How much do rising food prices worry you?
A man walks out of the Cristo Vive church with food supplies handed out to the needy March 5, 2008 in Hialeah, Florida. (PHOTO CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES)
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
The United States is known as "the breadbasket of the world." We have always had plenty of food, and it's always been cheap. Suddenly, not anymore.
A new USA Today-Gallup poll shows 73% of us are worried about rising grocery bills, and almost half say food inflation is causing a hardship for them.
Suddenly sharply rising food prices are right up there with the 80% of Americans who are concerned about record-high gasoline prices. According to AAA, the average price of a gallon of unleaded gas is now $3.53.
The government says that food inflation has been running at a 5.3% percent annual rate in the last three months. The largest price increases are for items like white bread, milk, eggs and bananas.
While higher prices are hurting Americans, they can wreak havoc in other parts of the world – places like Haiti, Pakistan, Egypt and India. The United Nations says that high food prices could mean more than 100 million people will go hungry.
Shortages and hoarding of some items are also leading some stores in the U.S. to ration food. Reuters reports Sam's Club is limiting sales of various kinds of rice "due to recent supply and demand trends." And it's been reported that a Costco warehouse in California is limiting purchases of flour, rice and cooking oil.
Here’s my question to you: How much of a concern are rising food prices in your household?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
New York Times blames Clinton for negativity
Click the play button to see what Jack and our viewers had to say.
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
You could call it "an un-endorsement." An editorial in today's New York Times says Hillary Clinton is mostly to blame for the negativity in the Democratic race. This is the same newspaper that previously endorsed her.
Titled "The Low Road to Victory," the Times editorial argues that voters are getting tired of this competition which is increasingly mean, desperate and filled with pandering. They call on Clinton to acknowledge this negativity which is hurting her, Barack Obama, the Democratic Party and the entire 2008 election... and may also be part of the reason why she didn't win Pennsylvania by as large a margin as she could have.
The Times points out that on the eve of the primary, Clinton became the first Democrat to play the fear card and "wave the bloody shirt of 9/11." Clinton aired a TV ad that evoked Osama bin Laden, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis and the 1929 stock market crash – an ad described as being "torn right from Karl Rove's playbook." The Times writes that if Clinton has any hope of winning over undecided superdelegates, not to mention the voters, she "has to call off the dogs."
Exit polls from Pennsylvania suggest there's something to this. People say they are getting tired of the tone of the campaign and they think Clinton bears more responsibility for it, with two-thirds of Pennsylvania voters saying she went too far in her attacks.
Here’s my question to you: The New York Times blames Hillary Clinton for most of the negativity in the Democratic race. Do you agree?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
Why can't Barack Obama close the deal?
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
Barack Obama missed another chance last night to knock Hillary Clinton out of the race. He beat her in Iowa, she came back and won New Hampshire. He reeled off eleven wins in a row, she came back and won Ohio and Texas. He had another clear shot at her last night and missed. It raises a question that gets more serious with each passing primary.
Why can't he put her away? Despite outspending Clinton more than 2-to-1 in Pennsylvania and waging a more aggressive campaign in the final days, Obama came up short again with many of the voters who form the traditional base of the Democratic Party. Clinton crushed him among white, blue-collar voters by 69 to 30 percent. She also won older voters, women and whites.
The last 6 weeks have tested Obama in a way he hadn't been before. There were the comments from his Pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright which he had to address, his own "bitter" remarks, and a debate performance that wasn't his finest and raised other questions like his ties to William Ayers, the former Weather Underground member.
Obama will get another chance in two weeks to perhaps end this race if he can win in North Carolina and Indiana. And it's worth noting that he continues to lead where it matters – in delegates, states won, popular vote, and he's narrowing the superdelegate gap with Clinton.
But she has succeeded in dragging him onto her playground. Obama got more aggressive and more negative in the closing days in Pennsylvania. And that might have been a mistake. He got where he is on a message of hope and the promise for a new kind of politics.
Here’s my question to you: Why can't Barack Obama close the deal?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
@jackcafferty on Twitter
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