Mother's Day Is 'Super Sunday' for '08 Candidates

May 13, 2007 — -- For the first time since announcing their presidential candidacies, leading '08 White House contenders made their debut appearances on Sunday morning talk shows — fielding questions on everything from the Iraq war to abortion to the role that race will play in the election.

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, R-N.Y., sat down for their first Sunday morning interviews since formally entering the 2008 race. Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., also sat down to talk about why American troops need to stay the course in Iraq.

And former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., spoke at length about his religion on a "60 Minutes" interview to be broadcast Sunday night.

Obama spoke with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on "This Week" for a broad discussion about his candidacy. When asked about his qualifications to be president, Obama emphasized his ability to build consensus on tough issues.

"I'm not naïve enough to think that if we all hold hands and sing 'Kumbaya' that somehow health care gets solved, or education gets solved ... I have the ability to make people get beyond some of the divisions that plague our society and to focus on common sense and reason," he said.

Obama said Democrats should "ratchet up pressure" on Republicans to vote for a Democratic war-funding bill and deliver a veto-proof majority to the president.

Voicing support for withdrawing troops from Iraq by the end of March, Obama said he would back a bill with benchmarks, but not necessarily a timetable.

"This has been, if not the biggest, then one of the biggest foreign policy blunders in history," he said. "I want to make sure that our troops who are on the ground, who have performed magnificently, aren't caught in the political crossfire in Washington."

Drawing a distinction between his Iraq position and that of his '08 Democratic rival Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Obama said he opposed the war from the start.