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篇一：Romney, Obama try to eke out a win in campaign's last days

Romney, Obama try to eke out a win in campaign's last days DUBUQUE, Iowa/MENTOR, Ohio - After months spent rallying their most reliable supporters, Republican Mitt Romney and US President Barack Obama reached out on Saturday to the small sliver of voters who remain undecided in the final days before Tuesday's presidential election.

With the race in a dead heat nationally, both candidates hopscotched across the country in a bid to secure any possible advantage ahead of Election Day. That meant another round of campaigning in the handful of states that remain competitive and a last-minute effort to pull votes from the other side.

US President Barack Obama speaks at a campaign event at Mentor High School in Ohio, Nov 3, 2012.[Photo/Agencies]

At airport rallies in New Hampshire and Iowa, Romney urged supporters to try to sway friends and neighbors who back Obama. He said he would reach out to Democrats as well if elected - a stance that could appeal to independent voters who have little stomach for partisan gridlock.

Romney

has tried to expand the battlefield over the past week to states that had been

considered beyond his reach.

The storm has afforded the Democrat an opportunity to rise above the fray of campaigning. But it has also raised the stakes for him to show his administration can respond quickly and effectively in a crisis, as residents of New York and New Jersey vent frustration at power outages and gasoline shortages.

"He's focused on it every moment he's not speaking on the stage," Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters aboard Air Force One.

"I want you to reach across the street to the neighbor, who has that other sign in his front yard. And I'm going to reach across the aisle in Washington, D.C., to the politicians who are working for the other candidate," Romney told about 2,000 people at an airport rally in Dubuque, Iowa.

In Ohio, Obama hammered Romney for opposing his bailout of the auto industry and trying to scare workers.

"I understand that Governor Romney's having a hard time here in Ohio because he was against saving the auto industry," Obama said. About one in eight jobs in Ohio is tied to auto manufacturing. The bailout appears to have boosted Obama's prospects in the Rust Belt state, especially among the working-class white men who are heavily backing Romney in much of the rest of the country.

"I've been a Republican for 35 years and I've never voted for a Democrat on the federal level - until now," retiree Patrick Dorsey said as he waited for Obama to speak. "Economically, Romney's just going to make the rich richer."

Tight race in polls

Romney will have a hard time winning the White House if he does not carry Ohio, and a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Saturday showed him trailing Obama by a statistically meaningless margin of 1 percentage point in the state. Other polls show him trailing by a larger margin in Ohio.

The race for the White House remains effectively tied at a national level with 47 percent backing Obama and 46 percent backing Romney, according to a Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll released on Saturday.

The narrow scope of the race has been evident for months but it was shown vividly on Saturday, when Obama was due to campaign in Dubuque six hours after Romney's visit.

Still, analysts say Obama holds an edge in many of the eight or nine competitive states that will determine who controls the White House. Reuters/Ipsos polls released on

Saturday showed Obama leading by 3 percentage points in Virginia but trailing by 2 points in Colorado. The two were dead even in Florida. All the results were within the credibility interval, a measurement of the accuracy of online polls.

Other surveys generally show Obama leading by narrow margins in Wisconsin, Nevada, New Hampshire and Iowa. Romney is considered to have the edge in North Carolina.

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篇二：Newsmaker Interview

Newsmaker Interview: Vice President Joe Biden

JIM LEHRER: And now to our newsmaker interview with the vice president of the United States.

I spoke with Vice President Biden this afternoon in the Secretary of War suite at the Old Executive Office Building in Washington -- the first subject, the protests in Egypt.

Mr. Vice President, welcome.

U.S. VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Good to be with you, Jim.

JIM LEHRER: Has the time come for President Mubarak of Egypt to go, to stand aside?

JOE BIDEN: No, I think the time has come for President Mubarak to begin to move in the direction that -- to be more responsive to some of the needs of the people out there.

These are -- a lot of the people out there protesting are middle-class folks who are looking for a little more access and a little more opportunity.

And the two things we have been saying here, Jim, is that violence isn’t appropriate and people have a right to protest. And so -- and we think that -- I hope Mubarak, President Mubarak, will -- is going to respond to some of the legitimate concerns that are being raised.

JIM LEHRER: You know President Mubarak.

JOE BIDEN: I know him fairly well.

JIM LEHRER: Have you talked to him about this?

JOE BIDEN: I haven’t talked to him in the last three days.

I -- last time I -- actually, I haven’t talked to him in about a month. But I speak to him fairly regularly. And I think that, you know, there’s a lot going on across that part of the continent, from Tunisia into -- all the way to Pakistan, actually. And there’s -- a lot of these countries are beginning to sort of take stock of where they are and what they have to do.

JIM LEHRER: Some people are suggesting that we may be seeing the beginning of a kind of domino effect, similar to what happened after the Cold War in Eastern Europe. Poland came first, then Hungary, East Germany.

We have got Tunisia, as you say, maybe Egypt, who knows. Do you smell the same thing coming?

JOE BIDEN: No, I don’t.

I wouldn’t compare the two. And you and I used to talk years ago about what was going on in Eastern Europe.

JIM LEHRER: Yes.

JOE BIDEN: A lot of these nations are very dissimilar. They’re similar in the sense that they’re Arab nations, dissimilar in the circumstance.

For example, Tunisia has a long history of a more progressive middle class, a different set of circumstances, a different relationship with Europe, for example. And the difference between Tunisia and Egypt is real, beyond the fact that Egypt’s the largest Arab country in the world.

So, I don’t see any direct relationship, other than there seems -- it might be argued that what is happening in one country sparks whatever concern there is in another country. It may not be the same concern. It may not be even similar, but the idea of speaking out in societies where, in the recent past, there hadn’t been much of that occurring.

But I don’t -- I think it’s a stretch at this point. But I could be proven wrong. But I think it’s a stretch to compare it to Eastern Europe.

JIM LEHRER: The word -- the word to describe the leadership of Mubarak and Egypt and also in Tunisia before was dictator. Should Mubarak be seen as a dictator?

JOE BIDEN: Look, Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things and he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interests in the region: Middle East peace efforts, the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing the relationship with Israel.

And I think that it would be -- I would not refer to him as a dictator.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Vice President, should we be -- should the United States be encouraging these protesters, whether they’re in Tunisia or Egypt or wherever? They want their rights. And should we encourage them to seek them, if it means going to the streets or whatever?

JOE BIDEN: I think we should encourage both those who are, to use your phrase, seeking the rights and the government to talk, to actually sit down and talk with one another, to try to resolve some of what are the -- the interests that are being pursued by those who are protesting.

Now, so far, there seems to be some differences. And, historically, in the past, the concern was in some of these countries that some of the more radical elements of the society, more radicalized were the ones in the streets.

Some could argue, might argue that what’s going on in Lebanon was different than what’s going

on in Egypt, in terms of who is the -- who the protesting forces are. Hezbollah is not, doesn’t seem to be what is the nature of the protest that’s going on in Egypt right now.

But -- so, not every one of these circumstances is the same, which was my point before.

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

JOE BIDEN: We’re encouraging the protesters to, as they assemble, do it peacefully. And we’re encouraging the government to act responsibly and to try to engage in a discussion as to what the legitimate claims being made are, if they are, and try to work them out.

JIM LEHRER: Does the U.S. have any role to play in this?

JOE BIDEN: I think the role we have to play is continuing to make it clear to us that we think violence is inappropriate on the part of either party -- either of the parties, the government or the protesters.

JIM LEHRER: But there was something said today. I think the president said or the president’s spokesman said the United States is not going to take sides in this dispute in Egypt.

Is that correct? Is that a correct...

JOE BIDEN: Well, look, I don’t -- I wouldn’t characterize it as taking sides.

I think that what we should continue to do is to encourage reasonable accommodation -- accommodation and discussion, to try to resolve peacefully and amicable the concerns and claims made by those who’ve taken to the street. And those that are legitimate should be responded to, because the economic well-being and the stability of Egypt rests upon that middle class buying into the future of Egypt.

So, it’s very much, I would argue, in the government’s interest. But it’s also in the interest of those who are seeking those rights. Again, that’s different than some protests that occur in that region of the world that are really designed to overthrow a government for the purpose of establishing an autocracy that is more regressive than anything that exists.

JIM LEHRER: New subject, Mr. Vice President.

In light of the Tucson tragedy, are you in favor of federal legislation that would ban the sale of these multiround cartridges, holders?

JOE BIDEN: Jim, you may remember, in the old days, when I had some real power...

JIM LEHRER: Oh, yes.

JOE BIDEN: I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

(LAUGHTER)

JOE BIDEN: I’m the guy that first passed and wrote the assault-weapons ban and -- and also tried to pass legislation relative to the size of magazines, that is the -- those clips that hold all the bullets that get shoved up into the rifle.

JIM LEHRER: The 31 -- those 31 rounds.

JOE BIDEN: Yes. And there’s all kinds of them of various...

JIM LEHRER: Sure. Sure.

JOE BIDEN: So -- so, I, as a senator, and I, as an elected official, have been on record as supporting -- and we did originally have an assault-weapons ban in place.

But here’s what’s going on right now in the administration. There are a number of proposals coming forward that are going to be looked at by the Justice Department and the president will speak to, as he takes a look at what some of the suggestions are relative to how to deal with what is deemed by most Americans as, you know, not appropriate or consistent with the Second Amendment, which we strongly support.

And -- but -- but the president has not made a decision on those at this point. And we’re just getting the input from the House and the Senate and others. And the Justice Department is looking at it. And the president, as his spokesman said, will be speaking to those.

JIM LEHRER: But if the president asks you, the answer is going to be, yes, ban them, right?

JOE BIDEN: Well, my advice, as you know -- and you have been doing this so long -- shoot, if it’s going to have any impact, it shouldn’t be delivered to him through a news program.

JIM LEHRER: Gotcha.

JOE BIDEN: It should be delivered to him by me personally.

JIM LEHRER: Why didn’t the president even mention that in his State of the Union address?

JOE BIDEN: Well, look, there’s so many things -- I was asked earlier, why didn’t the president mention mental health? Why didn’t he mention -- there’s a thousand things that could have legitimately been mentioned.

And had he 10 hours, or this were going to be five States of the Union, there’s a lot more that

could have been mentioned. His purpose was to, number one, recognize the tragedy and the human loss and the impact it’s had on the individual families, as a consequence of what happened to Gabby Giffords’ town hall or grocery store meet-and-greet, and to recognize how -- how barbaric and how sort of totally out of character with our American democratic system that kind of action is.

My guess is that, just as his, I thought, incredibly, incredibly moving talk in Tucson was, this is -- he does not -- did not want to get into this blame-game issue and have it divert from -- the main concern right now is the empathy for those who have passed, the prayers and help of them whose have survived and trying to make it, like Congresswoman Giffords, as well as talk about the state of the union.

And the state of the union, I think, he laid out very well. He pointed out, Jim, that, relative to the rest of the world, we shouldn’t forget we are so much better positioned than any part the world. Our GDP is three times what the Chinese is. Our individual GDP is one -- theirs is one-twelfth.

We are a vibrant, vibrant country -- reminding people the base from which we start, but saying, if we’re going to maintain this position, the rest of the world is starting to move, and we have to invest in education, innovation and infrastructure in order to maintain our leadership in the 21st century.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Vice President, we did some reports on the NewsHour last night from around the country, public media...

JOE BIDEN: Yes. Yes.

JIM LEHRER: ... various public media reporters, about how the State of the Union went down, the address went down.

And many, many people said, well, that was great, talking about high-speed rail 30 years from now and whatever, but I need a job now.

JOE BIDEN: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: And the president didn’t speak directly to that.

JOE BIDEN: Well...

JIM LEHRER: That -- that...

JOE BIDEN: Well, I think, in fact, the president did speak directly to that by pointing out that the initiatives we have taken, as controversial as they were, are actually beginning to bear fruit, that, if you look at the surveys, a significant portion of the corporations in America are saying they’re going to be hiring beginning the middle of this year and moving on.

篇三：拜登在贝鲁特会晤黎巴嫩领导人一托福阅读机经背景

智课网TOEFL备考资料

拜登在贝鲁特会晤黎巴嫩领导人一托福阅读机经背景

By Edward Yeranian

Cairo

22 May 2009

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden met Friday with Lebanese leaders in Beirut, two weeks before parliamentary elections. Lebanon's Western-backed government is locked in a close electoral contest with the pro-Syrian Hezbollah and its allies.

Vice President Biden is the highest-level U.S. official to visit Beirut since 1983.

Show of support

Following a meeting with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman, Mr. Biden told a joint news conference the U.S. is not backing any party in Lebanon's June 7 parliamentary election. He said the U.S. strongly supports the Lebanese state, and its institutions.

"I do not come here to back any particular party or any particular person; I come to demonstrate strong United States backing for certain fundamental principles. The principle that the Lebanese people alone, the Lebanese people alone, should choose their leaders, a principle that Lebanese sovereignty cannot, will be and will not be traded away," said Biden.

President Suleiman assured Mr. Biden that the Lebanese state was preparing to "carry out the election in a fair and transparent way."

The Shi'ite group Hezbollah accused Mr. Biden of "meddling in Lebanon's internal affairs."

Not trying to interfere

The United States considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization and has been a strong supporter of the current government headed by Mr. Suleiman.

Vice President Biden said he was not trying to influence the elections, saying it is for the Lebanese people to decide on their government.

Mr. Biden also met with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah, as well as with Prime Minister Fouad Saniora.

Lebanese political analyst Rami Khouri said the vice president has to tread carefully in talks with Lebanon's leaders.

"It's probably a good thing in principle. In practice it proves to be contentious when the U.S. gets involved in a heavy

level or any external player gets involved. If any external actor who comes to Lebanon and is seen to be supporting one side or the other, it tends to muddy up the waters, so it really depends on what he says in private," he said.

A strong Hezbollah showing in the June 7 parliamentary elections could lead the U.S. to rethink its strategy toward Lebanon, as well as U.S. military support for the Lebanese Army, and further complicate Arab-Israeli peace efforts.

拜登在贝鲁特会晤黎巴嫩领导人

美国副总统拜登星期五在贝鲁特会晤了黎巴嫩领导人，这次会面是在议会选举之前两个星期。受西方支持的黎巴嫩政府处于支持叙利亚真主党及其盟友的激烈选战中。

副总统拜登是自从1983年以来，拜访贝鲁特的最高层次的美国官员。

拜登在结束和黎巴嫩总统米歇尔.苏莱曼的会议之后，在联合记者会上说，在6月7日黎巴嫩的议会选举中，美国将不会支持任何一党。他表示美国大力支持黎巴嫩国家以及它的体制。

“我并非来这里支持任何一个特定的政党或特定的人选;我来这里表示美国对某些基本原则的大力支持。这原则就必须是黎巴嫩人自己，也只有黎巴嫩人该选择他们的领导人，这是黎巴嫩主权不能、也将不会出卖的原则。”

总统苏莱曼向拜登保证，黎巴嫩全国正在准备举行“公平以及透明的选举”。

什叶派真主党指责拜登“干预黎巴嫩内政”。

美国视真主党为恐怖组织，并且美国是当前由苏莱曼领导的政府的有力支持者。

副总统拜登表示，他并没有试图影响选举。他说黎巴嫩人民将决定他们自己的政府。

拜登还会见了议会议长、真主党的盟友贝里，也会见了总理福阿德.西尼乌拉。

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