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President Clinton to campaign for Obama tonight at VCU
Clinton is scheduled to speak at the Virginia Commonwealth University student commons at 9:30 p.m. on behalf of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
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Ahead of Clinton visit, GOP notes he had questioned Obama's readiness
Hours before President Clinton's campaign appearances tonight in Roanoke and Richmond, Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell noted that the former president has previously questioned Obama's credentials. "It is not often that I agree with Bill Clinton," McDonnell said in a statement. "However, President Clinton was right when he repeatedly questioned if Barack Obama has the experience necessary to serve as commander in chief.
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Special Report: Faith and politics
We gathered a group of people from diverse faith backgrounds last week to discuss the role religion plays in politics and the presidential election. Here are some highlights from the conversation.
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Hampton Roads vote seen as key
As Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin head to a rally tomorrow in Virginia Beach, the economy and the plight of urban areas are not the only key issues in Hampton Roads -- an amalgam of 17 cities and counties and 1.6 million people in southeastern Virginia.
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Market plunge is hitting localities
Wall Street's worst tumble since the 1930s and the mortgage meltdown that set it off are biting into state and local governments' coffers. And they might bite taxpayers, too. Cities, counties and states are having a tough time borrowing.
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In Iowa, McCain shifts focus back to economy
Republican John McCain turned away yesterday from attacks on Democrat Barack Obama to pivot back toward policy differences. McCain kept his speech in this Iowa river town focused on the economy and other policies, a striking change from just days ago when his campaign redoubled its challenge to Obama over his association with a former '60s radical. McCain also claimed that American voters didn't really know Obama and his "radical" views.
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State paid Palin church travel
The camera closes in on Sarah Palin speaking to young missionaries, vowing from the pulpit to do her part to implement God's will from the governor's office. What she didn't tell worshippers gathered at the Wasilla Assembly of God church in her hometown was that her appearance that day came courtesy of Alaskan taxpayers, who picked up the $639.50 tab for her airplane tickets and per diem fees.
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Va. McCain official ousted for column
Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign has ousted its Buchanan County chairman for writing a newspaper column deemed racially offensive. The McCain campaign announced it was dropping Bobby May, a Republican political advertising specialist, after it discovered the column commenting on a potential Barack Obama administration.
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Democratic donor Rezko said to be talking in jail
Jailed political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko, the Chicago real estate developer who helped launch Barack Obama on his political career, is whispering secrets to federal prosecutors about corruption in Illinois and the political fallout could be explosive. Democratic Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, whose administration faces multiple federal investigations over how it handed out jobs and money with advice from Rezko, is considered the most vulnerable.
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The economy and local governments
Here is a look across the Richmond region at how the credit crisis and underlying slump in real estate values is affecting local governments -- and might affect taxpayers soon.
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SUVs, trucks to haul in less local revenue
The road to energy independence may leave local and state governments on a dead-end street with personal property taxes. Higher gasoline prices have fueled a steep drop in the value of trucks and sport-utility vehicles -- as well as the sources of government revenue used to pay for transportation and other public services.
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Golden age yields to dark age
If you're among the 116,000 people who work for Virginia, you'd better be a student of its government -- like Ernest Ferguson, a captain at Deerfield Correctional Center. In February, he'll have 31 years with the prison system. Ferguson recalls the gyrations of the budget and how they affected employees -- for good and ill. "I know it's hard times," he said. "I'm thankful I have a job, and I know that the taxpayers pay me."
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Inquiry says Palin abused power in firing official
Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her power as governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, the chief investigator of an Alaska legislative panel concluded yesterday. The politically charged inquiry imperiled her reputation as a reformer on John McCain's Republican ticket.
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Va. budget could face further cuts
It's a legislator's parlor game: batting around alternatives to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's solution for balancing the cash-depleted Virginia budget. No matter what options they propose in January, when the General Assembly returns to Richmond, lawmakers say pain is unavoidable.
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State social services face $86.6 million in reductions
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's budget reductions announced Thursday include reductions of more than $86.6 million to mental health, health and human resources agencies. These are the agencies that make sure people with serious mental illness get treatment, that waters where seafood is harvested are routinely tested for contaminants so consumers don't get sick, that families get the child support due them, among many other things.
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Registration group faces vote-fraud accusations
A Democrat-allied organization is under scrutiny nationally for possible voter registration irregularities. On Tuesday, a Nevada voter-fraud task force raided the state headquarters of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. The group, which works to register low-income people, is accused of submitting multiple voter registrations with duplicate and false names, including names of former Dallas Cowboys players.
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Clarification
Military veterans Brian Pearce and Rusty McGuire say their attendance at a Veterans for Warner event in Richmond, featured in a story on Page B2 yesterday, did not signify their intent to support Mark R. Warner in his race for the U.S. Senate. The Warner campaign said there was a "miscommunication" between the campaign and the two men.
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Va. doctors seek McCain health records
Virginia medical doctors joined a pro-Obama group yesterday demanding that Sen. John McCain fully release his medical records.
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Palin event moves to Richmond track
There's a new location for the rally Monday in Richmond featuring Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the Republican nominee for vice president. Given the "overwhelming demand" for rally tickets, the event is being moved from the Arthur Ashe Center on the Boulevard to Richmond International Raceway on East Laburnum Avenue, near the old state fairgrounds. Doors open at 11 a.m. The event begins at 2 p.m.
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Experience aided Cantor in bailout negotiations
Rep. Eric I. Cantor's personal ties to the mortgage industry helped him play a leading role in the congressional debate over the $700 billion financial bailout.
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Incarcerated youths made signs, cards for 3rd District candidate
Richmond City Council candidate Jonathan Davis found an inexpensive way to get cards and signs printed for his campaign. He used four wards in the state's Youth Industries job-training and apprenticeship program for incarcerated youth. Davis, an advertising design instructor with the program, reported a $1,500 in-kind contribution for design and printing services from the program at the Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center.
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Voters may get to wear slogans
The ACLU of Virginia urged the State Board of Elections yesterday to allow voters to wear T-shirts featuring political messages, or political buttons, when they vote on Nov. 4.
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Seniors blunt in questioning Richmond candidates
A group of Richmond's more seasoned voters subjected the city's five mayoral candidates to an afternoon of spicy and blunt questioning yesterday at Imperial Plaza.
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Beastie Boys to headline Richmond vote concert
The Beastie Boys used to implore you to fight for your right to party. Now they want to remind Richmonders to use their right to vote. The Beastie trio has corralled an eclectic lineup of Sheryl Crow, Jack Johnson, Norah Jones and Santogold for the Swing State Voter Awareness Tour and will bring it to the Richmond Coliseum at 7 p.m. Oct. 28.
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Va. legislators react to Kaine's budget cuts
Virginia legislators won't get a whack at the cash-depleted budget until January, but that's not stopping them from weighing in today on how to balance it.
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Corrections loses 330 slots, will close 6 units
The Virginia Department of Corrections, the state's largest agency with 13,606 employees, will bear the brunt of new state job cuts. Two correctional centers and four smaller facilities will be closed, accounting for more than 250 of the 330 positions the department is eliminating.
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570 layoffs may just be the start
The state will lay off 570 workers, postpone a 2 percent pay raise for state workers and leaving 870 jobs unfilled to help fill the $2.5 billion budget shortfall. But next year could be worse.
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Kaine off to Ariz., Colo. for Obama
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine is hitting the road again to stump for Sen. Barack Obama. Kaine will attend campaign events in Colorado and Arizona on Sunday, according to Charlie Kelly, executive director of Moving Virginia Forward, Kaine's political committee. Kaine, a national co-chairman of the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign, was once a contender to be Obama's vice presidential nominee. He has campaigned for Obama at events in states such as Iowa, Texas and Georgia and has appeared with Obama during visits to Virginia. -- Olympia Meola
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Somber mood around capital
Across the state, employees reacted with trepidation and resignation to the cutbacks in jobs and services that Gov. Timothy M. Kaine rolled out yesterday.
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Reduction strategies
Here are a few examples of how state agencies cut their budgets: <li>The Virginia State Police will postpone the Basic Trooper School until April, saving $2.06 million; hold 27 civilian positions vacant in areas dealing with firearms background checks, criminal history and information technology, saving $1.6 million; and substitute leave for the cash paid to sworn employees for the first three hours worked beyond 40 hours in a week, to save $1.3 million.
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