CAMPAIGN REPORT: Obama staffers approach Emanuel

Barack Obama’s campaign has approached Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel about possibly serving as White House chief of staff, officials said Thursday.

Emanuel worked in President Bill Clinton’s White House and is now a member of the House Democratic leadership. An aide, Sarah Feinberg, said in an e-mail that Emanuel “has not been contacted to take a job in an administration that does not yet exist.”

Both Obama and his Republican rival, John McCain, have authorized aides in recent weeks to begin work on a transition.

McCain attacks with ‘robo-calls’

John McCain and his allies are using “robo-calls” and fliers to revive the issue of Barack Obama’s ties to a convicted felon.

“Obama needs to come clean on this deal before the election so that the voters can judge whether Obama received monetary benefits,” says an automated phone call by McCain’s campaign about a financial transaction between Obama and Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

Mailers to voters in swing states make similar claims, and a conservative group filed an ethics complaint Thursday with the Senate.

McCain offers no evidence of wrongdoing and raises no new allegations. Instead, he and his supporters claim Obama hasn’t been forthcoming about his involvement with Rezko.

But Obama has given extensive interviews on the subject to Chicago newspapers, and a Chicago Tribune editorial praised his openness on the subject.

Obama’s campaign responded sharply, accusing McCain of “desperate and angry attacks.”

It also noted that McCain was reprimanded for his role in the “Keating Five” savings and loan scandal of the 1980s.

“We will accept no lectures from the man who was a central figure in the biggest Washington scandal in recent memory,” Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said.

Murtha hunts for last-minute cash

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) scrambled to raise money to shore up support against a GOP challenger who has gained momentum since Murtha said some residents of his western Pennsylvania home base were racist.

Murtha, a powerful 17-term Democrat, is being challenged by William Russell, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who moved from Virginia to Johnstown to run against him. Murtha was considered safe for re-election until, talking about whether Barack Obama could win Pennsylvania, he recently told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “There is no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area.” He apologized, but then later told WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh, that “this whole area, years ago, was really redneck.”

Dole questions faith of challenger

Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.), who speaks often about prayer and faith, is making an issue of religion in her re-election campaign.

In a television ad this week, Dole questioned the Christian credentials of Democratic challenger Kay Hagan. The state senator responded angrily, filing a lawsuit Thursday and airing an ad of her own that says Dole is breaking the Bible’s Ninth Commandment by bearing false witness.

Dole’s 30-second advertisement shows clips of some members of an atheist advocacy group —- the Godless Americans Political Action Committee —- talking about some of their goals, such as taking “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance and removing “In God We Trust” from U.S. currency. It goes on to question why Hagan went to a fund-raiser at the home of a man who serves as an adviser to the group and ends with a picture of Hagan while another woman declares in the background, “There is no God!”

Hagan is a Presbyterian church elder who teaches Sunday school. On Wednesday, her attorneys demanded the ad come down within 24 hours. On Thursday, they filed a lawsuit accusing Dole of defamation and libel.