Democrats were to launch a star-studded party to rally around Senator Barack Obama’s historic White House bid yesterday, with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton set for a symbolic gesture of unity after their tense primary showdown.
Obama, 47, who will become the first black presidential nominee, said on Sunday he would try to convince voters he is just a normal middle class American despite his exotic upbringing and Republican claims he is an elitist.
“You’ll find out, ‘he’s pretty much like us,’” Obama told supporters referring to himself, days after lambasting his Republican rival Senator John McCain for being unable to say how many homes he owns with his multi-millionaire wife.
Though the Democratic National Convention is Obama’s moment in the spotlight, his former foe Clinton will be watched almost as closely, under intense pressure to unify Democrats after their bitter nominating clash.
As Republicans picked at the wounds of their marathon battle, a Democratic official said on condition of anonymity that Clinton was expected to release her haul of delegates, leaving them free to vote for Obama in tomorrow’s symbolic roll-call vote.
The former first lady will host a reception for her delegates piled up in a countrywide string of primaries and caucuses in the first six months of this year, a day after addressing the convention tonight.
Republicans however are attempting to play on the anger of Clinton supporters who feel their heroine was deprived of her rightful spot as the nominee, or even a vice presidential nod, partly through sexism.
A hard-hitting McCain political ad said Clinton had been passed over for “speaking the truth” about Obama’s political agenda during their acrimonious battle.
“The truth hurt and Obama didn’t like it,” said the ad, issued a day after the presumptive Democratic nominee chose foreign policy expert Senator Joseph Biden as his No. 2.
Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani meanwhile said that Obama, whom Republicans say is woefully inexperienced, had been too weak to put a formidable figure like Clinton on the ticket.
A new USA Today/Gallup survey yesterday suggested that the general election was still up for grabs, with voters harboring misgivings about each candidate.
Half of those polled said Obama “may be too closely aligned with people who hold radical political views” and 57 percent said they were concerned he lacked the experience to be an effective president.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
‘ANONYMOUS 64’: A national security official said that it is an attempt by China to increase domestic anti-Taiwanese sentiment and inflame cross-strait tensions The Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM) yesterday denied accusations by China that it had undermined regional security by carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, adding instead that Beijing was responsible for raising tensions and undermining regional peace. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on WeChat accused a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of targeting China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year through frequent cyberattacks. The group carried out cyberattacks to seize control of Web sites, outdoor electronic billboards and video-on-demand platforms in China, Hong Kong and Macau, it said, adding the hackers’