352 Days until Election Day
MORNING UPDATE:
The Macomb County GOP Tribute to conservative leaders was a great success! The special guest was Congressman Duncan Hunter. Congrats on a job well done…and thanks to those who stand on principle!!!
Attorney General Mike Cox ended the evening after the “Ax the Tax” axes were handed out to the various honorees by suggesting next year’s slogan could be: “no taxation with Republican representation”!
The Attorney General on behalf of the Secretary of State filed an appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court to get a final ruling on holding the Michigan presidential primary. They have asked for an expedited hearing which means hopefully we will know by Wednesday. My argument is:
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/11/mi-court-of-app.html
The House Democrats have decided NOT to come in this week to do any work…they took last week off as well. The presidential “fix” bill which passed the Senate is just “sitting” there, waiting for some action/work out of the House Democrats.
Here is our press release & our Supreme Court filings:
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/11/press-release-p.html
On-line fundraising for Republicans at Slatecard.com has kicked off. This is a great venue that I hope you will consider supporting our GOP candidates…we’re behind the Dems in online fundraising…help Walberg or Casperson…or give to Knollenberg or McCotter…check out Michigan targets at:
http://slatecard.com/slatecards/migop
An obituary for Mr. Common Sense….a must read:
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/11/obituary-of-the.html
I’m was on Detroit’s CBS “Michigan Matters”… I provided a couple of guest commentaries about healthcare and tax & spend policy…check it out:
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/11/anuzis-gives-vi.html
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2007/11/chairman-anuzis.html
We’ll be taking Thanksgiving weekend off of emails to spend a little time with the family…so just getting you all ready for a break in the action…hot stuff (news) to be posted on our blog.
Give a Gift this Holiday Season that Will Last a Lifetime!
The Michigan Republicans moved their headquarters to the Secchia-Weiser Republican Center in 2006 and plan to install a legacy site to honor those who have served the party and the citizens of Michigan. The legacy site will create a well-deserved tribute to honor Michigan’s past, present, and future Republican leaders! Buy a brick to celebrate, to inspire, or to commemorate friends, family, or yourself this holiday season! They are a great way to honor others in memoriam, birthdays, anniversaries, or any special occasion. Your honoree will receive a certificate commemorating their personalized brick. Choose from our four different options and be a part of the Michigan Republican Party Legacy!
To order your personalized Legacy Brick please visit www.migop.org/legacy, or contact Erin Meteer, Major Donor Program Manager at emeteer@migop.org.
THE REST OF THE STORY:
No further commentary today
Saul Anuzis
STATE STORIES
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/1107/Michigan_Michigan_Michigan.html
Michigan, Michigan, Michigan
Jonathan Martin
November 19, 2007
Michigan GOP chair Saul Anuzis writes in his daily e-mail blast:
Presidential primary is still in question. We are hoping that the House Democrats pass the “fix” legislation that has already passed the Senate. We are working on a number of legal remedies and we expect the attorney general to file an appeal on behalf of the secretary of state with the Supreme Court ASAP to try and settle this. If we’re lucky, we’ll know for sure by Wednesday?
This could be a big, even defining week in terms of the primary calendar.There is intense pressure to get this issue resolved quickly in Michigan because election officials need to prepare absentee ballots if there is ultimately a primary on January 15th.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hAWD_zB3_RzCIVVeao207KrMPexAD8T0R80G0
Michigan Primary Goes to High Court
By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN
November 19, 2007
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan officials took another stab at getting the courts to save the Jan. 15 presidential primary. The attorney general's office on Monday filed an appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court, asking it to overturn Friday's decision by an appeals court. In a 2-1 ruling, Judges Patrick Meter and Donald Owens objected that a law recently passed by the Legislature setting up the primary would let the state political parties keep track of voters' names and whether they took Democratic or GOP primary ballots but give no public access to that information.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071119/UPDATE/711190439/1361
Supreme Court asked to reinstate Michigan primary
Gordon Trowbridge / The Detroit News
Monday, November 19, 2007
With time running short for Michigan's Jan. 15 presidential primary, the state has asked the Michigan Supreme Court to reinstate the contest by Wednesday. The request comes as part of an appeal to the state's highest court of the state Court of Appeals ruling on Friday barring the contest from moving forward. That 2-1 ruling upheld a lower-court decision that the primary law violates the state constitution by making voting lists from the election available only to the two major political parties. Time is running short for the contest, the state argues in an affidavit submitted by elections director Chris Thomas.
http://cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000002631236
Michigan, New Hampshire Primaries Still up in Air
By Marie Horrigan, CQ Staff
Nov. 19, 2007 – 3:13 p.m.
The battle over Michigan’s presidential primary escalated Monday when the state’s attorney general’s office appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court to allow a Jan. 15 primary. On Friday, a state appeals court blocked the law that set the early primary date. Given the foreshortened timeline — the contest would be held less than two months from today — the attorney general’s office asked the Supreme Court to rule by the end of Wednesday. “The clock is ticking and there are so many other deadlines that need to get met,” said Rusty Hills, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office. If Friday’s decision is not overturned, it is possible the state will not sponsor a primary this year, leaving the state parties to allocate their delegates to the national conventions this summer.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071120/NEWS06/711200385
Inaction leaves little hope for primary
November 20, 2007
BY DAWSON BELL
FREE PRESS LANSING BUREAU
Leaders of Michigan's House of Representatives announced Monday that the body won't meet this week, effectively ending any chance the Legislature will rescue the state's Jan. 15 presidential primary election. That leaves an emergency appeal filed with the state Supreme Court earlier Monday as the only hope for the primary, which was blocked 10 days ago by an Ingham County judge who ruled part of the law creating it unconstitutional.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071120/POLITICS/711200357/1022
Primary hopes dwindling
Election officials say Michigan Supreme Court must act by Wednesday for Jan. 15 vote to go forward.
Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Election officials say they must know by midweek whether Michigan's Jan. 15 presidential primary will move forward, state lawyers argued Monday in asking the Michigan Supreme Court to reinstate the contest. Without a final decision before noon Wednesday, the state's top elections official "cannot say that the primary will be held without failures, without great likelihood of errors or without disenfranchising a large number of military, overseas and out-of-state voters," the state argued. The deadline is laid out in an affidavit from state elections director Chris Thomas. Monday's appeal is the last legal gasp of hope for the Jan. 15 contest, which officials of both parties have hoped will place Michigan in a key spot in the presidential nominating contests.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071120/NEWS06/711200394
Senate to seek tax compromise
November 20, 2007
BY CHRIS CHRISTOFF
FREE PRESS LANSING BUREAU CHIEF
LANSING -- The Senate today will interrupt its two-week November recess to work on a compromise to repeal a new tax on services and replace it with a bigger business tax. But a final deal with the House must wait until at least next week, when the House returns from a traditional hunting-season break. Senate Republicans plan to rework a House bill that would kill the service tax scheduled to take effect Dec. 1 and replace it with a 33% surcharge on the Michigan Business Tax (MBT).
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071120/POLITICS/711200345/1022
Mich. Senate likely to pass tax surcharge
Vote expected today on replacing $700M from expansion of service tax; House delays action.
Mark Hornbeck and Gary Heinlein / Detroit News Lansing Bureau
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
LANSING -- The Senate is expected today to pass its own version of a business tax surcharge to replace the universally despised service tax -- but it won't win final approval today because the House isn't scheduled in until next week. Expansion of the 6 percent state sales tax to a variety of services is scheduled to take effect Dec. 1, but outcry from the business community compelled the House to scrap the levy and replace the $700 million in revenue it would generate with a 33 percent surcharge onto the gross sales of medium and large businesses, through the new Michigan Business Tax.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071120/OPINION01/711200314/1007/OPINION
Role of State Police should be clarified
The Detroit News
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Two state representatives are asking good questions about the role of the State Police. At a time when Michigan is closing two State Police crime labs, valuable State Police resources should be deployed in the most efficient and effective way possible. State Rep. Paul Condino, D-Southfield, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he was surprised when he attended a recent meeting of local law enforcement officials and was confronted with numerous complaints that the State Police is duplicating services that could or should be performed by local or county police. He and his colleague, State Rep. Daniel Acciavatti, R-Chesterfield Township, have expressed a desire to clarify the lines of responsibility between local agencies and the State Police.
http://www.mlive.com/news/flintjournal/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1195480232278540.xml&coll=5
Crim outlook Ex-lawmaker sounds off on toll of term limits
FLINT JOURNAL EDITORIAL
Monday, November 19, 2007
Here's a riddle from Bobby Crim: "How do you get a brain surgeon in two years?" A hint: the former Democratic state House speaker from Davison is not really talking about brain surgery; he's talking about our state Legislature and what he calls the biggest problem with Michigan's political system today. Speaking Friday on the Public Broadcasting program "Off the Record" with Tim Skubick on WKAR-TV in East Lansing, Crim minced no words, calling term limits "one of the worst things we've ever done in this state."
http://www.mlive.com/news/kzgazette/index.ssf?/base/columns-3/1195487896264480.xml&coll=7
Single-pay health-care plan advancing
Kalamazoo Gazette
Monday, November 19, 2007
If Dr. James C. Mitchiner had spoken here a few decades ago, the vast majority of his audience -- especially medical colleagues -- would have been unreceptive at best. Not so in Kalamazoo last week in the Fetzer Center's Putney Auditorium at Western Michigan. Mitchiner is an emergency-room physician at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor. He's also president-elect of the Washtenaw Country Medical Society. Mitchiner's central theme was what he views as an urgent need for a single-pay health-care system, without doing away with medicine's private sector.
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-2/119548360788280.xml&coll=6
A national water commission?
Grand Rapids Press
Monday, November 19, 2007
Fires ravaged tinder-dry Southern California last month. The Colorado River is at an 85-year-low. The mayor of Atlanta recently floated the idea of piping water to her parched city from somewhere else. So, it should come as no surprise that U.S. Rep. John Linder, a Republican from Georgia, has introduced legislation to form a national commission on water resources. No surprise, either, that representatives from Michigan, including Rep. Vernon Ehlers, R-Grand Rapids, reacted to Mr. Linder's idea with considerable skepticism, even alarm.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071120/POLITICS/711200404/1022
In Macomb Co., Hunter blasts trade practices
Far behind in polls, GOP presidential contender says he is best equipped to stop Mich.'s loss of manufacturing jobs.
Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
MACOMB TOWNSHIP -- Long-shot Republican presidential hopeful Duncan Hunter on Monday said he is best equipped to reverse the loss of manufacturing jobs in Michigan and across the country. "The industrial base of this country is moving offshore, and that's a fact of life," the California congressman told about 100 Macomb County Republican activists at a party fundraiser. Unfair trade practices by nations such as China are to blame, Hunter said -- echoing the complaints of Michigan politicians of both parties.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071120/NEWS01/711200342
Mayors to confront foreclosures
Meeting in Detroit to study growing crisis
November 20, 2007
BY ZACHARY GORCHOW
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
The foreclosed house next door to Kristi Katsma's home in Detroit's Indian Village symbolizes the potential rot the foreclosure crisis creates for neighborhoods. After it was broken into repeatedly and stripped of copper pipes and architectural elements, residents have banded together to help the house on Seminole, setting up a security system and caring for the yard in hopes of protecting their neighborhood's character. "In part, we're doing this to safeguard our investment," said Katsma, 37. "The longer a house is empty, the more it's in disrepair and the greater a chance that it's going to get broken into."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21870766/
Detroit named nation’s most dangerous city
Critics dispute analysis of crime statistics, say rankings can be harmful
Associated Press
Sun., Nov. 18, 2007
DETROIT - In another blow to the Motor City’s tarnished image, Detroit pushed past St. Louis to become the nation’s most dangerous city, according to a private research group’s controversial analysis, released Sunday, of annual FBI crime statistics. The study drew harsh criticism even before it came out. The American Society of Criminology launched a pre-emptive strike Friday, issuing a statement attacking it as “an irresponsible misuse” of crime data. The 14th annual “City Crime Rankings: Crime in Metropolitan America” was published by CQ Press, a unit of Congressional Quarterly Inc. It is based on the FBI’s Sept. 24 crime statistics report.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071120/OPINION01/711200339/1069
Excuses won't lower violent crime
Detroit Free Press
November 20, 2007
You can argue with the way crime numbers were used for a new report that declared Detroit America's "most dangerous city." But you also have to take issue with Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings' bizarre defense that the report didn't account for all the crime victims who are druggies and felons. That, of course, is supposed to show that crime isn't "random" in Detroit, so the city is not that dangerous, even if it is on pace for more than 400 homicides for the umpteenth year in a row. Applying the chief's logic, why even bother to count undesirables as whole people? When a drug addict gets gunned down by a drug dealer, or an ex-con is shot in a robbery, those should be half-murders. A victim with two priors maybe counts as only a third.
Atheists protest Menominee's plan for Nativity scene
11/19/2007, 3:18 p.m. EST
The Associated Press
MENOMINEE, Mich. (AP) — The nation's largest group of atheists and agnostics filed a letter of protest with the city for deciding to put a Nativity scene in its bandshell. Members of the parks and recreation committee approved the display earlier this month with the provision that non-Christians be allowed to add their symbols. The co-president of the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation said in a letter sent Thursday that the display would violate the separation of church and state.
NATIONAL STORIES
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2007/11/giuliani-beats.html
Giuliani beats Clinton in new poll
Beth Reinhard
November 19, 2007
Republican Rudy Giuliani, shown here campaigning yesterday at the NASCAR Nextel Cup Ford 400 race in Homestead, is the most popular presidential candidate in Florida, with 57 percent of voters willing to consider voting for him, according to a new Mason-Dixon poll. In a potential matchup with Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, Giuliani wins 50-43 percent. Republicans Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney also beat her, although their wins are within the margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points. Clinton is the only candidate, Democrat or Republican, with higher unfavorable than favorable ratings; 45 percent of voters have an unfavorable opinion of her, while 38 percent have a favorable opinion.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=23488
Rudy Impresses the Federalist Society
by Jennifer Rubin
Posted: 11/19/2007
If the GOP primary electorate were composed entirely of members of the Federalist Society, Rudy Giuliani would be the heavy favorite. Last Friday his opponents gave him an uncontested day before this conservative lawyers group celebrating their 25th anniversary. A number of the leaders and founders of this esteemed organization including Steven Calabresi and Ted Olson make up his judicial advisory board (by Giuliani’s count no less than seven of his judicial supporters spoke at the three day conference) so it should have come as no shock that he was warmly greeted, interrupted frequently by applause and left to a robust standing ovation.
Giuliani style evokes concern among critics
By Ellen Wulfhorst
November 19, 2007
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Republican Rudy Giuliani vows to be tough on terror, chooses advisers who want to bomb Iran and doesn't think pretending to drown prisoners is torture. Add to those views a reputation for being combative, and Giuliani often evokes the word "scary" from opponents who find the tough-guy image that served him so well after the September 11 attacks now a cause for concern as he seeks the U.S. presidency. Type the word "scary" and names of Republican candidates for president into a leading database of articles. The name of the former New York mayor will get the most hits.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/70753
Campaign Soul Searching
Some of America's bishops are prepared to take a hard line on abortion and politics. That's bad news for Rudy Giuliani.
By Jessica Ramirez and Lisa Miller
Nov 16, 2007
On Nov. 14, in the enormous ballroom of the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront hotel, hundreds of black-clad bishops were called to prayer-and then they got down to business. After a long debate, 221 of 224 members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops approved the document, called "Faithful Citizenship." The goal: to encourage American Catholics to use their faith as a guideline as they make choices in the presidential elections. Behind the show of unity, however, deep fissures remain among the bishops on how best to express their faith in the political sphere-especially on the question of whether pro-choice politicians should be entitled to receive communion, a question not addressed in "Faithful Citizenship."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/370ditbg.asp
The Man Who Wants to Fix Washington
Mitt Romney thinks the skills he acquired in the cutthroat world of corporate turnarounds will make him a good president.
Fred Barnes
11/26/2007, Volume 013, Issue 11
Mitt Romney and George W. Bush both graduated from Harvard Business School in 1975. "We did attend one class together," Romney recalls, "but I must admit that we didn't hang out together or do things." Nor did they become friends. Bush was single and fresh from five years in the Texas Air National Guard. A professor who taught Bush remembers him as a mediocre student who rarely participated in the give-and-take of class discussions. Bush earned an MBA and later wrote that Harvard "gave me the tools and vocabulary of the business world." But these skills didn't become central to his political career, much less his presidency.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OGI3NWIwOGYyN2JhZWJiODQ0NDI0YjM5MWU5ZmM2MzA=
Downplay My Faith? “That’s Not Going to Happen”
Mitt Romney talks about Mormonism and “The Speech.”
By Byron York
November 19, 2007
“He’s going to have to give the speech,” says one well-known evangelical leader of Mitt Romney. “It’s going to be an issue until he deals with it.” “The speech” refers to an address, modeled on John F. Kennedy’s 1960 talk to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, in which Romney would discuss his Mormonism, as Kennedy dealt with what he called the “so-called religious issue” of his Catholicism. It’s a speech Romney has so far declined to give. But today, with the first votes of 2008 less than seven weeks away and a variety of polls showing that a significant number of Americans, many of them evangelical Christians, would hesitate to vote for a Mormon, a number of influential evangelicals believe Romney should make some sort of statement.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzA4MTY0ZTA5MjU2M2VjMjIyMjYxMjUxZTZiNDhmMmU=
The New Fire in Fred’s Belly
A revitalized Thompson has an honest, clear, straightforward message of economic freedom and problem solving.
By Larry Kudlow
November 19, 2007 7:38 AM
An energetic and forceful Fred Thompson sat down with me last week on Kudlow and Company to talk politics and the economy. The former Tennessee senator was in good form — more animated than I’ve seen him, and definitely a different person than the one I interviewed six months ago. I asked him about Dick Armey, the former Republican House majority leader. Armey recently predicted that Hillary Clinton will be the next president, reasoning that the GOP has departed from the first principles of limited government and lower taxes.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmI2ZWZmYTEyMTZhMGI3NTM2ZDRhZTNiMzk2YzU5ZDQ=
Right Questions, Wrong Answers
By The Editors
November 19, 2007 6:00 AM
When they debated economic issues in Dearborn, Mich., most of the Republican presidential candidates talked about how good the economic statistics look. Mike Huckabee was the candidate who offered sympathy for the public’s anxieties. So it has been throughout the campaign. Huckabee, more than the other Republican candidates, understands that even in a time of economic growth Americans are worried about their health care, their wages, and their country’s future.
http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071119/OPINION01/711190303/1036/OPINION
Paul: Renew devotion to freedom, limited government
By RON PAUL
November 19, 2007
On the fourth day of July in 1776, a small group of men boldly told the most powerful nation on Earth they were free. They declared that all men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights. One then has to wonder how Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin would react to our current state of affairs. We have lost sight of the simple premise that guided the actions of our founding fathers. That premise? The government that governs least is the government that governs best. In our early history, it was understood that a free society embraced both civil liberties and economic liberties. But our government has significantly changed from one of limited power to one of pervasive intervention.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/19/AR2007111900940.html
For Democrats, Iowa Still Up for Grabs
By Anne E. Kornblut and Jon Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 20, 2007; Page A01
The top three Democratic presidential contenders remain locked in a close battle in Iowa, with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) seeing her advantages diminish on key issues, including the questions of experience and which candidate is best prepared to handle the war in Iraq, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) draws support from 30 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa, compared with 26 percent for Clinton and 22 percent for former senator John Edwards (N.C.). New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson received 11 percent.
http://www.nysun.com/article/66640
Sikhs Seethe Over a Snub by Clintons
Fund-Raiser on the Coast Cancelled Over 'Security'
By JOSH GERSTEIN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
November 19, 2007
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — The Clinton campaign's abrupt cancellation of scheduled appearances here is leaving members of the Sikh community dismayed and demanding an explanation. Traditional food, elaborate costumes, and ritual sword fighting were on display as thousands of Sikhs celebrated a religious festival here yesterday, but the expected guest of honor, Senator Clinton, was a no-show. Mrs. Clinton also scuttled a fund-raising breakfast at a nearby fairgrounds where Sikh leaders had hoped to raise $1 million for her presidential campaign.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDZlYmFmNGFmZjBiNGYwMGI3ZmI2NzIwM2JiNWIwMTI=
Hillary, Uniquely Unqualified
Executive inexperience.
By Deroy Murdock
November 19, 2007 12:00 AM
The Yellow-billed Oxpecker stands atop the mighty rhinoceros, gobbling ticks and chirping loudly when danger looms. This tiny bird would make a perfect mascot for Senator Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid. Akin to that creature, the New York Democrat leaves tiny footprints and has spent more than three decades riding aboard her outsized, accomplished husband, William Jefferson Clinton.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/71000
How to Beat Hillary (Next) November
Republicans who think she'll be easy to defeat are wrong. What they should do.
By Karl Rove
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 1:56 PM ET Nov 17, 2007
I've seen up close the two Clintons America knows. He's a big smile, hand locked on your arm and lots of charms. "Hey, come down and speak at my library. I'd like to talk some politics with you." And her? She tends to be, well, hard and brittle. I inherited her West Wing office. Shortly after the 2001 Inauguration, I made a little talk saying I appreciated having the office because it had the only full-length vanity mirror in the West Wing, which gave me a chance to improve my rumpled appearance. The senator from New York confronted me shortly after and pointedly said she hadn't put the mirror there. I hadn't said she did, just that the mirror was there.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Vote2008/story?id=3887274&page=1
POLL: Obama Finds Help in Iowa With a Focus on New Ideas
Contest Close in Iowa, Obama Mounting Strong Race Against Clinton
ANALYSIS by Gary Langer
Nov. 19, 2007
A growing focus on fresh ideas coupled with lingering doubts about Hillary Clinton's honesty and forthrightness are keeping the Democratic presidential contest close in Iowa, with Barack Obama in particular mounting a strong race against the national front-runner. Most Democratic likely voters in Iowa, 55 percent, say they're more interested in a "new direction and new ideas" than in strength and experience, compared with 49 percent in July -- a help to Obama, who holds a substantial lead among "new direction" voters.
Obama's campaign has a new wrinkle
He makes inroads with seniors, floating an end to income tax for some. Still, Clinton's ahead with those key Iowa voters.
By Janet Hook, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 18, 2007
MUSCATINE, IOWA -- Barack Obama may be the darling of the college set, but the Medicare crowd is another story. While young Democratic voters have gravitated to his presidential campaign, seniors have stampeded to Hillary Rodham Clinton's. That's why it was welcome news to his supporters when Max Allan Collins, a writer, rose at a recent campaign event here to announce that his 82-year-old mother wanted to vote for Obama. “He's so sincere," said Pat Collins, a Republican who is turning toward the Democrats because she is disillusioned by President Bush and fearful that her grandson could be sent to Iraq. "He would bring the nation together," she said of Obama.
http://nymag.com/news/politics/powergrid/40989/
Escape From Iowa
Every politico knows only two candidates will be viable after the caucuses. Can John Edwards’s blow-dried populism be his ticket out?
By John Heilemann
Published Nov 18, 2007
On a chill mid-November afternoon in New Hampshire, John Edwards unfurls his populist pitch at Plymouth State University, inveighing against the corruption in Washington, railing at “the powerful interests that have taken over our government.” Edwards, of course, has been hammering at these enemies all year, though rarely has he named any names apart from the predictable ones: Bush and Cheney, Halliburton and Blackwater. But now Edwards has added a new target to his list. In under an hour at Plymouth State, he attacks Hillary Clinton for her position on Iraq; for her coziness with lobbyists; for the cash she has raked in from the insurance, drug, and defense industries.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1120/p01s04-uspo.html
In New Hampshire, the swing voters who count first
In New Hampshire, undeclared voters dominate the political landscape and may hold the key to the first-in-the-nation presidential primary.
By Ari Pinkus | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the November 20, 2007 edition
Manchester and Nashua, N.H. - As schoolteacher Betty Ward evaluates the 16 candidates running for president, uppermost in her mind is: Who will get US troops out of Iraq? She's mulling over whom to vote for. Donna Richards will vote for someone who can be trusted and whose aim is to bring about peace. Her choice: undecided. Attorney Andre Gibeau is seeking a candidate with courage to return to Congress much of the power he believes was usurped by President Bush. Meet some of New Hampshire's freethinking and increasingly dissatisfied independents, who quite possibly hold the key to the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. They dwarf the ranks of registered Democrats or Republicans in this state.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010882
Oklahoma's Most Wanted
The latest thing in political felonies: a petition drive.
Wall Street Journal
Monday, November 19, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST
A veteran political activist is facing 10 years in prison and a hefty fine for attempting to petition government for redress of grievances. The latest news from Pakistan? No, this is happening in Oklahoma. Last month Paul Jacob, the former head of U.S. Term Limits and current head of Citizens in Charge, was led out of an Oklahoma City courtroom in handcuffs after pleading not guilty to charges that he conspired to defraud the state. Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, who's overseeing this bizarre prosecution, has accused Mr. Jacob and two fellow petition organizers--Rick Carpenter of Oklahomans in Action and Susan Johnson of National Voter Outreach--of bringing out-of-state petition gatherers to Oklahoma to collect signatures.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=M2YzYWRiNzk4Y2U1NWRlNzQzYTViNWU4OWRhMDlhMjk
Scapegoating the So-Cons
They’re not what’s killing the GOP.
By David Freddoso
November 19, 2007, 7:00 a.m.
What ails the GOP? There are as many answers as there are pundits. But there’s always one narrative that news reporters and certain establishment GOP consultants love to give, again and again. Social conservatives, this story goes, have come to dominate the Republican party with their defense of the right to life and resistance to same-sex marriage. This sort of backward thinking has caused the party to lose support nationwide, and particularly among its traditional base of high-income earners. This narrative is now being repeated as social conservatives debate whom to support in the Republican primary —the debate is particularly important because Rudy Giuliani threatens to become the first avowedly pro-abortion Republican presidential nominee of our era.
http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.blogspot.com/2007/11/republican-campaign-still-includes-many.html
Republican Campaign Still Includes Many Possible Storylines
By Stuart Rothenberg
Monday, November 19, 2007
For months, I’ve been urging caution about assessing and overanalyzing the two presidential races too early, and now we see why. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), who has no money and no standing in national public opinion polls, is making a strong run in Iowa, and if he continues to get traction in the Hawkeye State’s January caucuses, he’ll change the Republican race dramatically. That’s because Iowa and New Hampshire continue to be crucially important in the contest for the GOP and Democratic nominations, and a wild card development in one party’s Iowa caucuses could impact the subsequent, yet still unscheduled, New Hampshire primary and change the fundamental nature of that race.
http://opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110010881
Mi Casa, Sue Casa
Nancy Pelosi tries to force the Salvation Army to hire people who can't speak English.
John Fund
Monday, November 19, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST
It's been less than a week since New York's Sen. Hillary Clinton and Gov. Eliot Spitzer had to climb down from their support of driver's licenses for illegal aliens. Now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has moved to kill an amendment that would protect employers from federal lawsuits for requiring their workers to speak English. Among the employers targeted by such lawsuits: the Salvation Army. Sen. Lamar Alexander, a moderate Republican from Tennessee, is dumbstruck that legislation he views as simple common sense would be blocked. He noted that the full Senate passed his amendment to shield the Salvation Army by 75-19 last month, and the House followed suit with a 218-186 vote just this month.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119543645830297550.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_topbox
Immigration Is the Question
How '08 Hopefuls Answer, Could Take Them Far, Perhaps
By JUNE KRONHOLZ
November 19, 2007; Page A6
CHARITON, Iowa -- Barack Obama had just ended his stump speech before a friendly audience in this tiny southern Iowa town when Stephen Scott's hand shot up with a question. Would Mr. Obama, as president, have signed last summer's failed "amnesty bill" for illegal immigrants, Mr. Scott, a local landscape painter, asked testily. Mr. Obama cautiously walked through a long answer that ended with a plan to give legal status to long-established illegal immigrants. "There. Another question," he said, shutting down discussion.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071119/NEWS01/711190341
Proposal seeks banning immigrant raids in D.M.
By NIGEL DUARA
November 19, 2007
A proposal to prohibit local law enforcement officials from conducting raids on illegal immigrants in Des Moines was presented to at least one City Council member recently. Councilwoman Christine Hensley said Sunday that she spoke about six weeks ago with representatives of two immigration-rights groups that presented a plan that would block local city departments - including the police - from conducting raids on immigrants or inquiring about a person's immigration status. Aspects of the proposal, brought up Sunday at an immigration forum, are similar to a national trend of "sanctuary cities."
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1685301,00.html
Will Bad Mortgages Hurt the GOP?
Monday, Nov. 19, 2007
By JAY NEWTON-SMALL/WASHINGTON
Tim Walberg was one of the rare Republican success stories in 2006. After defeating Joe Schwarz, the moderate G.O.P. incumbent Congressman in his rural southwestern Michigan district, he went on to narrowly beat Democrat Sharon Renier with just 50% of the vote. Walberg, a fiscal conservative, ran on a platform of limited government, tax cuts and strong support of the war in Iraq. Last Thursday, to the delight of Democrats, Walberg lived up to his conservative ideals — voting against a bill in the House that tightens restrictions against predatory lending. The measure, which garnered the support of 64 Republicans in passing 291-127, would force lenders to apply for licenses and require them to verify the ability of borrowers to repay loans.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/937bd6ba-95e6-11dc-b7ec-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
The case for patching up social security
By Clive Crook
Published: November 18 2007 15:08
Barack Obama has upset a lot of Democrats by bringing social security back into presidential politics. Paul Krugman of The New York Times is leading the charge. In Mr Krugman’s view, following the administration’s clumsy and aborted effort to reform the system – Democrats would say destroy it – leaving well alone makes best political sense. Mr Obama, sounding like a fiscal conservative, warns that retiring baby boomers are pushing the programme into the red and something must be done. He is, says Mr Krugman, being played for a fool.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071118/COLUMNIST0130/711180390/1007/OPINION
Al Gore is like Jim Jones, and we're drinking his Kool-Aid
By PHIL VALENTINE
Sunday, 11/18/07
Professor Roger Gottlieb, a leading proponent of religious environmentalism, spoke at Vanderbilt University this past week. Gottlieb, the author of A Greener Faith, maintains that we are to be caretakers of our planet. I certainly agree. I'm a big fan of clean air and clean water. But this postmodernist environmental movement Gottlieb finds himself in the middle of bears little resemblance to its forerunner, the ecology movement of the 1960s. Back then, Captain Kangaroo simply told us to never throw trash out the window. Soot-belching factories and straight-pipe waste into rivers were put under the microscope. The government ultimately responded with the EPA, formed in 1970 and tasked with cleaning up the land, air and water that had been abused for so long.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071120/POLITICS/711200390/1022
Watchdogs cool to updated fed furnace rules
Energy Dept. touts fuel savings, but critics say new home heating standards too lax to encourage market upgrades.
H. Josef Hebert / Associated Press
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
WASHINGTON -- As families face record-high heating bills, the Energy Department on Monday issued new requirements for residential furnaces -- although critics say the new rules will do little to save consumers money or push more efficient equipment onto the market. The new standard, which would replace 15-year-old regulations, requires all residential gas furnaces to be 80 percent efficient by 2015. Critics argued almost all gas furnaces sold already meet that level, meaning it will do little to spur new technology. Energy efficiency advocates had argued for a minimum 90 percent efficiency, a level already achieved or exceeded by about a third of the gas furnaces sold, or for regional standards with more stringent requirements in cold-weather areas.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071120/POLITICS/711200339/1022
Feds want belts on small school buses
But agency's decision not to apply the rule to all buses is met with sharp criticism.
David Shepardson / Detroit News Washington Bureau
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Transportation Secretary Mary Peters confirmed Monday that federal regulators want to require three-point seat belts on smaller school buses and higher seat backs on all school buses. The new requirements, expected to be made final early next year, would be phased in over the next three years. In an interview, Peters defended the decision not to require seat belts in all buses. "We're concerned about the potential loss of seating," she said. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has studied whether to require safety belts on all buses for 30 years, said requiring belts could raise costs and reduce student use of buses, possibly leading to more deaths than those saved by the belts.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/11/iran_is_political_problem_for.html
Democratic Iran Dilemma
By Robert Novak
November 19, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Barack Obama, desperate to cut down front-running Sen. Hillary Clinton, did not take advantage of one opening in Thursday night's Las Vegas Democratic presidential debate. Obama pulled his punches on Clinton's September vote for a resolution that he earlier said can be used to go to war against Iran. His reticence may be traced to his co-sponsorship of a similar hawkish amendment back in March. Obama was softer toward Clinton than last month when he called her "reckless" for voting to name the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, claiming it would give President Bush a pretext to attack Iran. For her part, Clinton did not raise Obama's inconsistency and was uncharacteristically silent about Iran.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/70990
Baghdad Comes Alive
For the first time in years, the Iraqi capital is showing signs of life. But the calm is all too fragile, and it's an opportunity the government cannot afford to miss.
By Rod Nordland
Nov 26, 2007 Issue
For someone who has returned periodically to Baghdad during these past four and a half years of war, there has been one constant: it only gets worse. The faces change, the units rotate, the victims vary, but it has always gotten worse. Brief successes (elections, a unity government) collapse as still greater problems rear up (death squads, Iranian-made bombs). The country's sects grow ever more antagonistic; the killings become more depraved; first a million, then 2 million, then 4 million Iraqis flee their homes. Al Qaeda loses its leader when Jordanian Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi is killed. But it steadily replenishes its ranks of suicide bombers, and morphs from a largely foreign force into a far more dangerous indigenous one. And so on.
Baghdad Starts to Exhale as Security Improves
By DAMIEN CAVE and ALISSA J. RUBIN
November 20, 2007
BAGHDAD, Nov. 19 — Five months ago, Suhaila al-Aasan lived in an oxygen tank factory with her husband and two sons, convinced that they would never go back to their apartment in Dora, a middle-class neighborhood in southern Baghdad. Today she is home again, cooking by a sunlit window, sleeping beneath her favorite wedding picture. And yet, she and her family are remarkably alone. The half-dozen other apartments in her building echo with emptiness and, on most days, Iraqi soldiers are the only neighbors she sees. “I feel happy,” she said, standing in her bedroom, between a flowered bedspread and a bullet hole in the wall. “But my happiness is not complete. We need more people to come back. We need more people to feel safe.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
U.S. Says Attacks in Iraq Fell to the Level of Feb. 2006
By CARA BUCKLEY and MICHAEL R. GORDON
November 19, 2007
BAGHDAD, Nov. 18 — The American military said Sunday that the weekly number of attacks in Iraq had fallen to the lowest level since just before the February 2006 bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra, an event commonly used as a benchmark for the country’s worst spasm of bloodletting after the American invasion nearly five years ago. Data released at a news conference in Baghdad showed that attacks had declined to the lowest level since January 2006. It is the third week in a row that attacks have been at this reduced level. The statistics on attack trends have long been a standard measure that the American military has used to assess violence in Iraq. Because the data have been gathered for years and are deemed generally reliable they allow analysts to identify trends.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/11/looking_at_iraq_through_the_lo.html
Looking at Iraq in Macro-time
By Michael Barone
November 19, 2007
When my father returned from service as an Army doctor in Korea in 1953, he brought back slides of the photos he'd shot, showing a war-torn country of incredible poverty. We would have laughed if you had told us that Americans would one day buy Korean cars. But 50-some years later, South Korea has the 13th-largest economy in the world, and you see Hyundais and Kias everywhere in America. Looking at things in micro-timeframes is not always a reliable guide to the macro-timeframe future. So it may turn out to be with Iraq. We have been looking at Iraq in micro-timeframes -- or, for many who oppose the war, frozen in the timeframe of late 2006. A better picture of the micro-timeframe is that we have achieved considerable success this year.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071120/OPINION01/711200309/1007/OPINION
Palestinians have no right to decide Israel's identity
Rabbi Aaron Bergman
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
A few years ago, a cousin of my wife was flying from New York to China. After several hours, the pilot announces that the plane had to make an emergency landing. There was nothing to worry about. They had gotten permission to land in Saudi Arabia. My wife's cousin panicked. She was Jewish, and it was illegal for her to be in Saudi Arabia. Even worse, her passport had a number of stamps from Israel. After some quick negotiation, the Saudis allowed the plane to land as long as she promised not to get off. Her feet never touched Saudi soil. I remembered this story with some bemusement when I read the comments of Saab Erekat, the chief negotiator for the Palestinians, in anticipation of the upcoming Israeli-Palestinian summit in Annapolis, Md.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111800945.html
Chávez and the King
By Jackson Diehl
Monday, November 19, 2007; Page A17
For the past week, the press of the Spanish-speaking world has been abuzz about a verbal slapdown of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez by King Juan Carlos of Spain. Incensed by Chávez's ceaseless insults and interruptions during an Ibero-American summit meeting in Chile, the normally temperate Juan Carlos turned to Latin America's self-styled "Bolivarian" revolutionary and blurted: "Why don't you shut up?" The story might have lasted a day, while everyone chuckled over something that, as one Spanish newspaper put it, "should have been said a long time ago." That it has lasted a week is the work of Chávez. He called a news conference last Monday in which he recounted the history of Spanish colonialism and compared himself to a persecuted Jesus Christ.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071119/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_venezuela_1
Venezuela's Chavez visits Iran
By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer
November 19, 2007
TEHRAN, Iran - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made his fourth trip to Iran in two years on Monday, state media reported, as the two countries sought to strengthen ties while their leaders exhort the international community to resist U.S. policies. Chavez, who arrived in Tehran from Saudi Arabia where he attended the weekend's OPEC summit, is expected to discuss various political and economic issues with his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. Chavez was accompanied by a string of top Venezuelan officials for the hours-long visit — among them the foreign, industry, oil and communication ministers, as well as the mayor of Caracas, the country's capital.
