POLITICS: BALLOTS SAY BARACK OSAMA / MCCAIN SAYS HE’LL WHIP OBAMA / ‘REPUBLICAN MEANS SLAVERY’

Monday, October 13, 2008

Three hundred absentee ballots in Rensselaer County, New York included Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama with his name spelled “Osama”.

County Democratic Chairman Tom Wade said, “Of all the letters to hit by mistake, unfortunately it is a mistake which negatively impacts our Democratic candidate for president.”

Elections officials on both sides insist it was nothing more than a simple typographical error. Republican Commissioner Larry Bugbee added, “We have three different staff members who proof these things and somehow the typo got by us. We really apologize.”

Officials issued new ballots to all 300 voters since any corrections on a ballot nullifies a vote. The Obama campaign announced it was “glad officials are working to correct this error and we assume it won’t happen again”.

When Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain face off in their final presidential debate Wednesday night at Hofstra University in New York, McCain says he’s going to “whip [Obama's] you-know-what”.

Speaking to volunteers at his campaign headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, on Sunday, McCain said:

“After I whip his you-know-what in this debate, we’re going to be going out 24/7.” McCain immediately added: “I want to emphasize again, I respect Senator Obama. We will conduct a respectful race, and we will make sure that everybody else does, too.”

And I’m telling you, we’re coming on and we’re going to work 24/7 for the next — who’s counting — 22 days…I’d like to give you a little straight talk, we’re a couple points down, okay, nationally, but we’re right in this game. The economy has hurt us a little bit in the last week or two, but in the last few days we’ve seen it come back up because they want experience, and they want knowledge and they want vision. And we’ll give that to America, and I know that we’re going to win this race.”

The final debate, which will have the same format as the first, begins at 9pm ET, and will broadcast on major networks ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC, in addition to cable news channels such as C-SPAN, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. The topics include domestic and economic policy and at the end of the debate, each candidate will have the opportunity for a 90-second closing statement.

The vandalism of the York County, South Carolina GOP campaign headquarters is the latest racially-charged event of the presidential election. Volunteers discovered the words “Republican means slavery” spray-painted on the door Saturday.

They also reported about 45 candidate signs had been stolen and a banner with a picture of John McCain had been spray-painted.

Recent McCain rallies have incited spectators to yell comments such as “kill him”, “treason” and “off with his head” when they refer to Sen. Barack Obama.