ABC News’ Kate McCarthy and Nitya Venkataraman Report:

Former President Bill Clinton says he’s ready to hit the campaign trail for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama “whenever he asks”.

“I just told him that whenever he wanted to do it, I was ready,” Clinton told a room full of reporters, following a news conference at his foundation’s Manhattan headquarters about new agreements that will lower the price of malaria medication.  “It’s basically on their timetable. He’s got a lot of things to do between now and the convention of which this is simply one. So, I’ll do whatever I’m asked to do, whenever I can do it.”

And speaking of the Democratic convention in Denver, Clinton says he’s given “no thought” to whether or not he’d like to headline as one of the speakers.  The relationship between the Obama campaign and the presidential campaign of the former president’s wife New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has only recently begun to heal itself following a hotly-contested battle for the Democratic nomination that ended on June 7 when Sen. Clinton conceded the nomination to Obama.

Clinton also said he hasn’t spoken to Rev. Jesse Jackson since his “hot mic” incident but expressed sympathy for an off-air moment caught on tape and commended Jackson for his quick apology.

“If all of us lived on live mics then 100 percent of us in this room would be embarrassed from time to time.  He’s a good man and he did what he could to make it right,” Clinton said, adding “I think Senator Obama accepted his apology.  I think it’s over.”

As Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were kissing and making up last Friday, Bill Clinton might have had other ideas, according to a report in The (London) Telegraph.

The paper reports that even as the former president and the current presumptive Democratic nominee prepare to meet to make their own amends, Bill Clinton reportedly told close friends Obama can “kiss my ass” to get his support.

The paper cited an anonymous Democratic source who provided the quote. That source also said Clinton is not making the primary effort to bridge the chasm between himself and Obama.

“He’s saying he’s not going to reach out, that Obama has to come to him. One person told me that Bill said Obama would have to quote, ‘kiss my ass,’ close quote, if he wants his support.

“You can’t talk like that about Obama — he’s the nominee of your party, not some house boy you can order around.

“Hillary’s just getting on with it and so should Bill.”

Bill Clinton has more recently cooled his rhetoric toward the de facto party leader, but he has publicly expressed his anger over being painted as a racist and race-baiter while his wife was campaigning against Obama.

In April, Bill Clinton had a fiery exchange with a public radio reporter, who asked him about a controversial statement he made on South Carolina on the day the state held its primary, and whether he regretted comparing Obama’s campaign to Jesse Jackson’s campaigns.

Clinton responded: “No, I think that they played the race card on me, and we now know from memos in the campaign and everything that they planned to do it all along.

“Do I regret saying it? No. Do I regret that it was used that way? I certainly do. But you’ve really got to go some (distance) to portray me as a racist,” Clinton said, adding that he has an office in Harlem, and Jackson told him personally he was not offended.

Following Hillary Clinton’s public display of unity with Obama last week, Bill Clinton and Obama are expected to meet in the coming days.

By Caren Bohan

Former Vice President Al Gore pledged on Monday to do all he could to help Barack Obama win the White House, saying it was crucial the United States has not only a new leader but a new vision for its future.

Gore, one of the most prominent figures in the U.S. Democratic party and known around the world for his push to combat climate change, publicly backed Obama for the first time at a huge rally in Detroit.

He recalled his own presidential bid in 2000 to urge his party to support the Illinois senator in the November election against Republican John McCain.

“Take it from me, elections matter,” said Gore, who lost the election to President George W. Bush eight years ago amid a dispute over the vote in Florida. Gore won the popular vote nationwide but Bush emerged the winner after the Supreme Court ruled in his favour on the disputed Florida balloting.

Gore had remained neutral as Obama and former first lady and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton battled over their party’s nomination. Gore was vice president during the administration of Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton.

At the Detroit rally of about 20,000 people, Gore strongly criticized Bush and said McCain’s policies were too similar to those of the current president.

Highlighting Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003, Gore said he and Obama spoke out publicly against the war in the months leading up to it.

“After eight years of the worst, most serious foreign policy mistakes in the entire history of our nation, we need change,” Gore said.

“We’ve got to have new leadership … not only a new head of state but new vision for America’s future.”

Gore likened Obama to assassinated President John F. Kennedy and told of having stood in the snow when he was 12 years old to watch Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961.

“I know what his inspiration meant to my generation and I feel that same spirit in this auditorium,” he said.

Gore has focused his career since the 2000 election on fighting climate change, writing a book and starring in a documentary on the subject. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his efforts against global warming.

Gore wrote a letter to his supporters urging them to contribute to Obama’s campaign.

“From now through Election Day, I intend to do whatever I can to make sure (Obama) is elected president of the United States,” Gore said in the letter.

“It means a lot obviously,” Obama told reporters when asked earlier in the day about Gore’s support.

“We’ve had ongoing conversations about a whole host of issues. A lot of them have revolved around issues of climate change and energy and the environment. He’s provided good political advice.”

Sacramento, CA (June 9, 2008)— The Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (SHCC) is celebrating the Senate’s recent Budget Resolution that supports $101 million in additional funding for small business programs. Under the leadership of John Kerry (D-Mass) and Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), the resolution was signed last week and provides increased funding for Small Business Development Centers, Women’s Business Centers, microloans, contracting assistance, veteran’s outreach programs, technical assistance programs and increased loan oversight while reducing oversight fees paid by lenders.

“We couldn’t be happier with the Senate’s decision to finally increase funds for small businesses nationwide,” said Diana Borroel, President/CEO of the SHCC. “Many businesses in the Sacramento region are being affected by the slow economy and need even more access to training, capital and procurement opportunities that the SHCC helps to provide. With this new budget resolution, we’ll likely be able to expand our support even more for local entrepreneurs.”

The SHCC offers their members services such as a microloan program, the Sacramento Business Service Center, weekly workshops with procurement opportunities, women focused business education and trainings such as the SCORE program.

The budget blueprint increases funding for:

• Small Business Development Centers to $105 million
• SCORE Program to $7 million
• Microloan funding to $3.6 million and Microloan Technical

Assistance to $20 million. Last year, small businesses received more than $31 million in microloans, proportionally helping more women and minorities than other programs.

Since 1972, The Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has worked tirelessly to promote business, industry, commerce and culture within the Sacramento community for all minority groups. With nearly 700 members, the Chamber seeks to increase better understanding between Spanish-speaking businesses and the community through networking events, advocacy efforts and educational trainings. For more information on the SHCC, please visit www.sachcc.org

The rise and fall of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign can be traced through video - from her first announcement to the apparent suspension of the campaign. Some of the video was scripted fare, much of it wasn’t. Some of it aired on network TV, much of it spread virally online.

And each of the videos was viewed enough to dominate the news for at least a day. Collectively, they helped shape the narrative of her campaign.

What hurt Clinton most, political analysts say, is that she couldn’t consistently use the newfound ubiquity of video to soften her image with voters. Or, as George Washington University Professor and new-media analyst Michael Cornfeld said, “It’s like the Clintons, both of them, had sort of a ‘Sunset Boulevard’ thing going on. They were silent screen stars who couldn’t make the transition to talkies.”

Conquering video in the digital age has less to do with being telegenic or smart, as both Clintons are. Being a politician in the YouTube era means being comfortable with giving up control of your message and realizing that everything you say or do can be uploaded within minutes for the whole world to see - and then mashed up into something new.

Video is the media currency of the millions of young Americans who voted in the primary season this year, many for the first time. Stories told through video percolated to traditional media from blogs and online advocacy sites, from the tirades of Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, to the off-script comments of Bill Clinton.

Authenticity is more prized online than high production values - the only thing worse than being caught in a gaffe is being perceived as overscripted. For much of the first half of the campaign, analysts say, Clinton was overscripted.

“Hillary’s announcement video had really high production values, like it was a made-for-TV movie,” said Dan Manatt, executive producer of PoliticsTV.com, a political video site.

So were her first Web chats, where she answered questions from voters. They may have looked good, but they weren’t the stuff that generates buzz for a campaign.

“The Web values authenticity,” Manatt said, “and these were seen as staged and scripted and inauthentic.”

One Obama supporter seized upon Hillary Clinton’s stilted quality and created the “Vote Different” online video, a mashup of Apple’s famous 1984 Macintosh ad and Clinton’s early Web efforts. It portrayed Clinton as a Big Brother figure and pointed viewers to Obama’s Web site.

An Obama supporter, Phil de Vellis, created it on a Sunday afternoon because he was frustrated with the way politicians were using online video. “They were treating it just like TV. They were broadcasting things online. You have to do more. You have to interact with your audiences.”

Plus, he wanted to show how an individual - using new media tools - could change the course of the campaign.

“We’re starting to see in these campaigns where being seen as too scripted can be seen as a liability,” said Patrick Ruffini, a GOP online strategist and founder of the new the Next Right blog, “in that you can be lampooned for it.”

It’s not like Obama didn’t have his YouTube nightmares - the nation surely has not seen the last of his former pastor. But at the height of the Wright controversy, Obama delivered a long, nuanced speech about race in America. Within a week, nearly 4 million people had watched in on YouTube, and soon the heat on the story died down.

“Even (former GOP presidential candidate and Mormon) Mitt Romney gave a speech on religion, even though it may not have been as good,” Cornfeld said. “But Hillary didn’t try to give that kind of speech about what it meant to be a woman in this race. Two kinds of people needed to hear that speech: men and women. She never really took control of that topic.”

While Clinton reportedly will suspend her campaign Saturday, Nichola Gutgold, an associate professor of communication at Penn State University, said it was important that the nation’s most viable female presidential candidate didn’t quit.

And while her campaign may have made missteps, “she looked like a president,” said Gutgold, author of “Paving the Way for Madam President.”

However, because of the evolving nature of video, sometimes that’s not enough.

  By Joe Garofoli,

Experts in Interactive Media say candidate never progressed beyond traditional uses

The rise and fall of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign can be told through video - from her first announcement to the suspension of her campaign, scheduled for Saturday. Some of the video was scripted fare, much of it wasn’t. Some of it aired on network TV, much of it spread virally online.

And all of it was viewed enough to dominate a news cycle - or in Clinton’s case, the campaign’s narrative.

What hurt Clinton most, political analysts say, is that she couldn’t consistently use the newfound ubiquity of video to soften her image with voters. Or, as George Washington University professor and new media analyst Michael Cornfeld said, “It’s like the Clintons, both of them, had sort of a ‘Sunset Boulevard’ thing going on. They were silent screen stars who couldn’t make the transition to talkies.”

Conquering video in the digital age has less to do with being telegenic or smart - as both Clintons are. Being a politician in the YouTube era means being comfortable with giving up control of your message, and realizing that everything you say or do can be uploaded within minutes for the whole world to see - and then mashed up into something new.

Video is the media currency of the millions of young Americans who voted in the primary seasons, many for the first time. Stories told through video percolated to traditional media from blogs and online advocacy sites, from the tirades of Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, to the off-campaign script comments from Bill Clinton.

Authenticity is more prized online than high production values, as the only thing worse than being caught in a gaffe is being perceived as over-scripted. For much of the first half of the campaign, analysts say Clinton was over-scripted.

“Hillary’s announcement video had really high production values, like it was a made-for-TV movie,” said Dan Manatt, executive producer of PoliticsTV.com, a political video site. So were her first Web chats, where she answered questions from voters. They may have looked good, but they weren’t the stuff that generates buzz for a campaign.

“The Web values authenticity,” Manatt said, “And these were seen as staged and scripted and inauthentic.”

One Obama supporter seized upon Hillary Clinton’s stilted quality and created the “Vote Different” online video, a mash-up of Apple’s famous 1984 Macintosh ad and Hillary’s early Web efforts. It portrayed Clinton as a Big Brother figure, and pointed viewers to Obama’s website.

An Obama supporter, Phil de Vellis, created it on a Sunday afternoon because he was frustrated with the way politicians were using online video. “They were treating it just like TV. They were broadcasting things online. You have to do more. You have to interact with your audiences.” Plus, he wanted to show how an individual - using new media tools - could change the course of the campaign.

“We’re starting to see in these campaigns where being seen as too scripted can be seen as a liability,” said Patrick Ruffini, a GOP online strategist and founder of the new The Next Right blog, “in that you can be lampooned for it.”

It’s not like Obama didn’t have his YouTube nightmares - the nation surely has not seen the last of his former pastor. But at the height of the Wright controversy, Obama delivered a long, nuanced speech about race in America. Within a week, nearly 4 million people had watched it. 

WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton met late Thursday with Barack Obama, a day after saying she would end her quest for the Democratic nomination and endorse the Illinois senator.

A senior Obama campaign official confirmed to OBS News that Obama delayed his departure from Washington Thursday night to meet with Clinton at her home here.

Earlier, Clinton had disavowed efforts by some supporters who have urged Obama to choose her as his running mate.

 by Al Jazeera

Hillary Clinton’s decision to suspend her presidential campaign marks the end of a long, at times bitter, battle with her Democratic rivals, most notably Barack Obama.

The New York senator and former first lady had been her party’s early leading contender to clinch the presidential nomination.

She made US history by becoming the first woman to win a US presidential primary.

However, her campaign was marked by errors, including some comments that were swiftly pounced on by rivals, and the nomination, ultimately, slipped from her grasp.

From the outset of Clinton’s announcement in January last year that she was to enter the US presidential race, she faced a battle with many US voters’ perceptions of her and with perspective rivals.

Many argued that US voters would forever associate her with the scandals of her husband’s tenure in the White House.

But while detractors argued she used her husband’s name to gain political credibility, her supporters charged the hostility stemmed from sexism and emphasised her political experience, both in the US and on the international stage.

Political beginnings

Born Hillary Rodham in the Midwestern US state of Illinois in 1947 to a politically conservative family, Clinton was an excellent student and active in politics from an early age.

Initially a Republican who campaigned for presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and president of the Young Republicans group at Wellesley College, where she majored in political science, Clinton later switched to the Democratic party.

She trained as a lawyer at Yale University, working for child advocacy groups, supporting women’s rights and campaigning on behalf of several Democratic politicians, including Walter Mondale, the former Democratic presidential candidate.

It was at Yale that she met fellow law student Bill Clinton, whom she later married in 1975 in his home state of Arkansas.

She became first lady of the southern state following her husband’s successful bid for the state governorship in 1978, holding the position for more than 10 years. Her only child, daughter Chelsea, was born in 1980.

Following her husband’s leap to national politics and entry to the White House in 1992, Clinton was appointed by her husband as head of a task force aimed at an ambitious overhaul of America’s beleaguered healthcare system.

However, the task force’s recommendations were ultimately rejected by the US congress after Republicans and health professionals criticised the proposals.

In addition to the sting of public failure following the healthcare plan collapse, Clinton also faced a constant struggle against the traditionally perceived role of the first lady, once commenting acerbically that she did not just want to stay at home and “bake cookies” while her husband ran the country.

From scandal to senator

Successive scandals during her husband’s two terms in office, culminating in his unsuccessful impeachment for a liaison with intern Monica Lewinsky, also took their toll on her public image.

Clinton weathered the so-called Whitewater property scandal, but her husband’s liaison with Lewinsky proved harder to ignore.

Clinton later admitted in her autobiography, Living History, that the revelations of her husband’s infidelity wounded her deeply.

In 2000, after the Clintons left the White House, she successfully ran for the US senate for New York state, despite criticism that she had never previously resided in the state.

Foreign affairs

Clinton’s move to the centre of the Democratic party was seen by political analysts as a calculated move to appeal to as broad a base of voters as possible.

However, once on the campaign trail, several of her previous political decisions would come back to haunt her, most specifically, her decision in 2003 to vote in favour of the Iraq war, a vote she later distanced herself from but that proved highly damaging to her campaign.

Clinton was also heavily criticised for hawkish comments on Iran in which she said that, if made president, she would “totally obliterate” Iran should it ever attack Israel, a comment that Obama said smacked of “sabre rattling” and which many commentators said seemed closer to a Republican stance.

And there were further gaffes on the campaign trail - claims of coming under sniper fire in Bosnia which were swiftly disproved, leading to an embarrassing climbdown.

Ultimately, Obama, largely seen as untainted by any scandal or any vote for the Iraq war, garnered a momentum that Clinton simply could not overcome.

While some point to sexism, alleging the US remains unwilling to elect a woman to the highest office, others point to Democratic voters simply unwilling to hand the nomination to a Clinton and creating a political dynasty in one of the world’s largest democracies.

Either way, Clinton now faces a choice - whether to pitch in and aid the Obama campaign as it prepares to take on McCain, to concentrate on her senatorial career, or to look to other avenues.

Whichever route she chooses, it is extremely unlikely that the world has heard the last from Hillary Clinton.

SACRAMENTO, CA – After 14 years at the helm of one of America’s premier teaching and research universities, the University of California, Davis, Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef announced today that he is stepping down in 2009.

Vanderhoef announced plans to take a sabbatical leave for one year starting in June of 2009 and indicated he would return to his duties as a professor of plant biology in 2010.

Two of the milestones achieved during Vanderhoef’s stint at the helm of UC Davis included an expansion of the student body to 30,000 from 22,000 and an increase in faculty size by 44 percent. In addition to the student and teacher growth, over 4 million square feet of classrooms, laboratories, clinical settings, and performance and office space were added including the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

One of the lesser known yet noteworthy activities, especially in terms of current US-Iranian relations, undertaken during the Chancellor’s time in office was an official university delegation trip to Iran to establish academic and cultural ties with the University of Tehran. Deans of the colleges of agricultural sciences and engineering traveled to Iran with the Chancellor in 2004. The prominent Sacramento real estate developer Mohammed Moe Mohanna, a native of Iran, led this delegation which became the most significant U.S. delegation to Iran since the Revolution of 1979.

Mohanna, a well-known international civic leader, is very involved in numerous philanthropic activities and serves on the board of the UC Davis Foundation. When asked about his thoughts on the retirement of Vanderhoef he commented, “Larry is really a remarkable human being. He is a very courageous and visionary leader with global understanding. Larry promotes the internationalization of education and turns nations into people. He has been a champion of crossing boundaries and building bridges. To me, Larry personifies the great American values that we all cherish.”

Vanderhoef faced considerable pressure from others when he agreed to be a part of the delegation and wrote at the time of the trip, “perhaps in the process, one small step can be taken toward a return to normalcy in the Middle East.”

The current president of the University of California, Robert Dynes said of Vanderhoef, “all the other chancellors [of the UC system] and I look to him for wisdom and experience.” UC president-designate Mark Yudof said, “I have, from afar, watched the UC Davis campus go from relative obscurity to the front ranks among the nation’s research universities.”

 By Terri Hardy and Dorothy Korber

Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo is calling for the reopening of a police investigation into a Sacramento High School teacher’s report last year that a 17-year-old student told him she was inappropriately touched by Kevin Johnson, then an administrator at the charter school.

He is one of five candidates challenging Fargo in the June 3 election. Johnson’s campaign could not be reached for comment Wednesday morning.

Fargo said she spoke to Police Chief Rick Braziel after reading an article in Tuesday’s Bee. The newspaper reported that a draft legal document indicates Johnson made a $230,000 confidential settlement to a Phoenix teenager who claimed he molested her in 1995.

No charges against Johnson were filed in Phoenix or Sacramento.

Last year, Sacramento police investigators found the allegation was without merit because the girl had recanted. Before police were called in, Johnson’s personal attorney and business partner, Kevin Hiestand, questioned the girl.

The 159-page Phoenix police report included a conversation between Hiestand and the Phoenix 16-year-old’s therapist. The therapist had reported the girl’s allegations to authorities.

Sacramento police officials plan to meet with the Sacramento District Attorney’s office next week to discuss the case, according to spokesman Sgt. Matt Young.

However, Young said the investigation “remains closed,” adding that the meeting was not called because investigators feel it should be reopened, but is in response to “the inordinate amount of public and media interest this investigation has brought.”

“We need to put this behind us,” Young said. “We have legitimate investigations we need to look into. We have homicides … we have domestic violence cases that we need to allocate our time to.”

Previously, police officials said detectives spent one day investigating the initial allegation by the student that Johnson touched her breasts before concluding the story had no merit. They talked to three people: Erik Jones, the teacher who made the initial report; the girl’s mother and the girl. According to Braziel, the girl was “disappointed in behavior at the school” and Johnson comforted her in public view by placing his hand on her shoulders.

Johnson is the most serious challenger to Fargo in the mayoral race. But Fargo said Wednesday that her push to reopen the investigation against him is not politically motivated. She said she is particularly concerned about possible witness tampering.

“Kevin Johnson’s campaign may think that it is, but it’s not true,” she said. “I haven’t discussed these allegations at forums or campaign events, and I don’t plan to. But, as mayor of Sacramento, the 2007 investigation happened on my watch - and I think these questions need to be addressed.”