Candidates Hit Pause on Campaign, Honor Sept. 11 Victims

Barack Obama and John McCain will cap off their pause in partisan campaigning Thursday at a Columbia University forum where they are expected to lay out their views on national service but keep things civil out of respect for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.The two were headed to the forum, hosted by ServiceNation, after having visited Ground Zero in Manhattan together for a brief ceremony. Neither candidate gave remarks at the site of the devastating attacks. The two rivals were greeted by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg before walking with Cindy McCain down into the pit where the World Trade Center once stood. Michelle Obama remained in Chicago where she scheduled no public events Thursday.Obama and McCain spoke with victims’ families, and then each laid a flower at the simple, circular memorial commemorating the tragedy.Their joint appearances mark the first time the presidential candidates have linked up since before their parties’ national conventions. The two last appeared together in August at a forum held at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in California.Like that discussion, the candidates will be asked questions separately at the Columbia event, but will shake hands between sets and pose for photographs.Tim Zimmermann, spokesman for Be the Change Inc., one of the groups that makes up the broader volunteerism-advocating organization, said the format for Thursday evening’s program is a “free-flowing conversation” between the candidates and the moderators that “honors the tragedy” by focusing on service.“The idea is, it’s 9/11, and we’re hoping to have just a straightforward and very detailed dialogue,” Zimmermann said. “It’s supposed to be a positive conversation, not a partisan conversation.”Thursday was a day for the candidates to hit the reset button after the first post-convention week on the campaign trail was marked by particularly nasty fighting. Both campaigns unleashed legions of supporters to try to define McCain’s previously unknown running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — Obama’s backers tried paint her as a shaky choice for No. 2, while McCain’s rushed to her defense and accused Democrats of sexism.The campaigns were consumed on Wednesday by Obama’s remark the night before about putting “lipstick on a pig,” a comment Obama said was harmless and McCain’s backers claimed was a slur directed at Palin.But the next day the candidates suspended TV ads critical of each other, as they had previously agreed to do.Early in the day, McCain spoke briefly at a simple ceremony in remote, rural Shanksville, Pa., held on a large hilly field close to where United Airlines Flight 93, the third of four airliners commandeered by terrorists, crashed. Investigators of the crash have concluded that some of the 40 passengers and crew rushed the cockpit and thwarted terrorists’ plans to use that plane as a weapon like the ones that hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon. All aboard all four planes died that day.The Arizona senator said those on the flight might have saved his life, as some believe the terrorists wanted to slam that plane into the U.S. Capitol. He said the only way to thank those who died on the flight is to “be as good an American as they were.”“We might fall well short of their standard, but there’s honor in the effort,” McCain said.In a written statement, Obama said that on Sept. 11, 2001, “Americans across our great country came together to stand with the families of the victims, to donate blood, to give to charity, and to say a prayer for our country. Let us renew that.”The Illinois senator added: “Let us remember that the terrorists responsible for 9/11 are still at large, and must be brought to justice.” Zimmermann said the candidates will not be asked the same set of questions Wednesday night in New York City, as they were at the Saddleback Church forum. Instead, the moderators — PBS’ Judy Woodruff and Time magazine’s Richard Stengel — will pull from a broad list of questions, some drafted by them, others submitted through the ServiceNation Web site.The forum kicks off a two-day ServiceNation summit in New York City.
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/11/candidates-hit-pause-on-campaign-honor-sept-11-victims/
As in the days of Noah...