Articles of Interest 5-2-08
187 Days until Election Day
MORNING UPDATE:
U.P. TOUR CONTINUES: The Political and Candidate & Party Assistance teams were on the road again yesterday on the UP "Unity Road Show" for our second stop in Marquette and third in White Pine . We had a great group of local party people from Marquette, Alger, and Delta counties along with the 1st district Chairman. Special thanks to Joel Westrom for his help in putting the Marquette event together. Our third stop in the western UP for Gogebic, Ontonagon, and Houghton had our largest UP crowd yet. Thank you to Kirk Schott for his help in putting the event together.
DILLON RECALL PETITIONS FILED…11,384 validated signatures filed (15,000+ signed)…law requires the signatures of 8,724 registered voters from within a state representative district. Dillon was the chief architect of the Granholm-Democrat $1.4 billion tax increase on Michigan families and businesses.
CITIZENS TAXPAYERS SPEAK UP…recalls are democracy in action. It’s frustrated voters taking matters into their own hands. The Democrats raised taxes when they had a surplus. NO cuts, NO reforms. The grassroots do matter!
REPUBLICANS SHOOTING FOR ANTI-TAX MAJORITY…this is a good indication of mood taxpayers and voters…let your voices be heard.
McCAIN IN MICHIGAN…Senator McCain will be in Michigan for a fundraiser and Town Hall meeting next week. Details below…join us where you can.
McCain’s Town Hall flyer here:
http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2008/05/senator-mccain.html
HOUSE REPUBLICAN DINNER…Governor Pawlenty will be our featured guest on May 5th at the Rock Financial Center in Novi…more info below.
PETITION CIRCULATORS…time is running out. If you have petitions for our federal candidates…please mail them in so they can track their progress.
THE REST OF THE STORY:
McCAIN IN MICHIGAN.
Next week Senator John McCain has two events for people to attend here in Michigan!
Tuesday night May 6, Senator John McCain will be attending a Fund Raising Reception hosted at the home of Peter and Danialle Karmanos with special guest Governor Mitt Romney. The cost is $2,300 per person and you should contact Sarah Prues Hecker at 313-586-4314 or sarah@prueshecker.com for more information and to RSVP. The event starts at 5:30 PM.
Wednesday morning Senator John McCain will also hold a Town Hall Meeting at Oakland University in the Shotwell-Gustafson Pavilion (adjacent to Meadow Brook Hall) at 280 South Adams Road in Rochester. There is no cost to this event, no tickets are needed, and doors open at 8:00 AM. You can RSVP at Michigan@JohnMcCain.com.
HOUSE REPUBLICAN DINNER DETAILS.
The MRP is doing all we can to assist the Michigan State House Republican Campaign Committee (HRCC) to add seats this November and reclaim the Majority lost in 2006. The HRCC will be holding its annual dinner on May 5th. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty will deliver the keynote. This will be a great event. Location, time, and cost details below.
Diamond Center
Rock Financial Showplace
46100 Grand River Avenue
Novi, MI 48374
To RSVP please call 517-371-1830 or mihrcc@gmail.com
5:00 – 6:00 PM ~ VIP Reception
$5,000/Couple
5:30 PM – 7:30 PM ~ Strolling Dinner
$1,000/Person
$5,000/Silver Sponsor*
$10,000/Gold Sponsor**
$20,000/Platinum Sponsor***
*Silver sponsors will receive 5 tickets to dinner, or 2 tickets to attend the VIP reception
**Gold sponsors will receive 10 tickets to dinner, including 2 tickets to attend the VIP reception
*** Platinum sponsors will receive 20 tickets to dinner, including 4 tickets to attend the VIP reception
Saul Anuzis
STATE STORIES
Group turns in signatures to recall Democratic House speaker
5/1/2008, 5:26 p.m. EDT
By DAVID EGGERT
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A group that wants to recall House Speaker Andy Dillon for backing tax increases turned in signatures to state elections officials Thursday, hoping to get the issue on the August ballot. The anti-tax group said it turned in about 15,500 signatures, including more than 11,000 it said it has had time to validate. Elections officials must determine more than 8,700 are valid for the election to go forward. Supporters of Dillon, a Democrat from Wayne County's Redford Township, plan to contest the validity of signatures. They say the recall group has broken election and campaign finance laws — charges denied by recall organizers.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080502/POLITICS/805020386
Bid to recall House Speaker takes historic step
Charlie Cain and Gary Heinlein / Detroit News Lansing Bureau
Friday, May 2, 2008
LANSING -- Lengthy challenges, court battles, and a campaign that will suck up hundreds of thousands of dollars are expected in the coming months now that recall backers have turned in signatures to oust House Speaker Andy Dillon -- one of the most powerful people in state government -- because he pushed through $1.4 billion in tax increases last year. No House Speaker has ever faced a recall in Michigan. And only two lawmakers have been recalled in the state's history. "Raising taxes in the middle of a recession ... turns out to be a pretty unpopular idea," Leon Drolet, head of the Michigan Taxpayer Alliance, told reporters Thursday as he and several others turned in three boxes filled with what he said were 16,000 recall signatures. Drolet said his group confirmed in spot checks that at least 11,300 of them were valid -- more than enough to satisfy the legal requirement of 8,724 valid signatures to force a recall vote on Aug. 5.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080502/OPINION03/805020305/1007/OPINION
Kilpatrick, Granholm try to obscure scandal, tax realities
Friday, May 2, 2008
Frank Beckmann
Politics often involves the art of perception deflection, obscuring the motives and effects of political actions. Events of the past week seem to confirm the theory. In January, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick went on TV at his church -- wife Carlita at his side -- apologizing to Detroit, his wife and his children after the text message scandal broke. The mayor said, "I am to blame," and later during a radio interview (on 92.3 FM) said that he "wasn't thinking too well." He admitted talking to his wife over a two-week period about the things he had done wrong. But this week, the mayor started questioning the authenticity of the text messages. He joined his lawyers in trying to cast doubt on seeming evidence that he lied about the firing and harassment of three police officers and his apparent tryst with Christine Beatty. Kilpatrick's denial is an effort to stay out of jail since he faces eight felony counts.
http://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/index.ssf/2008/05/flint_mayor_don_williamson_to.html
Flint Mayor Don Williamson to run for governor, pledges to pay state $50K if elected
by Joe Lawlor | The Flint Journal
Thursday May 01, 2008, 3:51 PM
FLINT, Michigan -- Smiling broadly and cracking jokes, Mayor Don Williamson announced this afternoon that he wants to be Michigan's next governor. He said if elected, he would forego a salary and pay the state for the honor of serving as governor. "I would pay the state $50,000 every year when I get the job," Williamson told the assembled media at the 3 p.m. news conference. Williamson, a multi-millionaire, takes a token $1 salary for being Flint's mayor -- something he mentions often. Williamson said he will run in the Democratic primary, and he predicted he would trounce his opponents. "I will beat them very badly," said Williamson. When asked whether he would finance his own campaign, as he did during his successful 2003 and 2007 campaigns for Flint's mayor, Williamson suggested that he would, but left the door open to do fundraising.
Mich. Legislature still at odds over construction projects
5/1/2008, 6:15 p.m. EDT
By DAVID EGGERT
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The Legislature is still at odds over borrowing money to pay for new buildings at state universities. The Republican-led Senate on Thursday again approved a capital outlay budget with spending on airports, military bases and other projects that rely mostly on federal funding. But the Democratic-led House refused to take up the bill because it doesn't give the go-ahead for 39 projects ranging from a $175 million biology building at the University of Michigan to a $1 million upgrade of a nursing laboratory and lecture hall at Bay de Noc Community College in the Upper Peninsula. Democrats say the construction projects would create jobs and improve Michigan's infrastructure by helping students prepare for the high-tech "new economy."
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080502/POLITICS/805020359
Prison costs on agenda
Experts to discuss reforms to help state handle Corrections spending.
Gary Heinlein and Charlie Cain / Detroit News Lansing Bureau
Friday, May 2, 2008
LANSING -- Policymakers say continued growth of Michigan's sprawling, $2-billion-a-year prison system is unsustainable when the state is struggling to pay for such priorities as education, health care and police. Some of the top thinkers regarding Corrections strategies are convening in the capital today to discuss reforms that could help the state get a handle on prison spending without compromising public safety. Speakers at the sessions -- expected to draw about 100 people -- will include the state's deputy Corrections director, leaders of the two sections of the State Bar of Michigan, a sheriff, a prosecutor and the head of the Michigan Council on Crime and Delinquency. "The goal of the conference is to try to give people outside the criminal justice system a sense of what the issues are," said Barbara Levine, executive director of one of the sponsoring organizations, Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending, which advocates alternatives to prison, such as community placement and tether programs.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080502/OPINION01/805020306/1007/OPINION
State Senate adopts fair health insurance reforms
The Detroit News
Friday, May 2, 2008
The Michigan Senate has done a good job of winnowing bad ideas from proposed legislation designed to reform regulations governing health insurance for individuals. The House ought to follow the Senate's lead. The House last year sent the Senate a package of bills backed by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan, the state's major health insurer. Senators, led by Tom George, R-Kalamazoo, and Jason Allen, R-Traverse City, asked tough questions and came up with compromise legislation that now goes to back to the House. A key component of the House legislation would have created a high-risk pool for particularly sick patients to be covered by an assessment on all health insurance companies, whether Blue Cross or private commercial carriers. The assessment would inevitably be reflected in all customers' insurance rates. At the same time, the House legislation would have allowed Blue Cross to retain its tax-exempt status, worth about $75 million to $100 million per year, and purchase any type of business.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080502/POLITICS/805020338
State Senate approves cooperative health bills
Legislation may make coverage more available and affordable
Christina Rogers / The Detroit News
Friday, May 2, 2008
LANSING -- The state Senate on Thursday passed legislation that offers a compromise on health insurance reforms designed to make coverage more available and affordable for individuals who have to buy their own policies. The consumer provisions in the two Senate bills, approved 23-13, include reducing from 12 months to six months the coverage waiting period for people with pre-existing health conditions; continued state oversight of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan rate increases; and state power to order refunds if they determine a consumer was overcharged. But in a major departure from state House reforms passed last fall at the urging of Blue Cross, the Senate legislation delays creation of a high-risk pool to provide health insurance for the sickest patients who otherwise can't get coverage. Instead, the bills require the state to conduct a study within the next year to determine if Michigan needs such a pool and how it would affect insurance rates.
Health insurance debate continues in Michigan
5/1/2008, 6:12 p.m. EDT
By TIM MARTIN
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan lawmakers still are working toward consensus on how to change rules guiding Michigan's health insurance market for individuals, including whether there should be a high-risk pool to cover people who get turned down for coverage elsewhere. The state Senate, led by Republicans, passed its version of legislation Thursday. It's different from legislation approved last year by the House, where Democrats hold a majority. The two chambers must resolve their differences before the law could be changed for the market covering people who buy their own insurance because they aren't covered by employer or government plans. The individual market includes an estimated 250,000 to 400,000 people in Michigan and it could grow significantly within the next few years.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080502/POLITICS/805020362
Horse tracks sue over gambling laws
Federal lawsuit claims state restrictions don't allow competition with casinos, violate U.S. Constitution.
Paul Egan / The Detroit News
Friday, May 2, 2008
DETROIT -- Northville Downs and other Michigan horse racing interests filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the governor and state attorney general, alleging that state lotteries and casinos are killing their industry and that state restrictions on installing video lottery terminals and other forms of gambling at Michigan horse tracks violate the U.S. Constitution. Betting on horse racing plunged 45 percent from $474.6 million in 1997, before three Detroit casinos opened, to about $261 million last year, the lawsuit alleges. It cites the 2005 closure of a harness racing track in Saginaw; the 2007 closure of Great Lakes Downs, the state's last thoroughbred track; and Magna Entertainment Corp.'s recent decision to abandon plans for a new thoroughbred track in Romulus as evidence of an industry in a death spiral. "Without legislative relief, you will see the end of horse racing in Michigan within three years," said Phillip Maxwell of Oxford, an attorney for the plaintiffs.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080502/AUTO01/805020384
Shift to cars slams Big Three
Passenger car sales outrun trucks, SUVs, in April; Effects of economy, pricey gas intensify
Bryce G. Hoffman and Christine Tierney / The Detroit News
Friday, May 2, 2008
Passenger cars outsold light trucks last month for the first time in at least two decades as soaring gasoline prices sent consumers scrambling to more fuel-efficient vehicles. That dealt a major blow to Detroit's Big Three automakers, which are still heavily dependent on sales of trucks and SUVs. Demand for passenger cars rose 5.2 percent to 655,432 units last month from 622,873 units in April 2007, according to figures provided by Autodata Corp. Sales of light trucks, which include crossovers, minivans, sport utility vehicles and pickups, dropped 17.4 percent, falling from 715,730 to 591,122. "It was a difficult truck month for everybody in the industry, ourselves included," said Mike DiGiovanni, executive director of global market and industry analysis at General Motors Corp. "That tends to hurt us and the domestics more than the imports." But a weak economy made April a dismal month for the entire industry.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080502/OPINION04/805020332
The smart way to schedule school votes
BY RUTH JOHNSON
May 2, 2008
Voters in 19 of Oakland County's 28 school districts will not be going to the polls on Tuesday, May 6, and that is good news. Why? Because leaders in those districts -- superintendents and school board members alike -- acted to save thousands of taxpayer dollars by combining or at least partially combining their school board elections with other city, township or state elections. Not only that, their decision to consolidate elections will improve voter turnout -- giving more voters a say when it comes to their schools and their school board representatives. It's easy to get cynical these days, but government can do the right thing, as evidenced by leaders in these districts: Avondale, Berkley, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Brandon, Farmington, Holly, Huron Valley, Novi, Oxford, Rochester, Royal Oak, South Lyon, Southfield, Troy, Walled Lake, Waterford, West Bloomfield and Oakland Community College.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080502/OPINION01/805020304/1007/OPINION
Money isn't issue in school reform
Big city districts hold lessons for Detroit on how to improve
The Detroit News
Friday, May 2, 2008
Listen to the standard line in Michigan, and you'd believe money is a central barrier to school transformation. The real issue is one of political will. The money myth perseveres, however, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. That message was clear at an important education summit held late last week. America's Promise Alliance, a national group led by Colin Powell, chose Metro Detroit to kick off its national campaign on high school dropouts, which its leaders call America's top domestic challenge. The Detroit Public Schools has the worst dropout rate among big cities with a 24.9 percent graduation rate, an alliance study says. The Detroit Dropout Prevention Summit was co-hosted by One D partners New Detroit, Detroit Regional Chamber and the United Way, along with the Skillman Foundation and other organizations. About 300-plus educators and leaders attended.
http://battlecreekenquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080501/NEWS01/805010319/1002/NEWS01
Walberg proposing health-care reform plan
Nick Schirripa
May 1, 2008
Health care is being debated nationwide, and U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg is making one of his biggest legislative pushes this year. The Tipton Republican today is introducing his "Making Health Care Affordable Act" with six core reforms designed to make health care more patient-centered and affordable. "Paying for health care is arguably the biggest challenge American families face today," Walberg said. "Our current health care system is broken, and I hear from too many Michigan families who can't afford the kind of coverage they need or are without insurance." Walberg said his proposed legislation is similar to what Republican presidential candidate Arizona Sen. John McCain has proposed and puts patients and families, not bureaucrats, in charge of their health care decisions.
http://macombdaily.com/stories/050108/loc_local03.shtml
Reps. Levin, Miller favor McCain's gas-tax relief
They say plan would boost summer tourism
By Frank DeFrank
PUBLISHED: Thursday, May 1, 2008
Macomb County's congressional delegation would endorse a plan to suspend the federal tax on gasoline this summer to grant motorists relief from record-high gas prices. In response to a proposal by presumed Republican presidential nominee John McCain, U.S. Reps. Candice Miller and Sander Levin said they would favor the move as part of larger plans to reduce the financial burden on American drivers. "A gas-tax holiday is the right move to ease the pain being felt by so many families," said Miller, a Harrison Township Republican. "In addition to helping families meet their budgets, the savings could also assist tourists to select Michigan for their summer vacation and drive our economy forward."
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080502/METRO/805020387
Mayor's lawyer goes on attack
He blasts Worthy, says she should clean up her own department, pay her delinquent taxes.
Paul Egan / The Detroit News
Friday, May 2, 2008
DETROIT -- A lawyer for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick lashed out Thursday at Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, saying she should spend more time addressing a perjury allegation in her own office and paying her delinquent taxes and less time talking to reporters. Kilpatrick's lawyers also filed court papers Thursday saying they intend to appeal a decision by a Wayne County judge that led to the release Tuesday of a new document containing text message excerpts involving the mayor that had not been previously published. James W. Parkman III, a Birmingham, Ala., attorney representing Kilpatrick on perjury and other felony charges, also said that recent comments by Worthy expressing confidence about the strength of her case were in fact a cry for help. "They don't have the evidence in the case they say they have," Parkman said.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080502/NEWS01/805020368
Mayor's camp: Offer to Beatty a desperate ploy
Worthy bluffing about witnesses, attorneys say
BY JIM SCHAEFER and JOE SWICKARD
May 2, 2008
Prosecutor Kym Worthy's offer to meet with Christine Beatty and public assurances that witnesses are lined up to prove the authenticity of the mayor's text messages are ploys to save a thin case, defense lawyers said Thursday. "This was a plea; this was a cry for help by the prosecutor," lawyer Jim Parkman, part of the mayor's legal team, said at a news conference. The push back by the defense lawyers showed that, outwardly at least, they would not be intimidated by the prosecutor's confident remarks in Thursday's Free Press about the felony cases against Kilpatrick and former top aide Beatty. At one point, Parkman brushed aside Worthy's invitation to Beatty to meet for a possible plea deal. Smiling and saying his team's focus is strictly on the mayor's defense, Parkman said of Beatty, "I don't care what she's going to do." Beatty's lawyer, meanwhile, did not sound like he or Beatty was prepared to accept Worthy's invitation anytime soon.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080502/METRO/805020355/1409/METRO
Students receive award for schooling Conyers
13-year-old girl who boldly told councilwoman to act her age shows off media savvy by refusing to comment further.
Charlie LeDuff / The Detroit News
Friday, May 2, 2008
DETROIT -- Nine children from Courtis Elementary School were given the Spirit of Detroit award Thursday, ostensibly for giving Monica Conyers, the City Council president pro tem, a lesson in civics and civility. By now, much of the region has heard about it: Kierra Bell, 13, berating Conyers for name-calling and screaming in her capacity as a representative of the city when she called bald council President Kenneth Cockrel Jr. "Shrek" during hearings last month. That's what second-graders do," Bell told Conyers during a question-and-answer session arranged by The Detroit News and videotaped for detnews.com. "You're an adult. You have to think before you act."
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/05/hundreds_rally_in_detroit_in_s.html
Hundreds rally in Detroit in support of immigrant rights
by David Runk | The Associated Press
Thursday May 01, 2008, 3:59 PM
DETROIT — Carrying a sign with "They can't deport us all" handwritten on one side, 15-year-old Eduardo Casillas said he took Thursday off school to join hundreds rallying in his neighborhood in support of strengthened immigrant rights. The sophomore at Western High School was born in the U.S., but has family from Mexico and said comprehensive immigration reform needs to be an important issue in this year's presidential race. "Most people just came here for better jobs, better lives, to help their families," Casillas said. The rally and march through the streets of southwest Detroit was part of a nationwide series of May Day protests organized by activists hoping to re-ignite the immigration debate and set an agenda for the next president. But turnout has fallen since the first nationwide rallies were held in 2006.
NATIONAL STORIES
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OWE0ZWJiMGY1OWFiNDk2NDRhNGQwMTM3MjExZjM3NWE=
The Right Rx
Choice and competition are indispensible to real reform that brings costs down and broadens access while maintaining quality.
By John McCain
May 01, 2008, 8:00 a.m.
What exactly is the problem with the American health-care system? The problem is not that Americans don’t have fine doctors, medical technology, and treatments. American medicine is the envy of the world. The problem is not that most Americans lack adequate health insurance. The vast majority of Americans have private insurance, and our government spends many billions each year to provide even more. The biggest problem with the American health-care system is one of cost and access, and as a result tens of millions of individuals have no insurance. For example, we currently spend for about 2.4 trillion dollars a year on health care. A decade from now that number, under current projections, will double to over four trillion dollars. The Obama and Clinton response to these problems is to promise universal coverage, whatever its cost, and the massive tax increases, mandates, and government regulation that it imposes. But in the end this will accomplish one thing only.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/134919
The Grumpy Idealist
Robert Kagan thinks the 21st century will look a lot like the 19th, marked by struggles between the globe's great powers.
Christopher Flavelle
Updated: 5:42 PM ET Apr 30, 2008
When John McCain outlined his foreign policy platform in a speech in Los Angeles on March 26, part of the credit went to Robert Kagan, an adviser to McCain's campaign and a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In his new book, "The Return of History and the End of Dreams," Kagan argues that the apparent triumph of liberal democracy in the 1990s was fleeting and that an era of renewed great power competition is upon us. That competition is marked by the tension between two political traditions: Western liberal democracies and Eastern autocracies, primarily a resurgent Russia and a rising China. NEWSWEEK's Christopher Flavelle asked Kagan what those changes mean for the future of U.S. foreign policy and how a John McCain presidency might address them. Excerpts:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120959262155757509.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news
Support for Republicans Falls, But Race for President Is Tight
McCain About Even With Democrats; New Lows for Bush
By JACKIE CALMES
May 1, 2008; Page A1
Only 27% of voters have positive views of the Republican Party, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, the lowest level for either party in the survey's nearly two-decade history. Yet the party's probable presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, continues to run nearly even with Democratic rivals Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton. His standing so far makes for a more competitive race for the White House than would be expected for Republicans, who face an electorate that overwhelmingly believes the country is headed in the wrong direction under President Bush. "The nearly unprecedented negative mood of the country is presenting significant challenges this year for other Republican candidates," said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, who conducted the poll with Democrat Peter Hart.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/02/america/NA-POL-US-Republican-Voting.php
Republicans try to regain control of primary calendar for 2012
The Associated Press
Published: April 2, 2008
This year, Iowa started the voting with its caucuses on Jan. 3, and more than 20 states staged a de facto national primary on Feb. 5. Michigan Republical Chairman Saul Anuzis said Iowa and New Hampshire should not be allowed to vote first just because they have in the past. "I also don't think the small state exemption makes sense," said Anuzis, whose state broke party rules by holding a Jan. 15 primary. "You allow these small states to have a disproportionate impact," he said. "Because of the perception and the media attention that 20 small states will get, you risk being irrelevant."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/business/media/02fox-1.html?ref=politics
Democrats and Fox News Make Friends
By BRIAN STELTER
May 2, 2008
Standing in front of a television camera last week, the chairman of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign, Terry McAuliffe, uttered four words that the Fox News Channel would not soon forget. “Fair and balanced Fox!,” he exclaimed, noting that the network was the first to project Mrs. Clinton’s Pennsylvania primary win. Fox executives could not have asked for a more rousing endorsement. The next day it showed up in promotions. All of a sudden, the once-frosty relationship between Fox News and the Democratic candidates seems to have grown warmer. Mrs. Clinton and Barack Obama, who steadfastly refused to attend Fox-sponsored debates last year, are now giving plenty of interviews as they court Fox’s viewers, who are largely white, conservative and undecided.“It’s probably true that we appeal to white working-class voters,” said Brit Hume, the network’s Washington managing editor and the host of “Special Report.” “The candidates are going where the voters are.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10032.html
Fox trumps Netroots; bloggers rebel
By MIKE ALLEN
5/1/08 10:30 PM EST
The nation’s top Democrats are suddenly rushing to appear on the Fox News Channel, which they once had shunned as enemy territory as the nemesis of liberal bloggers. The detente with Fox has provoked a backlash from progressive bloggers, who contend the party’s leaders are turning their backs on the base — and lending credibility and legitimacy to the network liberals love to hate — in a quest for a few swing votes. In a span of eight days, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY.) and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean are all taking their seats with the network that calls itself “fair and balanced” but is widely viewed as skewing conservative. With the party’s presidential contest reduced to hand-to-hand combat, Democrats are turning to the ratings leader among cable news channels in a clear rebuff to the liberal activists known as the Netroots. Markos Moulitsas, founder of the leading liberal site Daily Kos, told Politico’s Michael Calderone: "Democrats are being idiotic by going on that network.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/us/politics/02indiana.html
Minister’s Comments Hold Little Sway in Indianapolis Enclave
By MONICA DAVEY
May 2, 2008
INDIANAPOLIS — In the cafes, gift stores and the gourmet dog biscuit shop in this city’s neighborhood of Broad Ripple Village, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s name draws all sorts of responses — sighs, rolling eyes, laughter, grim silence. But many people, like Clyde H. Crockett, a retired law professor who was sipping a drink in a coffee shop here on Thursday, said his thoughts about Mr. Wright would have no bearing on his decision — still unfinished — about whom to vote for in Indiana’s Democratic primary on Tuesday. “Why should it?” Mr. Crockett said. “No one should be tainted because of Reverend Wright.” The shoppers in Broad Ripple and in the neighborhoods nearby reflect a demographic group — mostly white, highly educated, professional, artsy, relatively well-off, politically independent — that has leaned toward Senator Barack Obama in other states and one that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will hope to gain an edge with here, in a state that polls show as almost evenly split.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/opinion/02krugman.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print
Party of Denial
By PAUL KRUGMAN
May 2, 2008
During Barack Obama’s Sunday appearance on Fox News, the interviewer asked him for an example of “a hot-button issue where you would be willing to buck the Democratic Party line” and say that Republicans have the better idea. Mr. Obama’s answer was puzzling because he gave credit where it isn’t due — and thereby undermined what could be a very effective Democratic line of argument. In particular, Mr. Obama attributed to Republicans the idea that regulation can be flexible rather than a matter of “top-down command and control,” and in particular for the idea of controlling pollution with a system of tradable emission permits rather than rigid regulations. Well, that’s not at all what actually happened — and the tale of what really did happen has a lot of relevance to current events. It’s true that the first President Bush established a market-based system for controlling sulfur dioxide emissions, which has been highly successful at controlling acid rain. But by then the idea of markets in emission permits had long been accepted by economists of all political stripes.
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_9110892
The company Obama keeps
By The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 04/30/2008 08:27:57 PM MDT
Just six weeks ago, Sen. Barack Obama said he could no more disown his former pastor than he could disown his own white grandmother. Until, of course, he did. Obama finally (and firmly) disavowed the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright this week. But the moment came only after sensing his presidential bid could be undone by the simmering controversy. In March, in his eloquent speech on race in America, Obama defended his pastor as a man of otherwise good deeds. While poignant, his original defense of a man he's known for two decades made Tuesday's political stiff- arm reek of desperation politics. Obama's handling of this mess not only calls into question his judgment, but eventually could strike at the core of whether he's fit to be president. As late as Monday, after Wright again suggested the U.S. government invented AIDS to eliminate minorities and defended the bigotry of Louis Farrakhan, Obama seemed to shrug it off. But by Tuesday, after video of Wright's new rants played in what seemed like an endless loop on 24-hour news channels, Obama the politician finally emerged.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10010.html
What Obama wishes he could say
By JOHN F. HARRIS & JIM VANDEHEI
5/1/08 11:58 AM EST
Thrown off his game by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright uproar, Barack Obama’s strongest answer to Hillary Rodham Clinton is one he won’t give: Senator, do you really want to get in a contest with me over who has more unsavory personal associations? For all the coverage about the rising heat between Clinton and Obama, this year’s nomination race still is a mild affair by historical standards — restrained by a powerful sense on both sides that there are lots of things they could say but shouldn’t. There is one theme, however, that runs through not-for-attribution conversations with both sides: Each candidate thinks the other has unmitigated gall. The Clintons, to hear associates tell it, are more contemptuous than they ever acknowledge publicly about what they believe is Obama’s breathtaking arrogance — the way he blithely dismisses the ideological showdowns and policy achievements of the 1990s as “old politics,” the way he thinks his thin résumé leaves him qualified to lead the country. Lately, the contempt level on the Obama side toward his rivals likewise has been soaring.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120960254267657915.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_topbox
Obama Strikes Chord Urging
Parents to Be More Responsible
By NICK TIMIRAOS
May 1, 2008
HICKORY, N.C. -- Sen. Barack Obama has cast himself as a "truth-talker" on the campaign trail, with the refrain that government can't solve people's problems and that one of the biggest problems facing the country is "parents who don't parent." The appeal to personal responsibility echoes the "straight talk" theme of Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican nominee, and may connect with Republican and independent voters wary of big government. But ahead of next week's primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, Sen. Obama delivers the line most often in front of African-American audiences. At a stop in Hickory, N.C., after promising to spend $18 billion on education, Sen. Obama said: "This money is not going to make a difference if parents don't parent." He has folded the line into his stump speech across North Carolina and a TV advertisement in the state, where one-third of the Democratic electorate is African-American, ahead of Tuesday's primary.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/the_race_speech_revisited.html
The 'Race' Speech Revisited
By Charles Krauthammer
May 02, 2008
"I can no more disown him [Jeremiah Wright] than I can disown my white grandmother." -- Barack Obama, Philadelphia, March 18
Guess it's time to disown Granny, if Obama's famous Philadelphia "race" speech is to be believed. Of course, the speech was not just believed. It was hailed, celebrated, canonized as the greatest pronouncement on race in America since Lincoln at Cooper Union. A New York Times columnist said it "should be required reading in classrooms across the country." College seniors and first-graders, suggested the excitable Chris Matthews. Apparently there's been a curriculum change. On Tuesday, the good senator begged to extend and revise his previous remarks on race.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/on_my_switch_from_clinton_to_o.html
On My Switch From Clinton to Obama
By Joseph Andrew
May 01, 2008
I have been inspired. Today I am announcing my support for Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States of America. I am changing my support from Senator Clinton to Senator Obama, and calling for my fellow Democrats across my home State of Indiana, and my fellow super delegates across the nation, to heal the rift in our Party and unite behind Barack Obama. The hardest decisions in life are not between good and bad or right and wrong, but between two goods or two rights. That is the decision Democrats face today. We have an embarrassment of riches, but as much as we may love our candidates and revel in the political process that has brought Presidential politics to places that have not seen it in a generation, we cannot let our family affair hurt America by helping John McCain.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aP_1wrIyt1Nc
Obama May Levy $15 Billion Tax on Oil Company Profit
By Daniel Whitten
May 1, 2008
May 1 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's proposal for a windfall profits tax on oil companies could cost $15 billion a year at last year's profit levels, a campaign adviser said. The plan would target profit from the biggest oil companies by taxing each barrel of oil costing more than $80, according to a fact sheet on the proposal. The tax would help pay for a $1,000 tax cut for working families, an expansion of the earned- income tax credit and assistance for people who can't afford their energy bills. ``The profits right now are so remarkable that one could trim them 10 percent or so, which would turn out to be somewhere in the $15 billion range,'' said Jason Grumet, an adviser to the Obama campaign. Obama's plan may be three times larger than the $50 billion, 10-year plan contemplated by his Democratic rival, New York Senator Hillary Clinton. Republican candidate John McCain, an Arizona senator, has no plan to raise oil and gas industry taxes, said his economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/35403.html
Clinton cutting into Obama's lead in North Carolina
By Rob Christensen | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2008
APEX, N.C. — North Carolina's Democratic presidential primary is tightening, with Sen. Barack Obama's struggles over his controversial former pastor apparently eroding his once formidable lead here. The Tar Heel state was once seen as Obama's to lose. But three different public opinion polls conducted in recent days suggest that New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has been cutting the gap. The Raleigh-based Public Policy Polling has found that Obama's one-time lead of 25 points has decreased to 12 points. A SurveyUSA poll found that Obama's 9 point lead is now down to 5 points, while Rasmussen's poll has Obama's lead dropping from 23 to 14 points. Most of Obama's loss of support has been among white voters. Pollster Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling attributes the drop to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy, as well as campaign visits by both Hillary and Bill Clinton in recent days.
Clinton May Be Hopeful, but Obama Rolls On
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and CARL HULSE
May 2, 2008
INDIANAPOLIS — Have Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s chances of winning the Democratic presidential nomination improved as Senator Barack Obama has struggled through his toughest month of this campaign? After weeks in which her candidacy was seen by many party leaders as a long shot at best, Mrs. Clinton’s advisers argued strenuously on Thursday that the answer was most assuredly yes, that the outlook was turning in her favor in a way that gave her a real chance. Still, despite a series of trials that have put Mr. Obama on the defensive and illustrated the burdens he might carry in a fall campaign, the Obama campaign is rolling along, leaving Mrs. Clinton with dwindling options.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTI5ODRlM2I1YWMwNzE2ZTQ5MTNjYzE0OGQzMTE5MGM=
The Clinton Factor?
Senator Hillary Clinton Enters “The No Spin Zone.”
By Doug Heye
May 01, 2008, 8:00 a.m.
Senator Hillary Clinton should have no chance to win the North Carolina primary. Nearly 40 percent of North Carolina primary voters are blacks, who, in the past, have rejected “electability” arguments against black candidates. It’s also a state where the Clinton name has been mud. Bill Clinton never carried the state, even with neighboring Tennessean Al Gore on the ticket. Moreover, the Clinton aura contributed to the defeat of a Democratic Senate candidate in 2002 and 2004.To overcome these hurdles, Clinton has needed to try something different — including reaching out to conservative Democrats, NASCAR fans, and military families (North Carolina is home to the fourth-largest population of military personnel in the nation), especially those in eastern North Carolina — from small tobacco towns to military installations such as Camp Lejeune and Fort Bragg.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/clinton_cant_win_popular_vote.html
Clinton Can't Win Popular Vote Race Without a Miracle
By Mort Kondracke
May 01, 2008
Unless the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has caused him more damage than is evident, it's impossible to see how Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) can lose the popular vote, the delegate race or the Democratic nomination to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.). Specifically, I've calculated the possible popular vote in eight of the nine remaining primaries (excluding Guam), giving Clinton the benefit of every doubt, and can't see how she gains more than 150,000 votes on Obama -- not enough to catch him except in the most extreme circumstances. Of course, it matters how you calculate Obama's popular vote lead -- or whether you give him one at all. The RealClearPolitics.com tally of past primaries gives Obama a lead of 501,000, excluding results in party-disqualified Florida and Michigan.
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=13140
Flatbed Hillary
By Quin Hillyer
Published 5/1/2008 12:08:24 AM
One of the more bizarre developments of this campaign season has been to see Hillary Clinton, of all people, turned into an electoral favorite of blue-collar white voters. The reality is that very few people in politics have more contempt for white workers than does this product of Park Ridge, Wellesley, the Senate Watergate Committee, and the super powered Rose Law Firm. This is the woman who, according to three, independent, respected, credible witnesses, at least one of them a strong Clinton supporter, responded to Southern whites workers voting Republican in 1994 by telling her husband: "Screw 'em. You don't owe them a thing, Bill. They're doing nothing for you; you don't have to do anything for them." This is the woman who last year insulted the whole state of Mississippi in an interview with Iowa's famous columnist David Yepsen, noting the lack of elected women in both states: "How can Iowa be ranked with Mississippi?" she asked. "That's not what I see. That's not the quality. That's not the communitarianism, that's not the openness I see in Iowa."
http://www.campaignline.com/articles/?ArticleID=9A91C199-1422-17E0-F88C7DABA23AAE8B
Joe Trippi: What I Should Have Told John Edwards
By Joe Trippi
04/29/08