Articles of Interest 9-4-07
430 Days until Election Day
MORNING UPDATE:
Democrats and Republicans agree on Presidential Primary.
Michigan will hold their presidential primary on January 15, 2008!
Michigan Republicans, at their last State Committee meeting voted unanimously to congratulate our state legislature and urged NO new taxes:
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/09/michigan-republ.html
National Committeeman’s race heating up…not necessarily for the better.
Newt Gingrich presents American Solutions September 27 & 29, 2007:
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/07/worksdoesnt-wor.html
Media bias against Republican and Conservatives continues as you compare the coverage over Fieger and other Democrats who break the law…pretty outrageous:
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/09/media-bias-demo.html
Republicans continue to demand reforms and a balanced budget without raising taxes…Democrats have provided no leadership or solutions…see my op ed:
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/09/my-detroit-news.html
Democrat Chairman Mark Brewer and I, live today on talk radio’s “The Big Show” with Michael Patrick Shiels …more info below.
THE REST OF THE STORY:
- The Democrats released a statement last Friday that they would formally hold their presidential nominating process on January 15th.
News stories and analysis make it clear Michigan will be a major player in the next presidential cycle. We’ve already seen the immediate effects as campaigns switched into full gear across the state. Calls for scheduling, information, delegates and rules came in from various presidential campaigns.
Mackinac Conference registration and requests for rooms have jumped. Although the Grand Hotel is long sold out, there are rooms available on the island and still more on the mainland. We will be offering extended ferry service Saturday to accommodate all our activists who want to come in for the day. This will clearly be our biggest conference ever!!!
National Democrats appeared to be poised to disenfranchise Michigan and Florida voters. Remember, state legislatures passed the bills that moved the primary dates forward, not the state parties. So elected officials, representing their states, made a determination the DNC is willing to dismiss. Talk about central planning.
Candidates are signing the “don’t campaign pledge” in Michigan and Florida. Can Democrats afford to give up on these two key states from an Electoral College standpoint…and disenfranchise Democrats and their constituencies? Maybe we can get that lucky, but I doubt it.
All any of the Democrat leaders or interest groups have to do is sit on their hands and these two key swing states, from an electoral college perspective, start to lean Republican. Thank you Mark Brewer and the DNC for sending a clear message to the voters of Michigan and Florida…we’ll make sure they remember. J
- National Committeeman Race: I received several calls over the weekend stating that folks are receiving threatening calls, anonymous emails and hardball pitches to support candidates. This should be an open, fair and honest process.
Here is the good news…regardless of what anyone says or threatens to do…we WILL be voting by “secret” paper ballots and you will be able to vote your conscious. NO one will be allowed to threaten you at the convention and we will make sure the integrity of the voting process is protected.
I suggested to one person who called, that they take into consideration their local power politics…but how they vote is up to them…and only them. The system was specifically designed to help avoid and protect individual delegates and alternates right to cast their ballot the way they wanted to.
There is a right and honest way to do things…and another way that is NOT.
- Newt Gingrich proposes AboutSolutionsDay on September 27, 2007—the 13th anniversary of the unveiling of the Contract With America—American Solutions will host the inaugural "Solutions Day" which will reach out across the country to activists, volunteers, and 511,000-plus elected office holders in America, their staffs, and the citizens who are seeking to serve in those offices. Our goal is to help create a new wave of transformational change, which will move government into the 21st century, strengthen and revitalize our core values, and help protect America against its enemies.
Through a series of workshops on 9/27 and 9/29, we will make these solutions available to activists, volunteers, and every candidate from both parties in every elected office in the country. If you would like to help host a workshop in your community or simply attend, please sign up online at:
http://www.americansolutions.com/Organize/
- Listen to our weekly debate/discussion between Democrat State Chairman Mark Brewer and myself this morning, between 9:05am - 10:00am, as we discuss the issues of the day.
The show is available live on-line at www.wjimam.com , and you can listen to it live at the stations listed below.
"The Big Show with Michael Patrick Shiels" on the Michigan Talk Network:
WJIM 1240 Lansing
WJNL 1210 Traverse City
WTRX 1330 Flint/Saginaw
WMMI 830 Mt Pleasant
WKMI 1360 Kalamazoo
WSCG 1380 Greenville
WBCH 1220 Hastings
WODJ 1490 Muskegon
WWKK 750 Petoskey
WJML 1110 Petoskey
WDJM 1320 Marquette
WIAN 1240 Ishpeming
Past shows are recorded posted on our website at www.migop.org .
Saul Anuzis
STATE STORIES
http://www.lenconnect.com/articles/2007/09/02/news/news06.txt
State officials lose their primary focus
At issue: Michigan passing a bill moving up its presidential primary to Jan. 15.
Our view: Lawmakers and the governor are wasting time while an issue they can fix — the budget — languishes.
On Oct. 1, Michigan’s new fiscal year begins. With no budget approved, the state faces an impending shutdown. So, last week, Michigan’s lawmakers and governor sprang into action. Showing rare bipartisanship, they cut through red tape and moved quickly to ... join the mad rush to move up the state’s presidential primary — in Michigan’s case, to Jan. 15. Supporters of the change argue that pushing up the state primary will force presidential candidates to pay more attention to Michigan issues, rather than those affecting traditional early-primary states such as Iowa or New Hampshire.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070904/OPINION01/709040347/1008
Don't shift budget crisis to Michigan's families
State households struggling more than in any other state
September 4, 2007
State lawmakers and Gov. Jennifer Granholm will spend the next four weeks negotiating how to cover a $1.8 billion state budget deficit. Some sort of tax increase seems inevitable, given the size of the budget and the lack of will in Lansing to substantively reform government. Years of filling deficits with accounting gimmicks and one-time revenue tricks have left Michigan with few options for righting its finances. Taxpayers likely will now have to pay the price for their political leaders' incompetence and mismanagement. Granholm is urging lawmakers to ignore recall threats made by anti-tax groups and "do what's right for Michigan." That admonition comes too late. What would have been right for Michigan was a more honest handling of the budget in the governor's first term. So now Granholm and lawmakers have a deadline. If they can't come to terms by Oct. 1, the state faces a catastrophic shutdown. Budgeting under a crisis deadline is not usually conducive to innovation or reform, particularly when the various parties in Lansing are so far apart philosophically.
http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070902/OPINION02/709020635/1085/opinion
Medicaid crunch isn't caused by costs of nursing home care
Costs, however, are issue for state to tackle
Dan Gustafson
September 2, 2007
The Health Care Association of Michigan has been following with great interest the LSJ series on aging and is appreciative of your efforts to shine a spotlight on the numerous issues relating to senior care. HCAM is a statewide organization representing residents, families, owners and employees of nursing and rehabilitation facilities. Although HCAM supports the conclusion of your Aug. 19 editorial "Aging's price," we do have several concerns. We agree the state needs a better way to consistently fund long-term care. One concern was the implication made in the editorial that nursing facility care is the reason for the large increase in Michigan's Medicaid costs. Medicaid pays for many services and long-term care is just one portion. The Medicaid budget for long-term care has stayed relatively consistent while other Medicaid costs have ballooned due to Michigan's ailing economy.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070901/NEWS06/709010345
Man held in killings was out on parole
Suspect in beating deaths of 5 women has lengthy record
September 1, 2007
LANSING -- A 27-year-old man accused of murdering five Lansing women in five weeks had a long criminal record as a juvenile -- including two sexual assaults -- and was on parole for exactly one month before the first woman was slain on July 26.
As part of his parole, Matthew Macon was ordered to register with the state as a sex offender and to stay away from children, state corrections records show.
He was arrested Wednesday for not registering as a sex offender and on a home invasion charge. While in custody, he was named the suspect in the five beating deaths and a sixth assault in which the woman survived, the Ingham County prosecutor's office said.
Macon's arraignment on the killings was postponed until next week, as Lansing police and Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III compile their case for a string of homicides that unnerved the city for more than a month. Lansing Police Chief Mark Alley withheld details about the attacks and Macon, saying only that Macon would be charged in
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/01/us/01arrest.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Parolee Linked to Killing of 5 Women in Michigan Capital
By NICK BUNKLEY
Published: September 1, 2007
DETROIT, Aug. 31 — A paroled sex offender was identified on Friday as the man whom the police suspect of attacking and killing five women in Lansing, including an activist whose daughter is on the City Council. A sixth woman survived the attacks.
The authorities in Lansing said they were looking into whether the suspect, Matthew E. Macon, 27, who was arrested on Tuesday night on an unrelated warrant, is responsible for attacks in 2003 and 2004 that coincided with two periods when Mr. Macon was on parole after being jailed for a larceny conviction from 2001.
At least some victims this summer, as well as in 2003, were sexually assaulted, the authorities said. On Tuesday, the police released a sketch of the person wanted in the attacks, which began on July 26, a month after Mr. Macon was paroled for a third time on the larceny conviction. On July 26, the authorities said, the activist, Ruth Hallman, 76, was beaten in her home. She died two days later.
http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070902/OPINION01/709020634/1085/opinion
Jail space: Problems in local jails lead back to folks at Capitol
A Lansing State Journal editorial
September 2, 2007
Fixing Michigan's system of correcting criminals soon will require a call to arms of the state's law-abiding citizenry. First, though, there must be a call to attention. Ingham County has one story worthy of attention; a story that touches on just part of the difficult choices taxpayers must confront. Ingham County doesn't have enough jail space. Criminals that many citizens might want in custody are quickly cycling back to local streets. The sheriff who runs the jail acknowledges it. The chief judge knows all about it, as does the county prosecutor And while these officials have ideas to reduce the problem, the apparent truth is that without fundamental changes in the Michigan Department of Corrections and the Legislature, expect to see more criminals popping out of custody.
Revolving door acknowledged The biggest problem, says Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, is that after lawmakers adopted sentencing rules in 1997, people convicted of felonies such as repeat drunken drivers were directed by the guidelines into county jails, not state prisons.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070903/POLITICS/709030345/1022
State closing small license bureaus
Delores Flynn / The Detroit News
September 3, 2007
MILFORD -- For Randall Walker, doing business with the Secretary of State is a hometown affair. It's a short drive from home, he recognizes the staff, and if the wait is too long he can grab a number and head around the corner for a quick haircut.
He's been doing that at the Milford branch office for more than 10 years. He'll have to go elsewhere in 2008, and he doesn't like it. The state keeps putting up these Plus Centers, but I think it's a bad idea," the 62-year-old Milford resident said. "They serve a wider area, which will mean longer lines in a location that's not in your community. It's not right and doesn't make a lick of sense." Small towns like Milford are losing their Secretary of State branch offices under the state's modernization program, which involves consolidating offices to create larger regional centers as more people move to online services. The modernization initiative began in 2004, with the development of 23 Plus offices and five Super Centers statewide. The expanded centers provide credit and debit card payment options, self-service stations for license plate tab renewals, expanded hours and Saturday operations at Super Center facilities.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070903/OPINION01/709030337/1008
Editorial: Free workers by passing federal right-to-work law
September 3, 2007
When labor unions were still relevant, Labor Day was a holiday of union-sponsored parades and picnics, a chance to pause from the daily grind and celebrate the strength of solidarity. But today, most people won't even think about labor unions as they go about enjoying what for all practical purposes is the last day of summer. That's because most American workers don't belong to a union and never have. Nor do they want to.
Just 12 percent of employees in the United States are union members. That's down from 20 percent in 1983 and is falling steadily. The loss of manufacturing jobs certainly has hurt Big Labor. ut so has its inability to connect with workers employed outside of factories and government offices. Today's worker is more independent, more mobile and more comfortable interacting with his or her employer as an individual, rather than as part of a collective bargaining unit.
http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010554
Affirmative Action's Strange Career
Look for the union label.
BY PAUL MORENO
Monday, September 3, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
This 125th Labor Day, Americans ought to consider one of organized labor's lesser-known contributions to American politics: affirmative action. For most of their first century, American unions promoted affirmative action for white workers: Trade unions were job monopolies and most often white job monopolies. California unions, for example, led the campaign against Chinese immigrant labor, and the "union label" campaign helped to enable consumers to boycott products made by Chinese workers. "The cigars contained herein are made by WHITE MEN," the original union label read. As for East Coast immigrant labor, the celebrated socialist leader Eugene V. Debs once complained, "The Dago works for small pay and lives far more like a savage or wild beast, than the Chinese." Above all, unions made it difficult for blacks to earn a living. The first large union federation, the National Labor Union, set the pattern of exclusion and evasion.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070902/OPINION01/709020344/1008
Marathon expansion plan makes sense for Michigan
The Detroit News
September 2, 2007
What's it going to be, Michigan? Jobs, business investment and a more stable supply of gasoline in the state or the continued loss of opportunity in Michigan because special interests control the show? hat's what's at stake with a proposal by Marathon Petroleum Co. to expand its Detroit refinery to process heavy Canadian crude oil. The company is looking for the state's help in the form of tax breaks and community buy-in. The firm should receive it. here are plenty of reasons to approve the expansion beyond the $1 billion that will be invested in the site, which already houses an oil refinery. An estimated 1,200 construction workers will be needed and 135 permanent new jobs created once the facility is up and running. In addition, processing heavy crude oil from Canada's tar sands protects Michigan from instability in the market that's created when Gulf Coast oil supplies are disrupted because of tropical storms.
Why is rural Corunna so hot among students?
September 3, 2007
CORUNNA, Mich. (AP) -- School districts across the state are struggling to fill classroom seats. Corunna's is not one of them.The rural district, which sits 65 miles northwest of Detroit, might not seem like a hotbed for educational growth. But it is luring students at a surprising rate. Officials project nearly a third of Corunna's estimated 2,440 students this year will be from other districts who came here through Schools of Choice.
The numbers are so inflated - at a time when many districts are looking for more students - that Corunna officials recently scrambled to hire another middle school teacher.
With each new student comes $7,100 in state funding. The growth has had other benefits, too, Superintendent John Smith said. He said the influx has allowed Corunna to add advanced placement classes at its high school, including a statistics class and an advanced social studies course.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070904/OPINION01/709040355/1008
State Senate passes reforms, cuts spending
State Sen. Mike Bishop
September 4, 2007
Time and again it has been proven that reining in government spending and reducing taxes increases revenues by spurring economic growth. State government may well be at its smallest size since the early 1970s, but government spending is at an all-time high. Until we adopt true government reforms, Michigan will continue down its budgetary and economic death spiral. In an Aug. 15th commentary, Lt. Gov. John Cherry made a tacit assumption that Michigan has come to the end of the line, that the administration has cut itself to the bone ("Stop playing games on state reforms"). His implication: We need money; we raise taxes. Senate Republicans have said since day one that we cannot balance the state budget on the backs of the taxpayer. As recently as last week, the Senate passed 10 budget bills for Fiscal Year 2008, nine of which were under the governor's spending recommendations, saving the state $163 million without increasing or creating a single tax.
http://www.mlive.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news-12/1188814506288330.xml&coll=8
Senate seeks to spend $30M to tout Michigan
Monday, September 03, 2007
By Chad D. Lerch
You've got to spend money to make it. That's the emphasis of a bill in the state Senate, which seeks to spend $30 million touting Michigan's beaches and other attractions to people in other states. But a big question looms: Is there money in the cash-strapped state budget to make it happen? A special legislative task force is touring the state seeking input on the bill and other tourism issues. Senate Bill 690, introduced in August, would pump $30 million into the Pure Michigan marketing campaign. The Travel Michigan bureau says every $1 spent on tourism advertising would generate $2 to $3 in sales and gas tax revenues. The tourism lobby wants to expand the regional Pure Michigan campaign to a national or international audience, said Marci Cisneros, executive director of the Grand Haven Area Visitors and Convention Bureau. The campaign, which already reaches Indiananpolis, Chicago and Cleveland, encourages people to check out the state's "hundreds of crystal clear lakes and thousands of rivers and streams."
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070904/BIZ/709040374/1022/POLITICS
Trade focus of Michigan lawmakers
Delegates in Congress seek to block S. Korea trade agreement, punish lawbreaking countries.
Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau
September 4, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Michigan lawmakers return to Congress this week promising several measures to block international trade agreements or punish countries accused of unfair trade policies -- measures they say could help stem the exodus of manufacturing jobs from the state. They will seek to block a pending free-trade agreement with Korea that also is opposed by Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC; punish China and Japan for currency policies they say unfairly benefit those countries; toughen what they call lax Bush administration enforcement of trade regulations; and aid workers who lose their jobs because of overseas competition."If we are enforcing the rules and other countries can't cheat, it may make a difference between a plant staying in the United States or leaving," said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, who sits on the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees trade policy.Though the trade backlash largely is driven by the Democratic takeover of Congress, which put Michigan's Rep. Sander Levin and Stabenow in key positions to affect trade policy, Republicans are talking tough as well. Rep. Joe Knollenberg, R-Bloomfield Township, is pushing a bill to attack Japan's currency policies. In mid-August, when China threatened to retaliate against tougher U.S. policy by selling off U.S. Treasury notes, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Brighton, declared, "We won't be intimidated."
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070904/OPINION01/709040352/1008
Modest Cobo expansion is reasonable
Auto show proposes $8 million build-out of convention hall
September 4, 2007
Organizers of the North American International Auto Show have offered a reasonable short-term solution to the space crunch at Cobo Center. Detroit, and Wayne and Oakland counties should embrace the idea, and then look for the $8 million to pay for it. What the Detroit Auto Dealers Association suggests is a modest 30,000-square-foot expansion of the 700,000-square-foot exhibition floor. That's far short of the 300,000 additional square feet they envision for a full renovation of Cobo Center, one they say is necessary to maintain the world-leading status of the auto show. But it is a more realistic proposal, and one that is doable in today's economy. Other proposals seek up to $1 billion for a full-scale Cobo expansion. But so far, no proposal has been offered that is both politically and financially acceptable. The auto dealers say the modest expansion would allow them to give the existing exhibitors some extra room, while creating space for new entrants, including models from China. The add-on could be ready for the 2010 show.
Thousands take part in annual Mackinac Bridge Walk
9/3/2007, 11:41 a.m. EDT
By JOHN FLESHER
The Associated Press
MACKINAW CITY, Mich. (AP) — Thousands celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Mackinac Bridge's opening by walking, jogging or wheeling over the 5-mile span, while others swam across the straits below. A brilliant blue sky and warm temperatures provided an ideal backdrop for the bridge walk, a Michigan Labor Day tradition.
"I'm just proud to be here, and I anticipate being here for the 75th year, too," said Daniel Geske, 53, of Grand Rapids At age 4, Geske was among a small group who joined then-Gov. G. Mennen (Soapy) Williams on the first bridge walk June 25, 1958. It was moved to Labor Day the next year and typically draws about 50,000 participants. For the first time this year, distance swimmer Jim Dreyer organized a group of 50 to swim across the Straits of Mackinac during the walk. "My respect for you goes through the ceiling," Gov. Jennifer Granholm told the swimmers before they entered the water.
http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070902/NEWS01/709020639/1001/news&template=printart
Sending signs from up above: Billboards around Michigan deliver pro-life message
Christopher Behnan
Special to the State Journal
September 2, 2007
There's a reason why pro-life groups across the Midwest call on a relatively small, Dexter-based office to get their message out. Its staff will get the job done.
Pinckney Pro-Life, founded in the Pinckney area in 2001, is an almost exclusively youth-based nonprofit with billboards in Michigan and neighboring states.
The organization has four billboards in Michigan - including one on Interstate 96 between Brighton and Howell and another on U.S. 23 near Faussett Road - that reads "Hey mom, you be the savior," with the group's Web site underneath.
Another of the group's billboard asks, "Hurting after an abortion?" next to a drawing of Jesus Christ.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070902/NEWS06/709020659/1008
Soldier set to retire killed in Iraq blast
September 2, 2007
Daniel E. Scheibner joined the military immediately after his 1986 graduation from Mona Shores High School in Norton Shores, near Muskegon, spent 20 years in the Army and rose to the rank of Sgt. 1st Class. Scheibner, 40, was set to retire in April, but instead that month was deployed to Iraq. He died Thursday in Al Noor of head injuries sustained when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device, according to military reports. Scheibner was the 32nd soldier with Michigan ties to die this year supporting military operations in Iraq, according to the Associated Press. He also served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "He took his job seriously," said Kasi Scheibner, who is married to Scheibner's brother, David. "He was an awesome man. He was a true hero."
NATIONAL STORIES
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/opinion/02sun1.html
The Primary Problem
September 2, 2007
This is shaping up to be an ugly presidential primary season, and the candidates have not even started getting ugly yet. The Democratic Party is vowing to strip Florida and Michigan of their delegates if those states insist on pushing their primaries up to January. The Republicans are also threatening to take delegates from Florida and Michigan, along with three other states. Iowa and New Hampshire, whose laws require them to vote before other states, may respond to the interlopers by moving their own primaries into early January, or even late 2007. The presidential primary system is broken. For years, the nominating process has unfolded in an orderly, if essentially unfair, way. The schedule has worked very nicely for early-voting states, which have had a steady stream of would-be presidents knocking on their doors, making commitments on issues like the Iowa full-employment program, also known as the ethanol subsidy. The losers have been states like New York and California, which have often gotten to vote only when the contests were all but decided. Issues that matter to them, like mass transportation, have suffered.
http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/crucialdates/
Hurtling Toward a Nomination
What to expect when you're electing: Sure, the presidential campaign is under way. But just wait: the months ahead are pockmarked with increasingly crucial moments that will determine which candidates emerge as their party's nominee.
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: Sept. 2, 2007
It is hard to imagine a tougher year to be a presidential candidate — or at least, someone managing a presidential campaign. Never before has so much been up in the air so close to the first vote. Even as the campaigns spent the past few days planning for the unofficial kickoff that comes with Labor Day — rallies, bus trips, house parties, speeches and the like — they were struggling with what veteran aides described as the most unsettled landscape they can remember. By yesterday, all the major Democratic candidates said they would not campaign in states that move up their primaries in defiance of party rules — Florida, and in coming days, possibly Michigan, a late-hour reminder that even the schedule of when states vote remains up in the air for both parties.
The voters no one can take for granted
Both major parties are trying to lure the unaffiliated, many of whom have soured on Bush but aren't wild about the Democrats.
By Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 2, 2007
HIGHLANDS RANCH, COLO. -- When President Bush campaigned for reelection three years ago, this community near Denver was a promising territory: a fast-growing collection of cul-de-sacs and nearly identical homes, where thousands of young families seemed open to Republican ideas. The "exurbs," the far-flung suburbs of Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Denver and other cities, were full of parents too busy with school, church and work to bother affiliating with either major party. GOP strategy held that, come election time, Republicans could win these voters with talk of lower taxes, stronger security and family values -- not only to help Bush, but to position the party for long-term dominance.
But talk today to Donna Howe, 49, a mother of two who backed Bush in 2004, and a dramatic setback to that plan emerges.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20572766/
Bush makes surprise visit to Iraq
Associated Press
September 3, 2007
AL-ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq - President Bush and his national security team made a first-hand assessment of the war in Iraq and prospects for political reconciliation Monday as a showdown nears with Congress over the U.S. troop buildup. The president secretly flew 11 hours to this air base in a remote part of Anbar province, bypassing Baghdad in a symbolic expression of impatience with political paralysis in the nation’s capital. The gesture underscored the U.S. belief that the spark for progress may come at the local level. Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived ahead of Bush and conferred with senior U.S. officials, including Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, before a session with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani, and other top Iraqi officials from Baghdad.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070903/OPINION01/709030334/1008
Thompson's delay game creates debate
Thompson's delay game creates debate
Nancy Kruh
September 3, 2007
As the months roll by since Fred Thompson mounted the 2008 diving board, his wait to jump into the presidential race is now attracting almost as much attention as his expected candidacy. Star Parker thinks the delay could work to the Republican's advantage. "When Thompson announces his timing alone might be appreciated by a public wondering why they have been forced to start listening to candidates more than a year and half before they'll go to the polls to vote," the Scripps Howard News Service columnist writes. "In a Washington Post poll done last week, only one in five Republicans say they are 'very satisfied' with their candidates. So, Fred Thompson, a seasoned actor, may really know how to respond on cue."Ryan Sager , though, isn't buying the former Tennessee senator's act. "While Thompson claims to be evaluating the prospect of running for president, in reality he's already running," the New York Sun columnist writes. "This wouldn't matter terribly, except that it's against the law.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20546334/site/newsweek/
Grin and Bear It
His story sings—a small-town boy who became a senator and a star. But does he have the requisite fire in the belly? We'll soon see.
By Holly Bailey
Newsweek
Sept. 10, 2007 issue
Fred Thompson does not want to meet the Butter Princess. Everywhere he turns at this morning's meet-and-greet at the Minnesota State Fair, he is surrounded by hundreds of star-struck onlookers, many of them "Law & Order" fans who line up three-dozen deep for a close-up with the actor who would be president. Thompson, a sometimes reluctant campaigner, is in full movie-star mode, and has his good-ole-boy charm set on high. All the women he meets are "honey" and the men "buddy." Even dressed down in khakis and a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he is hard to miss. At 6 feet 6, he is head-and-shoulders taller than anyone around him. Posing for picture after picture, he reflexively stoops to fit in the frame. Some fans ask him to autograph DVDs of "The Hunt for Red October" and "In the Line of Fire," movies in which he had small but memorable parts playing powerful, world-weary men. "Run, Fred, run!" comes a shout from the crowd. Thompson lets out a long, low chuckle. All in all, he looks downright thrilled to be here.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/09/how_thompson_hurt_his_own_pros.html
How Thompson Hurt His Own Prospects — and Helped Romney's
By Stuart Rothenberg
September 4, 2007
After former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson acknowledged in mid-March that he was considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination, supporters of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney were quietly acknowledging the obvious: Their candidate was political roadkill if Thompson entered the contest anytime soon.
But things look very different now. Thompson’s decision to delay his entry into the contest until this week not only damaged his own prospects but, more importantly, breathed life into a Romney candidacy that easily could have been snuffed out before it had begun. Initially, coming from the right side of the ideological spectrum, Thompson appeared to fill the vacuum created when Virginia Sen. George Allen was eliminated as a credible presidential candidate. Even more important, the attorney-turned-actor-turned-Senator- turned-actor seemed to appeal to conservatives looking for “another Ronald Reagan.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070903/ap_on_el_pr/romney_thompson_1
Romney jokes about Thompson delays
By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer
Mon Sep 3, 4:36 PM ET
MILFORD, N.H. - Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Monday said he would welcome Republican rival Fred Thompson to the race, but also took some jabs at Thompson's long delay in formally announcing his candidacy. Thompson, the "Law & Order" television actor and former senator from Tennessee, is expected to officially enter the race this week. Instead of attending a Wednesday night debate in Durham, N.H., Thompson will be in Los Angeles to appear on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." "I think it will boost the ratings for Jay Leno's show, but I'd rather be doing well in New Hampshire," said Romney, who is leading in most polls in this early voting state. Thompson's candidacy has been a shadow on the GOP contest. He has equivocated about getting into the race, while his campaign organization has been in flux. His entry comes remarkably late in a campaign cycle that began days after the 2006 midterm elections.
Underdog Paul inspires political passion
By GRANT SLATER, Associated Press Writer Fri Aug 31, 4:18 PM ET
NEW YORK - Passengers on a plane leaving New York could see three words in 4-foot block letters painted on an East Village rooftop terrace as they ascended: GOOGLE RON PAUL. The entreaty to search the Internet for news of the Republican congressman from rural Texas is one of the more visible signs of enthusiasm from a do-it-yourself base of Web fans. Their support doesn't show up in public opinion polls, but it's unmatched among presidential candidates in its passion.
On their own, the fans have developed a Ron Paul Revolution logo, marketing the idea through YouTube. Message boards and Web sites debate his virtues.
The Web fans for Paul's anti-establishment campaign run away with online polls and blanket Web sites with caps-locked, exclamation-point endorsements of the contrarian Republican, even though he measures no more than 2 percent in most national opinion polls.
A love revolution, Goldwater-style
By Cathy Young
September 1, 2007
SO FAR IN Campaign 2008, the one contender who seems to have generated the most grassroots excitement isn't really a contender at all. Ron Paul, the Republican congressman from Texas, doesn't have much chance of winning.
When the mainstream media have noticed Paul at all, they have largely treated him as a curiosity or even a nuisance: After the first Republican debate in May, a Washington Post editorial suggested that the debates would be much better if they weren't "cluttered" by such nobodies. Perhaps the most media notice he attracted was when, in the second debate, he seemed to suggest that American foreign policy was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. This comment quickly became an opportunity for patriotic point-scoring by Rudy Giuliani, and led some GOP operatives to call for Paul's exclusion from future debates. Yet Paul has a following that no other candidate can match in sheer dedication. His impressive performance in Internet polls has been supplemented with two landslide victories in Republican straw polls - in Strafford County, N.H., (with 208 of the 288 votes) and in Alabama.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070903/NEWS09/709030326/1001/NEWS
McCain: Iowa should remain leadoff state
By FRED LOVE
REGISTER CORRESPONDENT
September 3, 2007
Gladbrook, IA. - Republican presidential candidate John McCain of Arizona, campaigning in the state for the first time since the Iowa State Fair last month, said Sunday that Iowa and New Hampshire should continue to lead the way in the presidential nomination process. McCain spoke to about 50 people outside the rural Gladbrook home of Lynn and Claire Handorf, condemning the increasingly front-loaded primary calendar that causes states to leapfrog over one another to be first to get to the polls.
"I'm disturbed by the crowding of primaries earlier and earlier," McCain said. Iowa traditionally kicks off the presidential nomination process with its first-in-the-nation caucuses, while New Hampshire holds the first primary. But states like Florida and Michigan have sought January primaries, sparking speculation that Iowa and New Hampshire could hold their nominating contests as early as December to compensate.
McCain said that as states move up the dates of their primaries, they accelerate the nomination process and rob voters of the time they need to properly examine the candidates.
Dems not budging on early primary
Jan. 15 vote to stand despite the opposition
September 2, 2007
Top Michigan Democrats vowed Saturday to forge ahead with plans for a Jan. 15 presidential primary, despite announcements from two of the party's top candidates that they would skip the state because the date violates national party rules.
The names of all Democratic candidates will be on the Jan. 15 ballot, Gov. Jennifer Granholm said in a statement Saturday, and "we hope every candidate will campaign here." U.S. Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards announced Saturday that they would not campaign in states other than Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada with nominating contests before Feb. 5. They joined New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, and U.S. Sens. Joe Biden of Delaware and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who made similar pledges Friday in response to the Legislature's approval Thursday of the Jan. 15 date and an earlier decision by Florida to hold its primary Jan. 29.
http://www.star-telegram.com/national_news/story/221492.html
Top Dems join pact to avoid early states
The Associated Press
September 2, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards joined three other Democrats on Saturday who say they will skip states that break party rules by holding early primaries. Their decision is a major boost to the primacy of four early-voting states -- Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina -- and a welcome development to the Democratic National Committee. "We believe Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina play a unique and special role in the nominating process," Clinton's campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle said. "And we believe the DNC's rules and its calendar provide the necessary structure to respect and honor that role."
The DNC has tried to impose discipline on a handful of unruly states determined to vote before Feb. 5 and gain influence in the election cycle. "Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina need to be first because in these states, ideas count, not just money," Edwards said. "This tried-and-true nominating system is the only way for voters to judge the field based on the quality of the candidate, not the depth of their war chest."
Obama said the DNC's nominating process is "in the best interests of our party and our nation."
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070902/METRO/709020314/1022/POLITICS
Clinton joins Edwards, Obama in vow to skip Mich. Campaigning
Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau
September 2, 2007
Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have pledged not to campaign in Michigan or Florida, two states that have bucked their party's nomination schedule.
Their announcements, in statements released Saturday by their campaigns, left no major Democratic candidates campaigning for Michigan's Jan. 15 primary.
Clinton's campaign issued a statement that said she respected the DNC rules. She was the last of the three to announce she would not compete in Michigan, which is holding a primary before Feb. 5 in violation of the Democratic National Committee rules. The pledge was circulated on Friday by officials from the four states approved to vote before that date.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/03/asia/politicus.php?WT.mc_id=rssamerica
Politicus: Democrats can't count on a flummoxed Midwestern electorate
Published: September 3, 2007
LUDINGTON, Michigan: Could the Democrats lose the 2008 presidential election? In Midwesternese the answer is, you betcha. Why ask that question here, Chevy parked at the edge of the sand, wedged between Farquhar's Fabulous Frankfurters hot-dog stand and the "No Roughhousing/No Rock Throwing" sign on the Ludington town beach?
Because, in theory at least, if ever there was a state designed for a Democratic victory next year, it's Michigan, an intersection of grief and confusion. Michigan has the country's highest unemployment rate, 7.2 percent; its poorest big city, Detroit; 80,000 layoffs in the last 18 months; and real estate foreclosures up 39 percent from June to July.
Despair lurks. The shrunken, flailing American automobile industry, once a symbol of Michigan's vigor, oozes decline. In August, when the fine beaches along Lake Michigan filled and the bed-and-breakfast table talk wandered desolately toward politics, The Detroit News published a poll showing that Michigan Democratic primary voters preferred a notional Al Gore candidacy to anyone actually in the race. When the polling choice was limited last weekend to the real world, Hillary Clinton came in first. Ed Sarpolus, who conducts political polls from Lansing, described the situation as one in which there was "not much love" yet for Clinton, Barack Obama or even John Edwards, whose protectionist-sounding line scores with the leadership of the United Auto Workers. Voters here "don't know what to do," Sarpolus said. "Folks in Michigan are frustrated."
http://www.hinzsightreport.com/uspolitics/letn-071402.html
How Long Will Democrats Own the Black Vote?
By Lance Thompson - Contributing Editor
02/14/2007
Illinois Senator Barack Obama has enjoyed a meteoric rise in the early presidential polls. The black Senator’s popularity will help Democrats cling to their most loyal voting bloc, and postpone the realization by black Americans that they’ve been voting for the wrong party since 1960. Black voters have been overwhelmingly Democrats since civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., encouraged them to vote in the 1960 election, and privately backed John F. Kennedy. JFK received over 70% of the black vote. More recently, in 2000, 90% of black voters chose Al Gore, 9% George Bush. In 2004, John Kerry captured 88% of the black vote, George Bush 11%. Year after year, election after election, black voters overwhelmingly favor the Democrat ticket. Yet history shows that black Americans have more to thank Republicans for than Democrats. The Republican party began in the 1850s, conceived by opponents to the extension of slavery into the new territories of the United States. On 6 March 1857, the United States Supreme Court, consisting of seven Democrats and two Republicans, handed down the Dred Scott decision.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/02/AR2007090200955.html
Labor in Fighting Trim
Monday, September 3, 2007; Page A15
The American labor movement is divided on which candidate to support for president. Its membership is at one of its low ebbs in our history. And yet the nation's unions are more politically influential today than they were in the movement's heyday in the 1950s.
Organized labor's clout is reflected in a Democratic presidential race in which every candidate is seeking labor's blessing. No Democrat is criticizing unions as "a special interest," a common line of attack from moderate and neoliberal Democrats in the 1980s.
Having played a major role in the Democrats' 2006 victory, labor has real influence in the new Congress. In the vote earlier this year on labor's central legislative demand -- changing federal law to allow for a "card check" system to make it easier for unions to organize -- only two House Democrats split from the union cause.
The 2006 results also put to rest anxieties that the defection of seven unions from the AFL-CIO to form the new Change to Win federation would weaken labor's effectiveness on Election Day.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070902/D8RDHP9G0.html
Clinton Embraces Mantle of Change
By BETH FOUHY
September 2, 2007
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday directly challenged her top rivals' claims that she is too conventional to bring needed change to Washington, declaring "you bring change by working in the system."
Clinton argued that political transformation can come only by working within established rules and seeking common ground when necessary.
Her years as part of the Washington establishment as first lady and as a New York senator have convinced her that real change can come only by seeking consensus, she told a rally on the lawn of the New Hampshire state capitol.
"I've learned you bring change by working in the system established by Constitution. You can't pretend the system doesn't exist," she maintained, seeking to counter arguments by rivals Barrack Obama and John Edwards that she has been too cozy with the Washington establishment.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/09/wheres_the_netroots_outrage_at.html
Where's the Netroots' Outrage at Hillary?
September 3, 2007
When Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) returned from Iraq last month expressing confidence in the administration's "surge" policy, the leftwing blogosphere pounced. MoveOn.org swiftly unleashed an ad campaign denouncing Baird, while the other day Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos wondered, "As for Baird, if there are any credible, hungry Democrats in that district looking for a promotion, now might not be a bad time to consider their options." Bringing pressure to bear on Democratic politicians who depart from orthodoxy is of course one of the primary functions of the so-called netroots. Their performance record is mixed but their growing influence is not, as was made clear when every Democratic candidate except Joe Biden addressed the netroots at their YearlyKos convention in Chicago in early August. So the campaign against Baird is of little surprise. As is the netroots' preference for candidates like Barack Obama and John Edwards, who have always been much more consistent in their anti-war stance than frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usclin0903,0,6566532.story
Bill Clinton 'shocked' Hillary donor was a fugitive
September 2, 2007
Contoocook, N.H - Former President Bill Clinton said he was "shocked" by revelations that a top fundraiser for his wife is a fugitive from justice and claimed he didn't even know what "HillRaiser" Norman Hsu did for a living.
"You could have knocked me over with a straw, especially when I heard the L.A. people had been allegedly looking for him for 15 years when he was in plain view," he told Newsday while touring a county fair in rural New Hampshire Sunday.
"I never knew how he made a living or anything, but I was shocked," said Clinton of Hsu, who has made millions as an investor in tetxtile and other businesses.
Hsu has been a fugitive after being accused of fraud in the early 1990s in San Mateo, Calif.
http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070904/NATION/109040060/1001
Chinese donor sounds like '96
By Bill Gertz
September 4, 2007
Questionable donations to Democratic officials and presidential candidates from a Chinese-American businessman highlight past concerns over Chinese political influence-buying operations. Apparel executive Norman Hsu, who turned himself in last week to authorities in California to face fraud charges, donated more than $1 million to senior Democrats, including the presidential campaigns of Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois. Mr. Hsu, a native of Hong Kong, has not been linked to any foreign government, and the fraud charges are unrelated to campaign contributions. It is not known whether federal investigators are looking into his donations, most of which were made since 2003. Mrs. Clinton, who gave $23,000 of Mr. Hsu's money to charity, said last week that the case does not appear similar to the 1996 scandal involving a covert effort by China's government to funnel money to President Clinton's re-election campaign.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RE6ME00&show_article=1
Obama Critiques Clinton
September 3, 2007
By BETH FOUHY
Associated Press Writer
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) - Democrat Barack Obama on Monday sharpened his critique of lead rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, warning against a return to "divisive, special interest politics" that had demoralized the country even before President Bush took office. "As bad as this administration has been, it's going to take more than just a change in parties to truly turn this country around," Obama told supporters at a Labor Day rally. "George Bush and Dick Cheney may have turned divisive, special interest politics into an art form, but it was there before they got to Washington. If you and I don't stand up to challenge it, it will be there long after we leave." It was the latest volley in the "change versus experience" debate that has dominated the dialogue between Clinton and her top rivals in recent weeks. On Sunday, Clinton unveiled a new campaign speech where she argued that only a president experienced in the ways of Washington could bring about real political transformation. Without mentioning Clinton by name, Obama struck back hard at that argument. "There are those who tout their experience working the system in Washington," Obama said. "But the problem is the system in Washington isn't working for us, and it hasn't been for a very long time."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070902/ap_on_el_pr/edwards_2
Edwards backs mandatory preventive care
By AMY LORENTZEN, Associated Press Writer
September 2, 2007
TIPTON, Iowa - Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.
"It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care," he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. "If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK."
He noted, for example, that women would be required to have regular mammograms in an effort to find and treat "the first trace of problem." Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, announced earlier this year that her breast cancer had returned and spread.
Edwards said his mandatory health care plan would cover preventive, chronic and long-term health care. The plan would include mental health care as well as dental and vision coverage for all Americans.
Edwards gets endorsement of steelworkers, mine workers
9/3/2007, 10:57 a.m. EDT
By RAMESH SANTANAM
The Associated Press
PITTSBURGH (AP) — John Edwards won the endorsement of the United Steelworkers and the United Mine Workers of America as more than 1,000 union members cheered the Democratic presidential candidate. "America was not built on Wall Street. America was built by steelworkers and mine workers," Edwards told supporters at a downtown Labor Day rally and parade. Wearing union T-shirts and carrying signs that urged an end to the war in Iraq, the crowd booed heartily when UMW President Cecil Roberts brought up the name of President Bush. Roberts said Bush is to blame for many good-paying U.S. jobs going overseas. Earlier, Edwards suggested New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign represents politics-as-usual in Washington and that Edwards represents a break from the past. "We just have a disagreement," Edwards said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "Sen. Clinton defends Washington lobbyists and the system that exists in Washington and thinks she can work within that system. If that were true we would already have universal health care. If that were true America would already be attacking global warming in a serious way."
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070902/BUSINESS01/709020592/1014
Edwards gets heat for SUV stance
September 2, 2007
The word "yes" got presidential candidate John Edwards a lot of negative attention among the auto industry and his conservative critics last week. After Edwards told a union gathering in Florida that Americans should be asked to drive more fuel-efficient vehicles, he was asked specifically if he'd tell people to give up their SUVs.
His answer was "yes."
The reaction was swift. What does he drive? (The answer: a Ford Escape hybrid and Chrysler Pacifica, but he is seen in pictures in a Cadillac SRX.) What about the energy needed to maintain his 28,000-square-foot mansion? (Several bloggers showed aerial pictures of his mansion with circles around SUVs in the driveway.)
"You can have my SUV keys when you pry them from my cold green fingers," said one blogger.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070902/COL32/709020508/1070/OPINION02
WIN OR BLOW IT? Odds favor sweep for Democrats next year, but party could yet find a way to lose
September 2, 2007
The table has never been better set for Democrats to take control of the country next year and hold on to it for a long time. But never underestimate the Democratic Party's ability to blow it. Consider: We have an unpopular Republican president who is struggling to extract some success out of an even-less-popular war that the United States started under a premise that was proved wrong. His fellow Republicans are bailing out of Washington like rats off a sinking ship. Veteran GOP lawmakers are quitting Congress after losing control to the Democrats last year. Investigations and scandals abound.
And that's just in Washington. Across the country, the gap between rich and poor is widening at the expense of the middle class; there are way more poor than rich, and guess how the poor tend to vote? Nearly 16% of the country has no health insurance. The homeland doesn't feel any more secure since 9/11. From New Orleans to Minneapolis to that water main in Livonia in July, the nation's infrastructure appears to be falling apart. Illegal immigrants keep pouring across the border. Gas prices are too high. And when was the last time you talked to someone who said they were working less but earning more?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/01/AR2007090100592_pf.html
GOP Faces Growing Peril In 2008 Races
Senate Prospects Dimming
By Jonathan Weisman and Chris Cillizza
Washington Post Staff Writer and washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Sunday, September 2, 2007; A03
A Senate electoral playing field that was already wide open for 2008 has become considerably more perilous for Republicans with the retirement of Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) and the resignation of scandal-scarred Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho).
Republicans need a net gain of just one seat to take back control of the Senate, but they have 22 seats to defend, and campaign cash is conspicuously lacking. Warner's retirement raised to two the number of open Republican seats, and both of them -- in Virginia and Colorado -- are prime targets for Democrats. With former Democratic senator Bob Kerrey possibly waiting in the wings, Republicans are anxiously watching to see whether Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) will retire. And two more Republican seats open for reelection -- in Wyoming and Idaho -- would be occupied by unelected appointees, John Barrasso and Craig's replacement.
The American Debate: GOP drops the ball on Hispanic vote
By Dick Polman
For The Inquirer
September 2, 2007
Karl Rove is right. That's not a misprint. President Bush's career guru has long insisted that Republicans will never achieve permanent majority status unless they can connect with Hispanic voters. Since his White House departure, he has warned Republicans that their persistent immigrant-bashing is hazardous to their long-term political health. In Rove's words, "You cannot ignore the aspirations of the fastest-growing minority in America." But the party seems to be rolling up the welcome mat, even at the risk of alienating Hispanics who have the potential to swing five crucial states in the 2008 presidential election. As conservative political activist Clint Bolick warned in an Arizona newspaper not long ago, "If Republicans continue chasing Hispanic voters away, they can kiss their national electoral prospects good-bye."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/02/AR2007090200888.html
Grim Old Party
Monday, September 3, 2007; Page A15
During the summer, a female acquaintance of mine in her 70s who had been a faithful Republican during her long life received a GOP telephone solicitation as a previous contributor to the party. Not this time. She informed the fundraiser that President Bush's position on immigration was the last straw. She would not give the Republicans another dime. Such a rebuff, commonplace for Republican fundraisers today, puts a human face on cold Federal Election Commission statistics showing a commanding Democratic lead in raising money for the 2008 elections. This unusual disparity is at once a symptom and a contributing cause of the melancholy suffusing the Grand Old Party.
As measured by offices held, Republicans have been in much worse shape during my half-century of reporting in Washington. The party was a mere remnant after the Democratic landslides of 1958, 1964 and 1974. But never have I seen morale so low. While Republican support for an unpopular war has remained remarkably strong, almost all the non-war news during the dreary August recess has been bad for the GOP. The hope is that the eventual elevation of a presidential candidate will revive the party's spirits.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07245/813801-373.stm
GOP scandals get more press
Democrats and the media let the liberals slide
Sunday, September 02, 2007
By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Three scandals involving politicians were made public in the past week. The odds are you've heard of only one -- the arrest of Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho for allegedly soliciting homosexual sex in a restroom in the Minneapolis airport.
But The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that a lower-middle-class family in suburban San Francisco has contributed $45,000 to Hillary Clinton and $200,000 total to Democratic candidates since 2005, contributions they almost certainly couldn't afford on the $49,000 annual salary chief breadwinner William Paw earned as a postal worker.
Contributions from the Paw family often were made on the same day as contributions from Norman Hsu, a New York businessman who has been one of Ms. Clinton's top fundraisers, the Journal said. Mr. Hsu once listed the Daly City bungalow where the Paw family lives as his residence.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjJjZmYwOTM3YzkxYzNhMjE3Mzg0ZjU0MzJiZmJiYjI=
Caution: Objective Journalist at Work
Journalism has forgotten its role as communicator, not campaigner.
By Steve Salerno
August 31, 2007
It was one of those small moments that brings the big picture into crisp focus: On Monday, August 27, Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts sat down with Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama. The conversation quickly turned to rebuilding New Orleans, a topic near and dear to Roberts’s heart. She calls the region home and has spent a good deal of time covering the Katrina disaster and its aftermath. Roberts began by feeding Sen. Obama the perfect opening to share his views on how irresponsibly insurance companies acted in the literal and figurative wake of Katrina. With characteristic aplomb, the candidate enunciated his feelings on the unfairness of “cherry-picking,” and how unconscionable it is for insurers to pile up profits on the backs of suffering Americans. No surprises there. One would expect such arch rhetoric, with its loaded terms and base-mobilizing themes, from a man seeking the White House. The really troubling part came next. As the candidate finished making the insurance industry sound as if it were run by the Corleone family, concluding that “insurance companies can’t just be a profit-making machine where…when you finally have to pay, you walk away,” the journalist said this:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-craig_finalsep02,1,505059.story
'Deeply sorry' senator resigns amid scandal
September 2, 2007
Saying he was "deeply sorry," a humbled Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) said Saturday that he would resign from the Senate, an announcement national party leaders greeted with relief after days of worrying that his arrest in an airport bathroom would hurt all Republicans in the 2008 elections.
Craig stood with his family by his side, as well as the governor of Idaho and other Republican officials, as he told supporters in Boise that he would do what is best for the people of Idaho by removing an "unwanted and unfair distraction" from the Senate.
"What is best for Idaho has always been the focus of my efforts, and it is no different today," said Craig, 62. "To Idahoans I represent, to my staff, my Senate colleagues, but most importantly to my wife and my family, I apologize for what I have caused. I am deeply sorry."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0831/p01s02-uspo.html
GOP reacts quickly to latest scandal
Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho pleaded guilty in June to lewd conduct in a restroom.
The Christian Science Monitor
August 31, 2007 edition
Washington - Perhaps the most relieved Republican in the country this week is Alberto Gonzales. On the day the much-maligned attorney general announced his resignation, spurring renewed examination of his controversial tenure, the news was quickly overtaken by that staple of Washington news coverage: a congressional sex scandal.
But for a Republican Party already facing an uphill battle in the 2008 elections – with an unpopular president, unpopular war, and several other legislators already in trouble – the latest bad news presents yet another blow to a GOP struggling to defend its image as the defender of family values. On Monday, news broke that Sen. Larry Craig (R) of Idaho was arrested in June in a Minneapolis airport restroom for alleged lewd behavior and pleaded guilty earlier this month to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct.
The three-term senator says his guilty plea was a mistake and that he is not gay. But his party is not giving him the benefit of the doubt. In short order, the Senate Republican leadership requested a Senate ethics investigation into the case and stripped Senator Craig of his committee assignments.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20546336/site/newsweek/
Last Stop on The 'V'-Train
By Jonathan Alter
Newsweek
Sept. 10, 2007 issue
Earlier this year, Idaho Sen. Larry Craig explained why he favors Mitt Romney. "First and foremost," Craig said, "he has very strong family values." That platitude had power for Craig, as it did for his party. But it turns out that family values might no longer have a "wide stance" athwart American politics. The haste with which his fellow Republicans called for Craig's resignation suggests that they fear many voters will no longer automatically associate the GOP with superior moral standing. Craig's humiliating story, amplified in more than 10,000 blog posts, isn't new, and not just because homosexual men have been trysting in the toilet area since the introduction of public restrooms more than a century ago. The conservative-hypocrisy angle goes way back, too. When I first moved to Washington, D.C., in 1980, Maryland Rep. Bob Bauman, arguably the single most anti-gay and sanctimonious right-winger in town (quite a feat), was busted for sex with a 16-year-old male dancer. Soon he was joined by Mississippi Rep. Jon Hinson, found in a compromising position in a men's room down the hall from his House office, and the Franklin child-sex ring, which ensnared more than a dozen officials in the Reagan and first Bush administrations. I remember thinking, this will stop the moralizing windbags who are pushing aside old-fashioned, leave-us-alone libertarians.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/02/AR2007090201436.html
When Controversy Follows Cash
Some Fundraisers With Legal Issues Slip Through Campaigns' Vetting
By John Solomon and Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, September 3, 2007; Page A01
Sant S. Chatwal, an Indian American businessman, has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaigns, even as he battled governments on two continents to escape bankruptcy and millions of dollars in tax liens.
The founder of the Bombay Palace restaurant chain, Chatwal is one of a growing number of fundraisers in the 2008 presidential campaign whose backgrounds have prompted questions about how much screening the candidates devote to their "bundlers" while they press to raise record amounts. Chatwal's case reached from his native India to New York City. The IRS pursued him for approximately $4 million in unpaid business taxes, while New York state placed a lien seeking more than $5 million in taxes. He forfeited a building to New York City on which he was delinquent on property taxes and was sued by federal regulators seeking to recoup millions of dollars in loans from a failed bank where he served as a director.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/09/why_liberals_are_turning_on_te.html
Why Liberals Are Turning on Ted Kennedy
By Froma Harrop
September 4, 2007
Once upon a time, Ted Kennedy could count on his daily dose of veneration. The right wing hated the Massachusetts Democrat, but progressives honored him as a defender of old-school liberalism. In a remarkable turnaround, liberals are now heaping scorn on the 73-year-old senator. Young audiences boo at his name, and the leftish "Daily Show" on Comedy Central makes fun of him. The source of unhappiness is Kennedy's efforts to kill an offshore wind farm on Nantucket Sound. Cape Wind was to be the first such project in the United States and a source of pride to environmentally minded New Englanders. Polls show 84 percent of Massachusetts residents in favor. But now it appears that America's first offshore wind farm will be near Galveston, Texas. Proposed the month before Sept. 11, 2001, Cape Wind remains in limbo. It's been frustrated at every turn by a handful of yachtsmen, Kennedy included, who don't want to see windmills from their verandas. Many millions have been spent spreading disinformation and smearing the wind farm's supporters.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20562231/
When Harry met Nancy: D.C.'s power couple
Only 1 of 5 Americans approve of Reid, Pelosi's Democratic-led Congress
Reuters
September 2, 2007
WASHINGTON - The Democratic odd couple leading the U.S. Congress has struggled to make its political marriage productive since rising to power in January.
Now with Washington deadlocked on Iraq and other matters, polls show Americans more frustrated with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi than the two have been with each other. "We have great hurdles to overcome," Reid, flanked by Pelosi, said in sizing up the battles Democrats face when lawmakers return from their summer recess this week. Polls show only about one in five Americans approve of the Democratic-led Congress, a rating even below the unpopular President George W. Bush, and Reid and Pelosi are poised to again challenge Bush on the unpopular Iraq war. They will also seek to win congressional approval of proposed Democratic hikes in domestic spending on matters from education to health care and the environment that Bush has threatened to veto.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070901/ap_on_bi_ge/immigrant_employers_lawsuit_1
Judge halts illegal immigrant notices
By JORDAN ROBERTSON, Associated Press Writer Sat Sep 1, 12:26 AM ET
SAN FRANCISCO - The Social Security Administration cannot start sending out letters to employers next week containing notification of more serious penalties for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, a federal judge ruled Friday.
Ruling on a lawsuit by the nation's largest federation of labor unions against the U.S. government, U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney granted a temporary restraining order prohibiting the so-called "no-match" letters from going out as planned starting Tuesday.
The AFL-CIO lawsuit, filed this week, claims that new Department of Homeland Security rules outlined in accompanying letters threaten to violate workers' rights and unfairly burden employers. Chesney said the court needs "breathing room" before making any decision on the legality of new penalties aimed at cracking down on the hiring of illegal immigrants.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070902/OPINION03/709020342/1382
Hispanics don't speak with one voice
Manny Lopez
Detroit News
September 2, 2007
Elvira Arellano doesn't speak for me. Nor does Alberto Gonzales, but I'm being asked repeatedly why I'm not defending them. For the record, Gonzales should be judged on what he's done throughout his career, not just his tenure as attorney general and certainly not because of his ethnicity. He was qualified for his job. He just didn't do it well.
Arellano is another story. For those who aren't getting the "viva la raza"-type e-mails I'm getting -- apparently because I'm Latino, it's assumed I'll defend her lawlessness -- she is the Mexican woman who was deported recently after spending a year in a Chicago church, daring immigration officials to arrest her. She continues to lecture Americans and lambaste our government for not doing more to keep her from illegally crossing over from Mexico. "The United States is the one who broke the law first by letting people cross over (the border) without documents," she said during a whirlwind media tour from her native Mexico.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BORDER_LONGER_LINES?SITE=MIDTN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Lines at United States borders longer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Stepped-up inspections at the Canadian and Mexican borders have led to lines nearly as long as they were after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The longer lines of people driving into the United States from Mexico or Canada, some returning U.S. citizens, have appeared over the past month or two at several ports of entry. The wait to cross became so long this month at Blue Water Bridge, which connects Port Huron, Mich., with Point Edward/Sarnia, Ontario, that the Ministry of Transportation in Ontario set up portable toilets along the road.
"Many motorists have become stranded in the lineups, not expecting such a long delay. Not since 9/11 have the backups been so common," said Garry McDonald, president of the Sarnia Lambton Chamber of Commerce, which requested the toilets.
Border residents and businesses blame new rules that require U.S. citizens to show driver's licenses, passports or other photo ID. They say there is not enough staff to inspect the documents, collect information and do additional vehicle checks.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070901/76058131.html
Russia to continue advanced missile tests in 2007-SMF commander
September 1, 2007
MOSCOW, September 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Strategic Missile Forces will conduct more tests of new warheads for its intercontinental ballistic missiles later this year, the SMF commander said Saturday. "This year we will continue test and combat-training launches of new types of warheads for the Topol-M and Bulava sea-launched missile complexes," Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov said. He said previously a second missile battalion, equipped with advanced Topol-M (SS-27) road-mobile ICBMs, will be put on combat duty before the end of the year and that the deployment of silo-based Topol-M systems in the Saratov Region and road-mobile systems in the Ivanovo Region (central Russia) would be completed in 2010. As of December 2006, the Strategic Missile Forces operated 44 silo-based and three mobile missile systems.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/31/AR2007083101533.html
Vladimir the Great?
Putin's Inspiration Is Much Older Than the Cold War
By Jay Winik
Sunday, September 2, 2007; Page B07
Having just grabbed a piece of the Arctic the size of Western Europe, the Russian military has announced ambitious plans to establish a permanent presence in the Mediterranean for the first time since the end of the Cold War. The guiding hand behind this Russian resurgence is undeniably Russia's enigmatic president, Vladimir Putin.
On the surface, enigmatic seems to be the word. Putin dons well-tailored suits even as he clamps down on domestic opposition and homemade democracy. He flashes a warm smile in the councils of international summitry even as he smashes dissent in Chechnya. He has charmed President Bush even as he stymies U.S. policy in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. The conventional wisdom is that Putin's background in the KGB is what ultimately drives his more notorious actions, leading foreign policy commentators to raise the specter of a renewed Cold War.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b1c08ec6-5979-11dc-aef5-0000779fd2ac.html
China to give military spending data to UN
By Richard McGregor in Beijing
Published: September 2 2007
Beijing says it will report on its level of military spending to the United Nations and resume providing data on its trade in conventional weapons to a register kept by the international organisation.The announcement follows criticism over many years about what western nations say has been a lack of transparency in military spending by China in the midst of a substantial build-up and modernisation of its armed forces.
China’s official military expenditure has been increasing at 15-20 per cent annually this century, reaching about $45bn (€33bn, £22.3bn) in 2007, but the Pentagon estimates real spending is about two to three times higher. Jiang Yu, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, in a statement on the ministry’s website, said Beijing’s decision to report its spending to the UN for the last fiscal year was “a significant step on the part of China in further enhancing its military transparency”.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RDEVK80&show_article=1
Iran: Uranium Centrifuge Goal Reached
Sep 2 01:14 PM US/Eastern
By NASSER KARIMI
Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's president claimed Sunday that his country is now running 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium for its nuclear program—a long-sought Iranian goal that could add momentum to efforts to impose new U.N. sanctions on the Islamic Republic. The claim appeared at odds with a report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog on Thursday that put the number much lower—at close to 2,000. The International Atomic Energy Agency said enrichment had slowed and Iran was cooperating with its nuclear probe, which could fend off calls for a third round of sanctions. "The West thought the Iranian nation would give in after just a resolution, but now we have taken another step in the nuclear progress and launched more than 3,000 centrifuge machines, installing a new cascade every week," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in remarks carried by the state television Web site. Iran previously announced operating 3,000 centrifuges in April, but the IAEA said at the time that Iran had only 328 centrifuges going at its underground Natanz enrichment facility in central Iran.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RDGHJG0&show_article=1
U.S.: North Korea to Declare Nuclear Programs
Sep 2 03:00 PM US/Eastern
By ELIANE ENGELER
Associated Press Writer
GENEVA (AP) - North Korea agreed Sunday to account for and disable its atomic programs by the end of the year, offering its first timeline for a process long sought by nuclear negotiators, the chief U.S. envoy said. Kim Gye Gwan, head of the North Korean delegation, said separately his country's willingness to cooperate was clear—in return for "political and economic compensation"—but he mentioned no dates. Hill, a U.S. assistant secretary of state, said two days of talks between the United States and North Korea in Geneva had been "very good and very substantive" and would help improve chances of a successful meeting later this month with Japan, Russia, South Korea and China in six-nation talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear weapons program and improving relations between North Korea and other countries. "One thing that we agreed on is that the DPRK will provide a full declaration of all of their nuclear programs and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year, 2007," Hill told reporters, using the initials for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
