Fort Worth Star Telegram – That sure looked like the Alaska governor moose hunting in downtown Fort Worth on Wednesday.

And she found an already-well-stuffed target: business and political leaders generously donating money for Christmas gifts for 1,500 children, thanks to the Exchange Club of Fort Worth.

By the time Sarah Palin look-alike Kristy Casey of Houston winked her last "You betcha!" and introduced Fort Worth lawyer and political pooh-bah Dee Kelly as a "maverick," the 160 members of the tradition-rich civic club had toasted the holidays and taken up $75,000 for the Star-Telegram’sGoodfellow Fund.

"The Guv" teased Kelly by presenting him a double-sided political yard sign supporting two 2010 candidates for governor: U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and aspiring governor-for-life Rick Perry. The Palin double also dropped off a belated Wendy Davis campaign sign for Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief, a Democrat who backed Republican state Sen. Kim Brimer in a moose-sized defeat.

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Bloomington Pantagraph – Democrat Barack Obama on Wednesday brushed aside Republican charges that his tax plan amounts to socialism, but acknowledged it involves “spreading around opportunity’’ so that wealthier Americans — like himself — pay a little more to help lower-rung workers. |

Obama noted that when President Bush’s tax cuts were first proposed, his opponent for the White House, Republican John McCain, opposed them as irresponsibly targeted.

“Was John McCain a socialist back in 2000?’’ Obama asked at a news conference. Responding to the late-campaign line of attack repeated daily by McCain and running mate Sarah Palin, he said: “I think it’s an indication that they have run out of ideas.’’

Obama commented at a news conference after meeting with foreign policy and military luminaries to discuss “urgent issues’’ facing the country from abroad, an attempt to inoculate himself against the fresh charge from the McCain side that he is too untested for the White House.

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