out onto the stage just after 2 p.m. Central time. The senator from Delaware hugged Obama and then, taking the podium as the vice presidential candidate for the first time, eagerly assumed the role of attack dog against the presumptive Republican nominee.

Biden said Sen. John McCain -- although a longtime friend -- has "yielded to the very Swift boat politics he once deplored" during the course of the current race. And he made fun of McCain for recently forgetting that he owns seven properties, saying McCain cannot understand what struggling Americans discuss over their kitchen tables.    ….continue reading

By Sam Youngman

If Barack Obama wanted his vice presidential pick Joseph Biden to be an attack dog for the Democratic ticket, he did not have to wait long to see the Delaware senator fill that role.

In their first joint appearance together, Biden went right at Republican candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). While he called him a friend, Biden warned that "the harsh truth" is that McCain would offer four more years of Bush administration policies.

Sen. Obama (Ill.), standing at the old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., introduced Biden as "one of the finest public servants of our time," and highlighted the Delaware senator's past tragedies and legislative record.

Biden said that while he and Obama "come from very different places, we share a common story, an American story."    ….continue reading

By J. Taylor Rushing

Democratic Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen on Saturday blasted the Bush administration's fiscal policies, saying that GOP presidential candidate John McCain and her opponent John Sununu offer only more failure.

Shaheen, who has a 10-point polling lead over Sen. Sununu (R-N.H.), gave the Democratic response to President Bush's national radio address. She took the opportunity to take a slap at "the same old Bush-McCain-Sununu agenda."

"They have protected billions in tax giveaways for Big Oil and tax loopholes for businesses who ship jobs overseas," Shaheen said. "Rather than making a serious commitment to the development of clean alternative energy that can transform our economy and create thousands of new jobs. But just over a week from now, Republicans will assemble at their convention, and ask you for four more years of the same."   ….continue reading

By Frank Rich

AS the real campaign at last begins in Denver this week, this much is certain: It's time for Barack Obama to dispatch "Change We Can Believe In" to a dignified death.

This isn't because -- OMG! -- Obama's narrow three- to four-percentage-point lead of recent weeks dropped to a statistically indistinguishable one- to three-point margin during his week of vacation. It's because zero hour is here. As the presidential race finally gains the country's full attention, the strategy that vanquished Hillary Clinton must be rebooted to take out John McCain.

"Change We Can Believe In" was brilliantly calculated for a Democratic familial brawl where every candidate was promising nearly identical change from George Bush. It branded Obama as the sole contender with the un-Beltway biography, credibility and political talent to link the promise of change to the nation's onrushing generational turnover in all its cultural (and, yes, racial) manifestations. McCain should be a far easier mark than Clinton if Obama retools his act.

What we have learned this summer is this: McCain's trigger-happy temperament and reactionary policies offer worse than no change. He is an unstable bridge back not just to Bush policies but to an increasingly distant 20th-century America that is still fighting Red China in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in the cold war. As the country tries to navigate the fast-moving changes of the 21st century, McCain would put America on hold.    ….continue reading

By Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg

WASHINGTON -- In the beginning, Senator Barack Obama was not entirely sold on Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. And Mr. Biden told friends that he was pessimistic of his chances of becoming Mr. Obama's Democratic running mate.

Over the course of two months, as the dynamics of the presidential campaign and world events shifted quickly, Mr. Biden's stock rose through one of the most rigorous vice-presidential vetting processes that Democrats could recall. It was a process in which Mr. Obama applied intense secrecy, careful pragmatism and political input from a team of internal and external advisers that have guided his campaign from the start. And it ended Thursday with a phone call from Mr. Obama, who reached Mr. Biden as he was at a dentist's office where he had taken his wife to have a root canal.

On Saturday, as the two men embraced before a crowd in Illinois, the new Democratic partnership made its debut. Yet in a moment that could have showcased Mr. Obama's decision-making, his top advisers made a concerted effort not to disclose how he made his choice, instead choosing to showcase the life stories of the two men on the ticket and to present Mr. Biden as a forceful new critic of Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona.    ….continue reading

By Alister Bull and Mark Felsenthal

A towering grizzly bear guards the doorway to the Federal Reserve's annual policy retreat in this Teton Mountain resort, serving a reminder to central bankers of the battle to sooth the credit crunch.

"This turmoil is not going to go away quickly and will require serious efforts to overcome it," a top official of the International Monetary Fund, John Lipsky, told Reuters.

"A year ago there was a real sense of uncertainty and confusion. People were perplexed by the turmoil that had come on quite suddenly. I would say the mood this year is one of greater clarity...let's call it a bit more somber," said Lipsky, the IMF's first deputy managing director.   ….continue reading

By Arthur Max

From confronting Russia to dealing with climate change, Barack Obama's selection of Sen. Joe Biden as his vice presidential candidate Saturday was seen abroad as adding weight and depth to the foreign policy of a potential Obama administration.

European analysts said the crisis in the Caucasus provided an appropriate backdrop to Biden's nomination.

In Accra, experts attending a U.N. climate change convention said Obama was sending a strong signal of change on what many see as a foreign policy debacle by the outgoing Bush administration regarding the battle against global warming.

"Biden owes his selection to (Russian Prime Minister Vladimir) Putin," said French political analyst Dominique Moisi. "Russia's invasion of Georgia reinforced the American worry about international tensions." The choice of the foreign affairs veteran was intended to reassure the electorate concerned about Obama's lack of credentials, Moisi said.

In Britain, the North America editor for the British Broadcasting Corp., Justin Webb, said Biden was "Vladimir Putin's contribution to American politics -- he is a necessary antidote to the Obama lack of worldly wisdom, which before Georgia was a bit academic to most Americans."    ….continue reading