Obama, Clinton to help each other during fundraisers

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

July 6, 2008

BUTTE, Mont. - Now that they're allies, Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton will help each other raise money in a series of fundraisers in New York this week.

Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the Democratic nominee-in-waiting and Clinton will hold three fundraisers. Two events are scheduled for Wednesday night - one to raise money for his general election campaign and one to help pay off debts from her primary campaign. A third fundraiser, for Obama, is a breakfast Thursday morning with female donors, which the New York senator will attend.

The fundraisers will be the first joint appearances by the former foes since their lovefest in Unity, N.H., on June 27.

Meanwhile, campaigning in St. Louis yesterday, Obama celebrated "active faith" as an obligation of religious Americans and a chief agent of societal change while speaking to a roomful of nearly all-black churchgoers, but hoping to reach far beyond them.

Obama implored the thousands attending a national meeting of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the nation's largest and most politically and civically active black denominations, to help fix national and local ills.

He preached individual responsibility, saying he knew he risked criticism for "blaming the victim" by talking of the need for parents to help children with homework and turn off the TV, to pass on a healthy self-image to daughters, and teach boys both to respect women and "realize that responsibility does not end at conception."

But making a stop in the battleground state of Missouri, Obama's main message was the government's duty to address what he said are "moral problems," such as war, poverty, joblessness, homelessness, violent streets and crumbling schools - and to employ religious institutions to do it.

"As long as we're not doing everything in our individual and collective power to solve the challenges we face, the conscience of our nation cannot rest," he said.