Articles of Interest 3-14-08
236 Days until Election Day
MORNING UPDATE
Today and tomorrow I am getting together with some of my fellow state Republican Party chairs from coast to coast for an informal “brainstorming” meeting. This is a casual meeting with no agenda other than to swap notes and share some “best practices” from around the county. What can we do better, in each state, to help elect John McCain our next President!
Michigan and Florida Democrats continued Thursday to push for a “do-over” primary to get their delegates seated at the Democrat National Convention in Denver…If they want another primary, they’ve got to get the votes in the legislature and then cough up every last dime it costs the state to run it. No taxpayer subsidy to pay for ANY of the “do-over” primary.
Washington and the national folks have no view on how this issue should be handled and feel they should have no role in how Michigan Democrats pick their delegates. We will support a process that makes sure Michigan is represented. However, the ball is entirely in their court.
Striking back at Jon Stryker…Remember him? He’s the liberal Kalamazoo billionaire who spent more than $5 million of his own money buying a majority in the Michigan House of Representatives. HE’S BACK…well, at least the company in which he is a major stockholder is…and under investigation by the Department of Justice, too. Read more below.
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, was on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” the other night talking about his new book “Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government's Hands off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives.” It’s a great book that I am currently reading. You can see a clip of Grover’s interview at:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=163846&title=grover-norquist
The Political, Candidate & Party Assistance teams were on the road again last night for the Kent/Montcalm "Unity Road Show" in Grand Rapids. Dave Dishaw, Kent County chairman and Jackie Champlin, Montcalm County chairwoman, were on hand along with grass root activists from both counties. Special thanks to Kent County GOP Executive Director Sam Moore for his help in putting this event together.
Liberal Bart Stupak voted for more taxes – again – and we are not surprised, sadly.
THE REST OF THE STORY
-Federal Investigation Casts Shadow Over Stryker ’06 Campaign Funds. After spending millions of dollars to buy Governor Jennifer Granholm’s re-election, along with a Democratic majority in the Michigan House of Representatives, a federal investigation is raising questions of whether the money used to fund these campaigns originated from profits based on illegal practices by the Stryker Corporation.
Jon Stryker, heir to the Stryker fortune and one of the largest shareholders in the company, pumped more than $5 million into state campaigns to elect Democrats in 2006.
Federal investigators are looking into whether Stryker Corp. paid physicians for agreeing to use Stryker medical components exclusively. This alleged criminal activity occurred while Stryker was one of the largest shareholders in the company. During this time, he cashed in more than $99.6 million in stock options and injected millions of dollars in to Michigan political races.
In 2006, Stryker and his family founded and contributed more than $5 million to the Michigan Coalition for Progress, a Liberal political organization that spent millions supporting Michigan Democratic candidates.
The list of candidates who the Stryker family has financed, either directly or through the Coalition for Progress, is a virtual ‘who’s who’ of Michigan Democratic politics: Governor Jennifer Granholm, state Sen. Glenn Anderson (D-Westland); and state Reps. Barb Byrum (D-Onondaga); Mary Valentine (D-Muskegon); Kate Ebli; Mike Simpson (D-Jackson); Martin Griffin (D-Jackson); Robert Dean (D-Grand Rapids); Pam Byrnes (D-Lyndon Township); Gary McDowell (D-Rudyard); Marie Donigan (D-Royal Oak); John Espinoza (D-Croswell); Kathy Angerer (D-Dundee);Michael Lahti (D-Hancock); and, Fred Miller (D-Mount Clemens).
Read our about how liberal Jon Stryker is using is billions to push his extremist liberal, anti-family agenda at our website:
http://www.migop.org/readarticle.asp?id=6796
-Bart Stupak Makes History: Votes for Largest Tax Increase Ever
U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) made history this afternoon as he voted for the largest tax increase in American history, creating tens of billions of dollars in new wasteful Washington spending and rejecting any reform to solve our nation’s entitlement crisis (House Roll Call 141). Stupak's support for this $683 billion tax increase would devastate the hard-working taxpayers in the UP and Northern Michigan, costing them an additional $3,008 in taxes next year alone.
Despite campaign promises to rein in debt and wasteful spending, the Democrats’ budget that Bart Stupak loyally supported contains over 11,000 earmarks at the cost of $16 billion, and will pass on an additional $14 billion in debt to future generations, because it fails to address the fiscal crisis facing Social Security and Medicare programs
.
Bart Stupak's historic and destructive vote for the Democrats’ budget would impose a crippling tax increase for every single taxpayer in the United States including married couples, families with children, senior citizens, small business owners and farmers:
· Nearly 48 million married couples will be penalized with a $3,000 tax increase
· Low-income families will be hit when the child tax credit is cut by $500 per child
· Almost 18 million senior citizens will have to pay an extra $2,100 in taxes
· About 27 million small-business owners will be strapped with a $4,000 tax increase
· Reinstating the Death Tax will cost taxpayers an additional $180.6 billion
As Bart Stupak gets ready to head out of Washington for a two-week spring break, he should be prepared to answer questions from the voters as to why he chose to raise taxes and increase government spending at their expense.
Saul Anuzis
STATE STORIES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080313/NATION/440427025
Detroit mayor sees support diminishing
By Andrea Billups
March 13, 2008
The walls continue to crumble for embattled Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who is under increasing pressure to resign over his role in a police whistleblower settlement scandal that many say is paralyzing the already struggling city. Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, a Republican, was the latest high-profile critic to call for Mr. Kilpatrick's resignation, telling a Detroit radio station today that the mayor, a Democrat, is a liar who lost the public trust in using the race card at a Tuesday night State of the City speech. "It was race-baiting on par with David Duke and George Wallace — all to save his political career," Mr. Cox said in an interview on talk-radio station WJR–AM.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/123035
Racial Politics
Trying to hang on, Detroit's mayor says the issue is not his sex scandal, but racism.
By Keith Naughton
Mar 13, 2008
You might think the resignation of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer would put more pressure on Detroit's embattled mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, to do the same. But Kilpatrick, seven weeks into his own text sex scandal, shows no signs of giving up the fight. In fact, with a prosecutor contemplating perjury charges and his city council in revolt, Kilpatrick has chosen the nuclear option in this deeply divided city. At the end of an otherwise routine state-of-the-city speech Tuesday night, Kilpatrick went off on a racially explosive tirade against his critics and the media. "In the past 30 days I've been called a n----- more than any time in my entire life," he told a cheering, invitation-only crowd of 1,500 at Detroit's gilded Orchestra Hall.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080313/NEWS01/80313064/&imw=Y
Granholm speaks out against Kilpatrick's use of racial epithet
By CHRIS CHRISTOFF
March 13, 2008
Add Gov. Jennifer Granholm to the chorus who have expressed dismay at Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s use of the N-word during his State of the City speech Tuesday. Granholm's spokesperson, Liz Boyd, noted that Granholm attended – along with Kilpatrick – the ceremonial burial of the racist epithet last summer in Detroit ceremonies. “Gov. Granholm condemns the use of the n-word and believes it has no place in public or private discourse. The governor was shocked that it was used, because it should never be used.” Kilpatrick used the word toward the end of his Tuesday speech in describing what he said were racial slurs and threats he and his family have received since the text-message scandal unfolded.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080314/OPINION01/803140345
Scandal stalls city
Detroit Free Press
March 14, 2008
"...in the midst of foreclosures, joblessness, Iraq and Afghanistan, presidential politics, hatred and racism, and even the Kwame Kilpatrick roller-coaster ride, sometimes we may not see our own time for what it truly is. ... We are at the dawn of a new, transformed Detroit."
No, we're not. Despite what Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick proclaimed in his State of the City address this week, Detroit is on hold, and in danger of sliding backward. And it's all because of him. Here's the paralyzing reality this once-promising leader has created for the city he was elected to serve.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080314/COL04/803140341
Cutting to the chase, Eliot Spitzer style
Unlike Kilpatrick, he knew when to leave
BY BRIAN DICKERSON
March 14, 2008
Why can't a woman be more like a man?" an exasperated Henry Higgins wonders in Lerner and Loewe's Oscar-winning 1965 musical, "My Fair Lady." This week, many Detroiters are pondering an equally fanciful question: Why can't Kwame Kilpatrick be more like Eliot Spitzer? Or, to frame the problem more precisely: Why is it taking Detroiters so much longer to evict their compromised CEO than New Yorkers needed to cough up the hair ball in their own body politic? Gov. Eliot Spitzer's fall was so supersonic you may have missed it entirely if you went to the bathroom. Kilpatrick's death spiral has been more like a Wagnerian opera: You could go to college, raise a family and retire to Florida between the overture and the first intermission.
Despite scandal, Kilpatrick meets with Detroit business leaders
3/13/2008, 7:19 p.m. EDT
By COREY WILLIAMS
The Associated Press
DETROIT (AP) — Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick continues meeting with Detroit business leaders about his plans to move the city forward despite a text-messaging sex scandal and possible perjury charges that could remove him from office. A day after meeting with three of the city's most prominent businessmen, Kilpatrick spoke Thursday morning to others at the Detroit Athletic Club. The 15-minute speech reiterated portions of Tuesday's State of the City address in which Kilpatrick outlined his vision for improving Detroit neighborhoods, police protection, job training and finding employment for residents, mayoral spokeswoman Denise Tolliver said.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080314/OPINION03/803140336
Why business won't dump Kilpatrick – yet
Friday, March 14, 2008
Daniel Howes
"Can you explain," the reader asked me in an e-mail, "why the 'business leaders' in this community who privately want Kilpatrick to resign will not call out for his resignation?" Sure, they haven't yet because calling for it probably wouldn't do much good -- however indisputable the mayor's loss of credibility or how much of a distraction his deepening troubles may be. State Attorney General Mike Cox, a suburban Republican with his own record of marital indiscretion, lambasted Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for race-baiting, for lying and said "he should resign whether he is charged or not." It's powerful language delivered by Michigan's top cop, and it means what?
Cox to probe new claims of rumored party but wants real evidence
3/13/2008, 7:14 p.m. EDT
By DAVID EGGERT
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Attorney General Mike Cox said Thursday his office will look into new claims concerning a rumored 2002 party with strippers at Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's official residence. Cox told reporters he wants to meet with retired Detroit police desk clerk Joyce Rogers, who recently came forward to say she read a report filed by stripper Tamara Greene claiming she was assaulted by Kilpatrick's wife during a party at the Manoogian Mansion. Greene was later shot to death, and the killing remains unsolved.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080314/D8VCUC6O0.html
Michigan, Campaigns Talk Do-Over Primary
Mar 13, 10:39 PM (ET)
By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN
LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Michigan Democrats are close to an agreement with presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama to hold a do-over primary. Party officials and the campaigns negotiated on Thursday, and state Democratic leaders were hopeful that an agreement could be reached on Friday, said Democratic officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks. To go forward, any plan would require the approval of the two campaigns, the Democratic National Committee, state party leaders and Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who is backing Clinton.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080314/POLITICS01/803140381
Dems zero in on June 3 primary
Mark Hornbeck and Deb Price / The Detroit News
Friday, March 14, 2008
Key Michigan Democrats were negotiating feverishly toward breaking the impasse with the national Democratic Party over the state's 156 national convention delegates. The most promising compromise on the table was a June 3 do-over primary. A blue-ribbon group of four top Michigan Democrats formed to seek a resolution met in Washington on Thursday with top officials in Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign and by conference call, separately, with Barack Obama's camp. They are looking for a compromise acceptable to the state party, the Democratic National Committee and both presidential campaigns.
Michigan governor signs bill to create optional driver's licenses
3/13/2008, 4:14 p.m. EDT
The Associated Press
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Governor Jennifer Granholm has signed legislation to create optional Michigan driver's licenses designed to make it easier to cross the nation's borders. The legislation is aimed at meeting tougher identification rules required by the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. The optional driver's licenses and ID cards are enhanced to meet passport requirements. The licenses will be available only for Michigan residents who also are U.S. citizens. Those who choose not to get an enhanced license would receive a standard license. Supporters say the IDs will help keep commerce flowing smoothly between Michigan and Canada.
http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080314/OPINION01/803140320/1085/opinion
Prison costs: State's only choice is to spend less on imprisonment
A Lansing State Journal editorial
Published March 14, 2008
A recent national report made an eye-catching comparison for Michigan: The state is one of only four that spends more on corrections than it does on higher education. But the prison budget situation is far more complex - and far more grim - than the recent headlines may suggest. Michigan has to spend less money on imprisoning people. But a consensus is far from formed at the Capitol on exactly how to achieve that end. Gov. Jennifer Granholm's 2009 budget calls for $2 billion for corrections. Her plan also calls for $50 million in savings via a number of changes at the Department of Corrections. This week, though, Sen. Alan Cropsey's subcommittee that handles prison spending issued its own budget, one that would cut $1 in every $5 spent on DOC's central administration.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080314/OPINION01/803140400/1007/OPINION
Fix property tax law to help homeowners with tax penalty
Tricia Kinley
Friday, March 14, 2008
Michiganians have been understandably shocked to find that their property taxes are increasing even as their home values decline. The situation calls for a sensible tax reform, not the outright dismantling of Proposal A, a constitutional set of tax laws that have otherwise served Michigan well. Some local government representatives have lamented that the property tax limits of Proposal A have been a detriment to their finances. Let's not forget, however, that when a property is sold, the taxable value is "uncapped" and the result is a significant jump in tax revenue for the local government based on the "pop-up" revaluation of the property.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080314/NEWS05/803140304
Taxes rise, home values fall, owners say, 'Huh?'
Proposal A to blame; many seek help from review boards
BY CECIL ANGEL
March 14, 2008
All across the tri-county area, there's a different kind of March madness going on that doesn't involve basketball. Property owners such as 80-year-old Eloise Carswell of Southfield are dissatisfied with their annual property tax assessments and are flocking to their local review boards seeking reductions. A lower property assessment generally means lower taxes. Carswell said it would be hard to sell her three-bedroom, 2,136-square-foot house with the kind of taxes she has to pay. "This is not pennies," she told the board of her $6,000 yearly tax bill. With the state recession and rampant foreclosures, disgruntled property owners basically want to know one thing:
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080314/AUTO01/803140380
Faltering economy dims auto outlook
Wall St. lowers GM, Ford profit forecasts as shares fall; Chrysler plans company-wide 2-week shutdown.
Sharon Terlep / The Detroit News
Friday, March 14, 2008
The worst-case scenario for 2008 is quickly coming true for Detroit's Big Three. A litany of mounting economic troubles, from sinking consumer confidence to the ever-tightening U.S. credit market, helped push shares of General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. to new one-year lows Thursday. Anxiety on Wall Street is being triggered by concerns that sluggish U.S. auto sales will eat away progress made by the restructuring under way at the companies. Morgan Stanley on Thursday dramatically downgraded its outlook for GM and Ford. The same day, Chrysler LLC, which isn't publicly traded, announced that for the first time in history the company will shut down for two weeks this summer to help save money.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080314/NEWS06/803140411
Illegal tobacco sales hurt state
Residents go across borders to get out of $2-a-pack tax
BY CHRIS CHRISTOFF
March 14, 2008
Big-time profiteers and small-time cheaters are smuggling 7 million cartons of cigarettes into the state annually to evade Michigan's high cigarette taxes, costing the state about $140 million a year. And some metro Detroit retailers are selling cigarette packs with sophisticated counterfeit stamps to evade a 10-year-old law aimed at thwarting smuggling. Michigan's $2-per-pack tax, the fourth-highest in the nation, helps fuel an illicit demand for cigarettes bought in other states with much lower taxes. The chances of getting caught are slim.
http://www.mlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2008/03/states_first_commercial_windmi.html
State's first commercial windmill farm starts churning out power in Huron County
Jeff Kart
Thursday March 13, 2008, 8:56 AM
ELKTON - The hum is music to Bob Krohn's ears. Krohn, a Huron County farmer, has three windmills on his land, spinning as part of the Harvest Wind Farm near Elkton. Krohn, also the Oliver Township clerk in Huron County, said the Harvest project has been up and running for about a week, generating green power after about two months of testing. "Last night, I came home from the township meeting and I could hear them a little, a light humming noise in the distance," Krohn said Wednesday, adding that the noise doesn't bother him at all. Harvest, owned by John Deere Wind Energy, is the state's first commercial wind farm.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080314/METRO/803140382
Metro water users await $24M rebate
Robert Snell / The Detroit News
Friday, March 14, 2008
DETROIT -- One year after a federal judge ruled Detroit charged water and sewer customers across southeastern Michigan $24 million too much for a controversial $131 million digital radio system, residents still haven't seen a rebate and continue to spend money on U.S. District Judge John Feikens' hand-picked consultants. The $24 million rebate could have been used to reduce proposed water and sewer rate increases, Oakland County Drain Commissioner John McCulloch said. "People are concerned about escalating rates and see this $24 million as some relief," McCulloch said. "Thirty years ago, I think the federal court was part of the solution. Now I firmly believe it is part of the problem."
Likely cougar tracks found in Upper Peninsula, DNR says
3/13/2008, 4:55 p.m. EDT
The Associated Press
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — State wildlife biologists say a set of tracks found in the Upper Peninsula probably came from a cougar. A landowner discovered the tracks last weekend in Delta County. They continued for about 260 yards along a logging road. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources says the size, shape and spacing were similar to cougar tracks. Furbearer specialist Steve Chadwick says this is the best evidence of a cougar presence in Michigan since 2004, when cougar hairs were found on a car that had struck an animal. That happened about 10 miles from where the tracks were found.
Michigan barbershop owner seeks legal opinion on giving free beer
3/13/2008, 4:26 p.m. EDT
The Associated Press
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Barbershop owner Thomas Martin is taking his case to Lansing to restore his cut-and-a-beer service. Martin, who has 11 shops in the Grand Rapids area, used to offer customers one complimentary brew until authorities in Kent and Ottawa counties told him to stop. "It's just a nice benefit," Martin told The Grand Rapids Press for a story Thursday. "It's like the old-fashioned service." State Rep. Kevin Green says he doesn't see why Martin's clients can't have a beer since no one is looking to get drunk. The Wyoming Republican has asked the Michigan attorney general's office to research whether giving customers a beer violates state law.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080314/NEWS03/803140331
Mich. troops overseas to get seized cigars
BY JOHN WISELY
March 14, 2008
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard plans to have Michigan National Guard members and Reservists help him incinerate some evidence found in a recent drug bust. About 1,500 cigars recovered from a marijuana dealer will be torched, one at a time, by Michigan military members serving overseas. "Rather than have them destroyed in an incinerator, it would make more sense to give them to our heroes deployed across the globe," Bouchard said Thursday. The move isn't designed to encourage smoking. But for military members who partake, the smokes could provide a respite from a stressful routine, Bouchard said.
NATIONAL STORIES
McCain says he's ready for the call
By JOHN DISTASO
March 13, 2008
EXETER – Calling his visit the launch of his nationwide general election campaign, John McCain yesterday told Granite State supporters they once again hold the key to his political future. "The state of New Hampshire will be a battleground state. I intend to be back and back and back. I need New Hampshire to win the presidency," the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting told a friendly crowd of nearly 400 at the Exeter Town Hall. McCain, on a nostalgic "thank you" visit to the first-primary state that launched his successful run to the nomination, stressed his readiness to be commander-in-chief, his low-tax, pro-business approach to the economy and recognized that climate change "is real" and must be aggressively addressed.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120535585247031377.html?mod=sp_deals
McCain, GOP May Have Cause for Hope
Latest Poll Helps Detail Reasons the Democrats Remain Deadlocked
By JACKIE CALMES
March 13, 2008; Page A4
Rarely have the stars aligned so squarely against the party in power in elections for the White House as it has for Republicans, the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll bears out. Ultimately, voters choose a person for president, not a party, and Sen. John McCain seems to give Republicans a fighting chance. Measures of the candidates' appeal in the poll help explain why Democrats nationally are deadlocked between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. While Sen. Clinton has an edge with voters on experience and leadership, Sen. Obama rates higher than ever on traits such as likability that reflect a greater connection with voters.
Who rates as a running mate?
By Todd Domke
March 13, 2008
HERE IS a do-it-yourself scorecard to select a running mate for John McCain. On the following 20 criteria, rate possible vice presidential candidates from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent). Add those 20 numbers and - presto! - you'll have your top-scoring finalists.If a candidate rated a 5 on each of the 20 criteria, the total score would be 100. But no one is perfect. For each criterion, you'll see a sample candidate who deserves a high-5 score. At the end, you'll see my ranking of 20 candidates who have been speculated about as realistic prospects.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/the_democrats_race_gender_camp.html
Adventures In Identity Politics
By Charles Krauthammer
March 14, 2008
WASHINGTON -- Elections can be about policy, personality or identity. The race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is surely not about policy. The differences between the two are microscopic. It did not start out that way. Last year, when Hillary was headed toward a coronation, she deliberately ran to the center. She took more moderate views on Iraq, for example, and voted to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. When she began taking heat for these positions from the other candidates and the Democratic Party's activist core, and as her early lead began to erode, she quickly tacked left and found herself inhabiting precisely the same ideological space as Obama.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120536677319031953.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks
Obama and the Race Card
Wall Street Journal
March 13, 2008
Is it just us, or does Barack Obama seem a mite too quick to play the race card when facing criticism from political opponents? In recent days, the Obama camp has been demanding an apology from Geraldine Ferraro, the former Vice Presidential candidate and current Hillary Clinton supporter who last week let slip that, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept." Though Ms. Ferraro resigned from the Clinton campaign yesterday, her remarks reveal little more than a firm grasp of the obvious, even if she could have found a less artless way to express herself.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4443788&page=1
Obama's Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11
Obama's Pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Has a History of What Even Obama's Campaign Aides Say Is 'Inflammatory Rhetoric'
By BRIAN ROSS and REHAB EL-BURI
March 13, 2008
Sen. Barack Obama's pastor says blacks should not sing "God Bless America" but "God damn America." The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for the last 20 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's south side, has a long history of what even Obama's campaign aides concede is "inflammatory rhetoric," including the assertion that the United States brought on the 9/11 attacks with its own "terrorism." In a campaign appearance earlier this month, Sen. Obama said, "I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial." He said Rev. Wright "is like an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with," telling a Jewish group that everyone has someone like that in their family.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/the-wright-controversy/
The Wright Controversy
By Jodi Kantor
March 13, 2008, 6:58 pm
The Democratic candidates spent much of the week trying to tamp down controversy provoked by their supporters. Earlier in the week, it was Geraldine Ferraro, whose racially charged remarks were denounced Wednesday night by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton after Mrs. Ferraro announced she was resigning from her honorary position on Mrs. Clinton’s campaign finance committee. On Thursday the attention shifted to the camp of Senator Barack Obama, after a report was shown on “Good Morning America” on ABC, with clips of sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Reverend Wright has been Mr. Obama’s spiritual mentor, and bloggers and television commentators spent the day picking over his stinging social and political critiques in the pulpit.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08073/864845-176.stm
Obama, Clinton parrying over perceptions
Clinton: State is the climactic showdown. Obama: It's a chapter in delegate story.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
By James O'Toole, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
There's the battle for Pennsylvania votes, and then there's the battle to shape the perceptions of what those votes mean. The Democratic presidential candidates are struggling over perceptions as well as votes as they move to the next phase of their long-running campaign. The Pennsylvania primary, six weeks away, is at the center of competing definitions of just what that phase is. In the Clinton campaign's description, Pennsylvania is a climactic showdown that will test the big-state appeal essential for victory in November. For the Obama campaign, the state is one more chapter in a delegate-selection story that makes sense only when read to its conclusion.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/obama_and_iraq.html
Obama and Iraq
By Michael Gerson
March 14, 2008
WASHINGTON -- The economy is a rising issue in presidential politics, but Iraq still overshadows this election. John McCain's nomination was assured by the success of the surge he had consistently advocated, against intense opposition. If Barack Obama eventually wins the Democratic nomination, his extraordinary rise may be traced to a speech on Oct. 2, 2002, at an anti-war rally in downtown Chicago. That day Obama -- then an obscure state senator -- said: "I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences."
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0308/Penn_Obama_really_cant_win_the_general.html
Penn: Obama "really can't win the general"
Ben Smith
March 13, 2008
My notes on this from the Clinton call weren't clear, but USA Today posts the audio, which is. On the Clinton call earlier, Mark Penn said, "We believe that [the Pennsylvania primary result] will show that Hillary is ready to win, and that Sen. Obama really can’t win the general election." He later revised it to say that losing Pennsylvania would raise question about Obama's ability to win. But it's a pretty strong thing to say.
http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080314/NATION/382087024/1001
Obama's budget vote could come back to bite him
By Stephen Dinan
March 14, 2008
Republicans yesterday forced Sen. Barack Obama to vote against what they labeled his own $1.4 trillion spending plan, cobbled together from his presidential campaign promises — one of a series of budget votes that will provide political fodder for the rest of the election year. Mr. Obama and Sens. John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton jetted back to Washington yesterday to vote during the annual budget free-for-all that compresses votes on a host of contentious issues into a single day. That meant taking positions on border security, energy independence, President Bush's tax cuts and Democrats' spending plans, each of which might come back to haunt the three major-party candidates still vying for the chief executive's slot, and could be used in this year's Senate elections as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/us/politics/14campaign.html?_r=1&ref=politics
Obama Lists His Earmarks, Asking Clinton for Hers
By CHRISTOPHER DREW and JO BECKER
March 14, 2008
Senator Barack Obama on Thursday released a list of $740 million in earmarked spending requests that he had made over the last three years, and his campaign challenged Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to do the same. The list included $1 million for a hospital where Mr. Obama’s wife works, money for several projects linked to campaign donors and support for more than 200 towns, civic institutions and universities in Illinois. But as the Senate debated a bill to restrict the controversial method of paying for home-state projects — a measure defeated Thursday evening — Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign also said that only about $220 million worth of his requests had been approved by Congress.
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1721966,00.html
Clinton's Experience Debate
Thursday, Mar. 13, 2008
By KAREN TUMULTY, MICHAEL DUFFY AND MASSIMO CALABRESI
In her race to win the democratic nomination against a first-term Senator from Illinois, Hillary Clinton has put the criterion of experience front and center. She often references what she says is 35 years of work that qualifies her to run the country. And the most important achievements Clinton cites are the ones she claims from her years as First Lady — a job that carries no portfolio but can wield enormous influence. The nature of Hillary Clinton's involvement was always a matter of great sensitivity in her husband's White House. After her disastrous 1994 foray into health-care reform, Bill Clinton's aides went out of their way to downplay her role in Administration decision making.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/clinton_obama_have_better_alte.html
The Dream Ticket Won't Happen
By David Broder
March 13, 2008
WASHINGTON -- One of the great surprises of my first presidential campaign, back in 1960, came on the final morning of the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. Cecil Holland, a colleague at the old Washington Star, burst into our workspace, having discovered from his sources that Lyndon B. Johnson had just accepted John F. Kennedy's offer of the vice presidential nomination. Barely 48 hours earlier, Kennedy and Johnson had tangled in a spirited debate before the Massachusetts and Texas delegations, continuing a fight that had started years before on the Senate floor and wound through that whole spring and summer.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120545195356935143.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
The Veep Calculus
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
March 14, 2008; Page A18
Barack Obama is indignant at Hillary Clinton's suggestion he serve as her vice president. Fair enough. He's still better positioned to win this thing. He'd better hope that remains true, though, since about the only thing worse than losing the nomination to Mrs. Clinton would be having to decide whether to take up her offer. There's good reason the Hillary and Bill vice-presidential talk is coming at this particular moment. With her Texas and Ohio victories, she's still in the game. But she's behind in the delegate count and, barring some extraordinary event, will remain so. Her path to the nomination instead rests in convincing some 800 unaccountable Democratic superdelegates to deny the nomination to the man who currently has won more states, the majority of the popular vote, and the greater number of pledged delegates.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/democrats_wont_fracture_just_g.html
Democrats Won't Fracture -- Just Give Ammo to McCain
By Mort Kondracke
March 13, 2008
The rough treatment Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) is giving Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) may be good, real-world training if he becomes the Democratic presidential nominee and gets elected, but in the meantime she's helping Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). She may well have cut an actual campaign ad for McCain when she said at a national security event last week, "Sen. McCain has a lifetime of experience. I have a lifetime of experience. And Sen. Obama made one speech in 2002." McCain also could reprise Clinton's "red phone" ad in a campaign against Obama -- but then, he could also use the Obama campaign's lengthy knockdown of Clinton's claims of extensive foreign policy experience if she somehow wrests the nomination from him.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080313/D8VCQL202.html
Fla. Presidential Primary Re-Do Unlikely
Mar 13, 6:25 PM (ET)
By BRENDAN FARRINGTON
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Florida Democrats on Thursday proposed a vote-by-mail presidential primary to solve the high-stakes delegate dispute while acknowledging the plan's chances are slim. Democrats in Florida and Michigan have been struggling to come up with an alternative to ensure their delegates are seated at the national convention this summer after the party punished them for holding early primaries. The pressure to resolve the issue has increased amid the protracted fight for every delegate between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. Karen Thurman, chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party, offered a mail-in/in person proposal for voting and urged state leaders, the national party and the presidential candidates to sign on.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2008/03/the_puerto_rico_wildcard.html
The Puerto Rico Wild Card
By Jay Cost
March 13, 2008
Word came last week that Puerto Rico will switch from a caucus to a primary. I did not see much commentary on this switch, but I think it could be a significant wild card in the race. Two questions come to mind. Just how many Puerto Ricans will turn out to vote? Whom will they support? I personally do not know enough about Puerto Rican politics to answer either question. However, I do have a few comments.Turnout could be very large. There are four important points to keep in mind. First, Puerto Ricans tend to be better voters than those of us stateside. In the last four presidential elections, our participation rate has been about 39% of the total population.
http://www.miamiherald.com/851/story/454659.html
Primary elections aren't private affairs
By ROBERT F. SANCHEZ
Posted on Thu, Mar. 13, 2008
Question: What's the essential difference between the Democratic National Committee and the Boy Scouts of America or the Augusta National Golf Club? Answer: Not much right now. The Scouts, exercising their freedom of association as a private group, won a court ruling letting them bar atheists and avowed gays from joining or serving as leaders. The Georgia golf shrine shamefully excluded minorities for decades -- and still bars women from membership. Given Tiger Woods' recent success there, it's easy to forget that until recently no black golfer could compete for the green jacket presented to the winner of the club's Masters tournament. Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee is trumping these groups in the discrimination department by barring millions of Floridians from participating in a crucial step in the process of electing the nation's next president.
http://www.examiner.com/blogs/Yeas_and_Nays/2008/3/13/Bush-Downright-sunny-on-GOPs-2008-prospects
Bush: Downright sunny on GOP's 2008 prospects
Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin
March 13, 8:37 AM
President George W. Bush spoke before the National Republican Congressional Committee last night and offered a more positive assessment of his party's chances in November than Republicans are used to hearing. Some highlights: -"I don't know about you, but I'm excited about the year 2008. I intend to finish strong, with my head held high. And I intend to work to see to it that we keep the White House and elect John Boehner Speaker of the House of Representatives."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/us/politics/14repubs.html?ref=washington&pagewanted=print
Sham Audits May Have Hid Theft by G.O.P. Committee Treasurer, Lawyer Says
By NEIL A. LEWIS
March 14, 2008
WASHINGTON — The former treasurer of a Republican Congressional fund-raising committee may have stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars by submitting elaborately forged audit reports for five years using the letterhead of a legitimate auditing firm, a lawyer for the committee said Thursday. Robert K. Kelner, a lawyer with Covington & Burling, who was brought in by the National Republican Congressional Committee to investigate accounting irregularities, said a new audit showed that the committee had $740,000 less on hand than it believed. Mr. Kelner said it was unclear whether that amount represented money siphoned off by the former treasurer, Christopher J. Ward.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03132008/postopinion/editorials/good_riddance_101666.htm
GOOD RIDDANCE
New York Post
March 13, 2008
On Day 437, everything changed. Finally. So long, Client No. 9. And good riddance. There wasn't an iota of discernible sincerity in soon-to-be-ex-Gov. Spitzer's pinched statement of resignation, delivered yesterday with wife Silda standing at his side. "Over the course of my public life, I have insisted . . . that people, regardless of their position or power, take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself." Well, now, that would be a first, wouldn't it? The truth? Spitzer faced felony indictments (and may still) that in all probability would have forced him from office. And who knows? His resignation could still turn out to have been part of a plea-bargained deal, though US Attorney Michael Garcia issued a statement denying that any deal had been reached.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/opinion/13thu2.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
After Eliot Spitzer
New York Times
March 13, 2008
Gov. Eliot Spitzer did exactly the right thing on Wednesday, announcing his resignation after 14 months in office. His departure spares New Yorkers more of this sordid spectacle. And it means that Lt. Gov. David Paterson can now prepare to take over and begin addressing the state’s many urgent problems. The ironies and mysteries in Mr. Spitzer’s precipitous fall are overwhelming. It is hard to comprehend why such a driven and accomplished prosecutor — who promised to clean up Albany’s political sludge — would indulge in such reckless and self-destructive behavior. Mr. Spitzer’s downfall will inevitably strengthen the hand of the Republicans he was trying to oust — mainly, Senator Joseph Bruno, the leader of a dwindling majority in the Senate and a fierce opponent of reform.
I KNEW HE WAS A FRAUD & A HYPOCRITE FROM THE DAY HE SWAGGERED INTO CAPITOL
By FREDRIC U. DICKER
March 13, 2008
ALBANY - I saw many signs early on that Eliot Spitzer was to politics what Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry was to religion - a consummate hypocrite - but few, if any, of his governmental colleagues (and even fewer members of the largely fawning press corps) appeared able to see it as well. To many of them, Spitzer could do no wrong. They thought he was "right" on the issues that supposedly counted - government involvement in the private economy, hostility to Wall Street, gay marriage, even more campaign-finance restrictions (that favor the wealthy like Spitzer) and tighter gun laws.