Politics 2008

From The Associated Press

McCain campaign to return donations

WASHINGTON, D.C.—John McCain’s campaign says it is returning tens of thousands of dollars in contributions solicited by a foreign citizen.

The move follows the disclosure that the money was being raised by a Jordanian man who is a business partner of prominent Florida Republican Harry Sargeant III.

The McCain campaign says some of the people solicited by Mustafa Abu Naba’a had no intention of supporting McCain for president.

Campaign spokesman Brian Rogers says “that just didn’t sound right to us” so the money is being returned.

Obama rejects talkof trouble from Clinton backers

CHICAGO—Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Thursday dismissed suggestions that the nominating convention could be marred by tensions between his supporters and the die-hard backers of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Obama told reporters that their staffs were working out mutually agreeable convention logistics. At the same time, Clinton was assuring her supporters in an online chat that she and Obama were “working together to make sure it’s a big success.”

Neither directly answered questions about whether Clinton’s name should be placed in nomination so that her backers could record their votes.

Flying home to Chicago, Obama told reporters on his campaign plane that he talked separately this week to Clinton and her husband, the former president, and that they were enthusiastic about having a smooth convention at the end of the month in Denver.