John and Elizabeth Edwards sat in the front row of Barack Obama’s Raleigh, NC, speech today, where the presumptive Democratic nominee talked about the economy. “I don’t think there are two people in the country who have done more to elevate the debate about politics, who have focused on critical issues like health care, and who’ve made us all think about our obligations to create one America,” Senator Obama noted at the top of his speech.

When talking about his health care plan, Obama gestured towards Mrs. Edwards and told the approving crowd, “By the way, I’m gonna be partnering up with Elizabeth Edwards. We’re gonna be figuring all this out.”

While John Edwards endorsed Obama at a rally in Michigan last month, Elizabeth Edwards kept mum on her choice, causing many to speculate that she had in fact parted ways with her husband and supported Senator Clinton.

An Obama spokesperson noted this won’t be an official partnership.

In a lighter moment during his Virginia town hall focusing on health care, 95-year-old Charles Edwards presented the Democratic frontrunner with a handmade walking stick.

“I’ve only got one question for Mr. Edwards – what do you eat so I can look good like you when I’m 95? What’s the secret to looking that good when you’re 95?” Obama wondered.

Mr. Edwards’ secret? “Work hard and eat meals three times a day.”

As Obama admired the maple gift he joked, “If Members of Congress don’t pass my health care bill,” he said, stick in hand. “I’m ready! I’ll whoop ‘em. I’ll whoop ‘em! That’s right. They better not mess with me. I’ll have that stick.” On the stump, Obama promises to pass a health care plan by the end of his first term.

Communications Director Robert Gibbs walked past the press area and exclaimed his eagerness to bring the stick on the plane. Hmmm

At a town hall in Roseburg, Oregon, Barack Obama took on Republican John McCain on both foreign policy and domestic issues - over and over and over again. All the while, Obama assured the crowd that the differences between Hillary Clinton and himself “pale in comparison” with differences Democrats have with the presumptive Republican nominee.

For the second day in a row, Obama took issue with George Bush’s appeasement comments as well as John McCain’s questioning Obama’s ability to keep the country safe. “If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy, led by the President of the United States, then they can explain why they have a problem with John F Kennedy because that’s what he did with Krushchev, or Ronald Reagan, ’cause that’s what he did with Gorbachev, or Richard Nixon ’cause that’s what they did with Mao. That’s exactly the kind of diplomacy we need to keep us safe,” Obama said defiantly.

Obama then moved onto domestic issues, criticizing McCain’s health care plan and likened it to the president’s policies over the past eight years. “Like George Bush, he’s offering a plan that works great if you’re already healthy and wealthy, but if you don’t have health care or if you’re struggling to pay for it, John McCain’s only answer is a tax cut that won’t guarantee coverage and wont make it affordable,” he observed, adding, “I don’t think that the American people can afford to double down on the failed health care policies of the Bush years, I believe we need to end them.”

And he didn’t stop there - during the Q&A, Obama dismissed McCain’s record on fuel efficiency and the environment. “For him to come to Oregon as an environmental president, but his big strategy is to do more drilling and to have a gas tax holiday for three months, that’s a phony solution,” he said. “John McCain has consistently been opposed to fuel efficiency standards, to raising fuel efficiency standards on cars. How is he gonna meet any of these targets? Maybe he’s kind of imagining it the way he did imagining get out of the war in Iraq,” he said caustically.

For good measure, Obama noted McCain has not announced plans to fix Social Security or to reduce college tuition costs. Obama concluded, “He hasn’t said, because this is not something that he thinks necessarily is a priority.”

If there was any doubt that Obama believes the Democrats will unite to take on John McCain, he made it clear today. “So that’s the debate that we’re looking forward to having and I believe that whoever the Democratic nominee is, that the other person is going to be standing right next to ‘em making the case for fundamental change for America.”

The McCain camp, of course, weighed in on Obama’s Oregon Offensive, saying the junior senator from Illinois showed “weak judgment” by his willingness to bring the Iranian president to the world stage, and defended the Arizona senator’s commitment to increasing fuel standards, by sending out a list of times the Republican  has voted for strengthening CAFE standards.

PORTLAND, Ore — After a day of attacking Barack Obama for failing to agree to a Democratic debate, for failing to agree with her plan for a federal gas tax holiday, and for failing to side with the forces of good on the 2005 “Dick Cheney Energy Bill,” Hillary Clinton went back to attacking him on what she’s called the driving force behind her campaign — for failing to provide universal health care.

Speaking to reporters and patients bundled against the cold in a chilly courtyard here at a local children’s hospital, Clinton zeroed in on what she called the “artificial distinction” between children and adults in Obama’s health care plan. Obama would mandate coverage for kids, but not for adults — a proposal Clinton called “unworkable.”

“You have to have a seamless health care system which covers every single person. My plan does, my opponent’s doesn’t,” she said. “There are 600,000 uninsured Oregonians. Under my plan, everyone would be covered. Under his plan at least 220,000 would still be left uninsured.”

“This is a big difference in this campaign. And really, it’s not a difference of politics as much as commitment.”

Clinton’s chances for the nomination seem slimmer with each passing hour, as superdelegates are flocking to Obama. But Clinton seemed energized as she spoke about the issue that has been at the center of her campaign.

“I deeply, deeply believe that we’ve got to get to universal health care. And if you don’t start in favor of universal health care, you’ll never get there,” she said. “How can anybody run to be the Democratic nominee for president and not have a universal health care plan?”

“This is a huge difference, and it’s one that I obviously feel very passionately about,” she said.

Health care has gotten short shrift on the Clinton campaign trail as she’s focused on the economy of late. As his candidacy seemed less and less viable, John Edwards returned to his chief issue of poverty - and asked the remaining candidates to take up his cause. Though Clinton aides insist she’s a long way from dropping out, we may look back on this event in the coming weeks and see an impassioned plea for Senator Obama to take up the mantle of universal health care in her absence.

McCain launched a new TV ad Friday focusing on his health care plan that is set to air in the key swing state of Ohio.

The ad lauds his health care plan but is notable for one graphic at the top of the ad. While you watch video of McCain walking at the beginning, notice that the words “President McCain,” are displayed on the left side of the screen, as opposed to say, “McCain for President.” About 200 more days and a general election to go there team McCain…

Bonita Springs, FL — Elizabeth Edwards, who has quickly become the go-to voice in opposition to the McCain health care plan plan, lambasted the presumptive GOP nominee’s speech today as “the most radical plan ever suggested by a presidential candidate.”

“”We need to move towards universal coverage. The Democrats have plans that with those goals in mind and Senator McCain’s plan seems to have only the insurance companies in mind. It’s a tremendous disappointment,” Edwards said in a conference call hosted by the Center for American Progress.

Responding to McCain’s criticism that that the Democrats’ plans for universal health care would create an “inefficient” government monopoly, Edwards said the Republican needed to look in the mirror.

“Nobody on the Democratic side is proposing anything nearly as radical, or nearly as government-centric as what Senator McCain is suggesting,” Edwards said. “If you’re poor or you’re sick, you are going to find it extraordinarily difficult to purchase insurance. It will be much more expensive for you, if it’s available at all.”

Edwards also couldn’t resist painting McCain as a flip-flopper on the health insurance issue.

“It used to be that Senator McCain was the person you looked for to stand up to special interests like the insurance companies. We are seeing a different John McCain now,” she said, adding that he is now “capitulating” to industry interests.

Tampa, FL– Getting more Americans health insurance and rebuilding the ailing U.S. health care system is about giving more power to the individual, Sen. John McCain declared Tuesday.

“The key to real reform is to restore control over our health-care system to the patients themselves,” he said in a speech at the University of South Florida–as he touted the power of the free market as the solution to the problem of nearly 47 million uninsured Americans. “Families should only pay for getting the right care: care that is intended to improve and safeguard their health….Americans need new choices beyond those offered in employment-based coverage. Americans want a system built so that wherever you go and wherever you work, your health plan goes with you.”

Flanked on stage by nearly 50 medical professionals, many in white doctor’s coats, McCain restated a number of aspects of the plan he initially laid out last fall–albeit with some new details–which at it’s heart offers a tax credit ($5,000 for families and $2,500 for individuals) for health insurance. The goal he says is to offer an alternative to employer-based coverage (as he will eliminate the current tax exclusion for people who receive coverage through work) and create an open market that will require insurance companies to compete for customers. The speech came in conjunction with a new health care ad (see above) set to air in the key swing state of Iowa.

McCain took a few shots at his Democratic rivals’ plans, which offer universal or near-universal coverage, arguing that they “will replace the inefficiency, irrationality, and uncontrolled costs of the current system with the inefficiency, irrationality, and uncontrolled costs of a government monopoly.” McCain also called on both Sens. Obama and Clinton to support medical liability reform if they are “sincere” about putting “the needs of patients before the demands of trial lawyers.”

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With Barack Obama hammering away at her on trade in the industrial state of Ohio, Hillary Clinton took her shots at Obama on health care in one of the forgotten March 4th states — Rhode Island, where that issue is at the top of voters’ minds.

“I was pleased when he agreed with me that we should have clean energy jobs, what I call green collar,” she said. “I have been somewhat disappointed that he doesn’t agree with me on a moratorium and an interest rate freeze when it comes to stopping the home foreclosures.”

“But of all our differences, the one that is just inexplicable to me is his refusal to put forth a plan on universal health care, and his continuing attacks on my plan to do so.”

Senator Clinton often cites independent studies claiming Obama’s plan would leave 15 million Americans uninsured — while hers provides a mandate that everyone purchase health care coverage.

Today, however, she went further — accusing Obama of mischaracterizing his own health care proposal.

“Senator Obama says one thing in speeches, but his campaign does something else,” she said

. “In his speech, he says he’s for universal health care, but his plan is not. His plan cannot cover everyone, because there is no requirement that people be covered.”

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Senator Barack Obama defended mailers sent out to Ohio voters last week on Hillary Clinton’s NAFTA and health care records, after Hillary Clinton scolded him for distributing them.

At an impromptu media availability in Columbus, Ohio, today, Mr. Obama called the mailers “accurate” and questioned Clinton’s tactics for her animated display this morning, since, he pointed out, the mailers were days if not weeks old. The frontrunner had not seen his rival’s fiery charges (capped off with a, “Shame on you, Barack Obama.”), but did laugh and say, “I hear it’s exciting.”

Here is what Obama said about the mailers and his response to Clinton’s claim that he pulled a page out of the Karl Rove playbook.

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Obama’s media availability was scheduled shortly after a reporter shouted out a question on the issue as the candidate finished up a roundtable forum on healthcare. Walking out of the room, Obama said that the event was not a press conference. While the press filed and grumbled that the last press conference was 5 days before, Senator Obama did a series of interviews, including two with Entertainment Tonight and The Insider.

Moments later, staffers announced there would be an avail after all. Obama first recognized the reporter who regularly covers the candidate, with a smile. “I don’t know if I should be rewarding you for shouting out to me,” he said. “I’m just doing my job,” the reporter responded.

Let the questions begin.

He lived for fifty years in the United States without the ability to speak. Born with a condition known as cleft palate–a birth defect that, in most cases, is easily correctable–James Lowe was without a voice until well into his adult life. A retired coal miner from West Virginia, Lowe had no health insurance. His condition was not addressed until a doctor from a free health clinic came to his home and fixed it.

This is the story that presidential candidate John Edwards tells as he travels throughout the state of Iowa to rally support in the final weeks before the caucuses. For Mr. Edwards, Lowe’s plight is symbolic of all Americans who cannot afford health care–and an inspiration for his new TV ad titled “Voice,” calling for a universal health care plan, which he says has been opposed by entrenched special interest groups. The belief that health care is every individual’s right–not a privilege–has become a cause that the former senator pledges to fight for in his run for the White House.

“He had no voice for 50 years, because with no health care, he couldn’t get a simple operation,” Edwards says in the ad.

“Fifty years without a voice — in America. This is wrong. It is immoral. When are we going to stop letting drug companies, insurance companies and their lobbyists run this country?”