At a 1,000 dollar a plate fundraiser in midtown Manhattan, Vice President Dick Cheney said there is “no doubt in my mind” that John McCain will win in November.

Addressing over 700 people at the New York State Republican Committee Dinner, Cheney spoke about the importance of electing McCain and that voters have a vital choice in front of them. He went after the Democrats saying they are not serious about fighting terrorism, “The choice is going to be very clear. On one side is the Democratic Party lead by the likes of Senator Harry Reid who said more than a year ago that the war in Iraq was lost,” Cheney said, “On the other side of this divide is the Republican Party whose leaders have supported the war on terror regardless of what the polls say or the pundits declare. A Republican party whose presidential nominee has served this country with courage.”

He went on to describe McCain as a nominee that represents “genuine American heroism.” He spent part of his speech mentioning Democrats that believe in a “strong defense” and that came to the realization the party had become “too left-wing” like Zell Miller, who spoke at the 2004 Republican convention; former New York City Mayor Ed Koch; and Connecticut senator and McCain supporter, Joe Lieberman.

Cheney urged the Republican crowd to put their “shoulder to the wheel” to help elect McCain. Despite President Bush’s high disapproval ratings and only appearing with the Republican presumptive nominee for 47 seconds in public after a joint fundraiser this week, the Vice President said they will be campaigning for Republican candidates, “President Bush and I look forward to helping our candidates up and down the ticket throughout the important election year and the stakes are very high whether the issue is the economy or energy or the federal courts or national security the right answers for our nation are not coming from Democrats but from Republicans.”

Cheney also went after the Democrats on energy policy and potentially letting the Bush tax cuts lapse, but he did not mention either of McCain’s rivals by name. However, he did open up his address with a joke referring to Hillary Clinton, “The junior senator from New York has begun calling me Darth Vader. I asked my wife recently if it didn’t bug her when people called me that. She said no it humanizes you.”

Watch part of Vice President Cheney’s speech here:

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Former New York City mayor and presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani also addressed the excited crowd. They chanted “Ruuuuuudy!” as he took the stage. Giuliani jokingly noted that this was the most Republicans he had seen in Manhattan in a long time.

Watch part of Rudy Giuliani’s speech here:

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Sen Clinton told a Wisconsin audience over the weekend that she’d been on hunting trips in years past… but when asked about it by reporters would only reveal that she’d once bagged a duck in Arkansas.

In Wausau, WI today, Clinton gave the dirty details of her duck hunting days — revealing that she surprised all her male companions when she shot that banded mallard out of the sky.

Her prowess with a gun led one Wausau resident to ask “As long as you know how to use a gun, would you be willing to show vice president Cheney how to use his?”

She joked that the world should worry about the Vice President once he’s gone. “Once he his out of office the secret service is not around to protect people from him. We better be careful about where he goes hunting. Safety protocol would be useful, don’t you think?”

Check out Hillary’s hunting tale below.

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