Mrs. Bush said:
"American people expect our leaders and all
politicians who are here to do America's business,
you know, to work together, to do what's right for
our country. And it happens."
"We are grateful for
the courage and commitment of our troops, and we
are safer because of their skill and sacrifice,"
President Bush said.
This is no time for
on-the-job training no matter how many courses on
foreign policy Howard Dean takes,"
Joe Lieberman
said.
"It is a choice between
anger and answers,"
John Kerry said.
"We’re not just here to
mark some Saturday in December; we’re here to mark
an end to the Bush presidency,"
John Kerry said.
"We know in our hearts
that anger doesn't change America … our actions
do," John
Edwards said.
"I see [Bin Laden] as the
person who murdered all of my citizens, so many of
my firefighters and my police officers,"
Rudy Giuliani
said. "There's a whole personal thing with
regard to Bin Laden."
"You can't beat George
Bush if you behave like the Democrats in
Washington are behaving,"
he said to
applause. "If we're going to win, we're
going to have to take the president on because his
agenda is not the right agenda for America."
"George Bush thought he
could play dress-up on an aircraft carrier,"
Kerry said.
"We’re not only going to send Bush back to Texas,
we’re going to stand in front of a sign that says
‘Mission Accomplished.’"
"This campaign is about
hope," Howard
Dean said. "It's about the ability of
people to control their lives again."
“George Bush refuses to
fund important country-of-origin labeling
provisions for meat and has ignored the need for
resources at the FDA and USDA to inspect the
agricultural products coming across our borders,"
Dick Gephardt
said.
"You can't blame the
president because a cow came down with BSE (bovine
spongiform encephalopathy), but you can blame the
Bush administration for a lot of what's going to
happen to beef farmers over the next couple of
weeks," Dean
said.
"The American people
recognize there is a lot of partisan posturing
going on in the Democratic primary right now. The
president, on the other hand, is acting to protect
public health and acting to make sure our food
supply is safe,"
said White House press secretary Scott McClellan.
"I'm absolutely not
interested in being vice president. No, the answer
to that question is no,"
said John
Edwards.
Dean is hypocrite
Howard Dean had a secret
committee that met on energy task force while he
was Governor. In 1999, Dean offered the same
argument the Bush administration uses today for
keeping deliberations of a policy task force
secret:
"The
governor needs to receive advice from time to time
in closed session. As every person in government
knows, sometimes you get more open discussion when
it's not public," Dean was quoted as saying.
Dean offered the following as
reasons why his secret task force was different
from Cheney’s. Dean said his group developed
better policy, was bipartisan and sought advice
not just from energy executives but
environmentalists and low-income advocates. He
said his task force was more open because it held
one public hearing and divulged afterward the
names of people it consulted even though the
content of discussions with them was kept secret.
I am their leader
“If I don't win the nomination,
where do you think those million and a half
people, half a million on the Internet, where do
you think they're going to go?" he said during a
meeting with reporters. "I don't know where
they're going to go. They're certainly not going
to vote for a conventional Washington politician,"
said Howard Dean. Dean also complained about the
Democratic National Committee and their lack of
intervention in the race:
“If we
had strong leadership in the Democratic Party, it
would be calling the other candidates and saying
somebody has to win here. If Ron Brown were
chairman, this wouldn't be happening."
Democratic National Committee
spokeswoman Debra DeShong rejected Dean's
arguments, saying nothing unusual is happening:
"All
of the Democratic presidential candidates
including Governor Dean have been vigorous about
drawing distinctions among themselves," she said.
"Democratic primaries over the last 20 years have
been just as tough and just as vigorous."
Dean and religion
"Let's get into a little
religion here," Dean said at a morning meeting
with voters in response to a question about his
beliefs. "Don't you think Jerry Falwell reminds
you a lot more of the Pharisees than he does of
the teachings of Jesus? And don't you think this
campaign ought to be about evicting the money
changers from the temple?" said Howard Dean.
The
Boston Globe reports Howard Dean showed
how he’s going to use religion in his campaign
during a Waterloo campaign stop. The story also
covers the question of whether or not Dean can
beat Bush:
"We
don't think there is a reason to give up," Dean
said in answer to a question from an audience
member about the tone of his message. "This really
is a campaign which is based much more on hope.
Anger is part of it because I think we have a
right to be angry, because our government has
given us up for their corporate sponsors. But I
also think this country was founded by ordinary
people."
Bush’s mirror image?
The
LA Times offers a look at how similar
Dean is to Bush:
The
real reason Bush and Dean appear to be twins
beneath the skin is that their current political
strategies and styles are so similar. Dean has
ascended in the Democratic presidential race by
defining himself as the anti-Bush… But in his
approach to politics, Dean is now Bush's mirror
image, the liberal equivalent of a conservative
president.
Response to Dean
Howard Dean has generated a
number of letters of response regarding his not
prejudging Osama bin Laden for the admitted
planning of the 9-11 attacks. Here is one letter
from the
NY Post:
Osama
bin Laden has admitted planning the attacks of
9/11, but Howard Dean wants to give him the
benefit of the doubt. That erases any doubt I
might have had about voting for Dean. In my eyes,
he's as present as the World Trade Towers.
Dean endorsed
Rep. Bob Menendez of New Jersey
endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Howard
Dean in Waterloo on Saturday. Menendez, the House
Democratic caucus chairman, is the highest-ranking
Democrat to endorse Dean and the highest-ranking
member of the House Democratic leadership to
endorse a candidate other than Dick Gephardt.
Dean locked out
The local chapter of the
steelworkers union has withdrawn permission for
Democratic Presidential candidate Howard Dean to
use its hall for a rally next week. National union
leaders ordered Steelworkers Local 7898 to back
out because the union has endorsed U.S. Rep. Dick
Gephardt of Missouri in the nine-way race for the
Democratic Presidential nomination.
Dean wanted to speak to the job
losses of the steelworkers and others in South
Carolina suffering from layoffs, a campaign
spokeswoman said. “Being there with these workers
who are really suffering at the hands of the Bush
administration really appealed to him,” Delacey
Skinner said.
Gephardt in Oklahoma
While Rep. Dick Gephardt must
win Iowa, he is also planning ahead to win the
nomination. Gephardt told cheering union workers
Saturday that Oklahoma and its labor unions are an
important part of his strategy to win the White
House. He has been releasing names of individuals
who have endorsed his candidacy in Oklahoma for
weeks. Clearly Oklahoma is becoming Gephardt’s
next must-win state after Iowa.
While in Oklahoma Gephardt gave
his signature line, "I've served with five
presidents and he is by far the worst. I'm
nostalgic for Ronald Reagan.”
Gephardt on Dean
Rep. Dick Gephardt offered a
statement on Howard Dean’s bungling of how to deal
with Osama bin Laden.
"Once
again, Howard Dean has made a statement that calls
into question his ability to be a successful
Democratic nominee against George W. Bush. When
you're debating the President of the United
States, there are no 'do-overs.'
"It's
very clear to the American people that Osama bin
Laden is an international terrorist who has
admitted guilt in organizing the 9/11 attacks and
other acts of terror against the United States. He
has bragged about his leadership role.
“A
candidate for president should not be ambivalent
about his fate. We are at war with Osama bin
Laden. If captured alive, he should be prosecuted
and executed," Dick Gephardt said.
Gephardt: Mad Cow
"The threat of mad cow disease
can harm consumer confidence in the safety and
security of our food supply, destroy families and
devastate farmers, cattle ranchers and rural
economies all over our country. We must stop this
deadly disease at our borders at all cost. It's
the government's highest responsibility to keep
Americans safe. That includes the food at our
grocery stores,” said Dick Gephardt.
"George Bush refuses to fund
important country-of-origin labeling provisions
for meat and has ignored the need for resources at
the FDA and USDA to inspect the agricultural
products coming across our borders. We need a
president who is committed to the right of
American consumers to know where their meat is
coming from and not to the huge special interests
that are fighting to keep safety regulations out
of our food supply," Gephardt concluded.
Clark endorsed
Democratic presidential
candidate Wesley Clark has been endorsed by Rep.
Dale E. Kildee -- the first member of Michigan's
Democratic congressional delegation to announce a
favorite
Clark’s true grits
Wesley Clark is not campaigning
in New Hampshire, but he is campaigning in the
South. The Clark campaign must demonstrate that
they can win Southern states to become the
alternative to Dean. So, the Clark campaign is
implementing what it calls a ‘True Grits’ tour of
Southern states. The
NY Times covers the tour:
General Clark is trying to show the party that his
national security credentials and experience
leading a well-integrated institution make him the
most qualified candidate to go toe-to-toe with
President Bush in the fall. With five Senate seats
being vacated by Democrats in the South, General
Clark is also trying to demonstrate that for
Southern office-seekers, he would be a strong
presence at the top of the ticket.
"The
message we're trying to send is beyond the
specific states we will visit," Paul Johnson, the
Clark campaign manager, said in an interview. "In
part the plan is to make the statement that
General Clark has a broad base of appeal in all 50
states."
Edwards vote of no confidence
Edwards told "Fox News Sunday"
his vote was meant to tell the Bush administration
that its policy of going it alone in Iraq was not
working and needed to be changed. And he says he
would have voted that way even if the measure's
passage depended on him. Such a scenario, he said,
would have brought administration officials back
to Congress with a more detailed plan for Iraq's
future. He also said the Senate could have then
forced them to involve other nations in a broader
international effort.
"This
was not a show vote," said Edwards, who represents
North Carolina. "I did what I believed needed to
be done to change this administration's policy in
Iraq. And it did then, and still does now, needs
to be changed.
Edwards in Iowa
"They want to know what we're
going to do, how we're going to lead," Edwards
says. "It would be a trap to get caught in the
emotion of the moment. If we want the White House,
we better have a clear vision that recognizes the
relentless optimism of the American people." In
town hall meetings across the state, Edwards has
challenged Bush's values with his own values,
hoping to connect to the "regular folks" he says
he will champion as president.
His values are spelled out
succinctly in his signature line, which he usually
saves until the end of his stump speech: "I still
believe in an America where the son of a
millworker can actually beat the son of a
president for the White House."
Dean’s a rookie
Joe Lieberman has concluded
rival presidential candidate Howard Dean is a
rookie:
"I
just don't think it's time for a rookie," said
Sen. Joe Lieberman.
"We're
not going to convince the American people to
replace George W. Bush with someone who's taken
repeated impulsive positions and then constantly
had to explain what he said," Lieberman said at
another stop.
“If
Howard Dean is unsure about Saddam Hussein and
Osama bin Laden, the American people are going to
be very unsure they have the confidence they need
to make Howard Dean their president," Lieberman
said.
Dean’s
campaign replied, "If Senator Lieberman and the
other Democrats had challenged President Bush’s
foreign policy last October as much as they are
attacking governor Dean now, we might not be
bogged down in Iraq,” said Matthew Gardner, Dean's
New Hampshire press secretary.
Dept. of Peace
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
editorial believes that Rep. Dennis Kucinich has a
good idea in creating the Department of Peace:
Rep.
Dennis Kucinich has been talking about a
Department of Peace for nearly four years now,
long before he started running for president. When
the Cleveland congressman reintroduced his bill
last April to create this Peace Department, to be
paid for by an amount equal to 2 percent of the
defense budget, he had 49 co-sponsors.
It's
easy to wave off a Cabinet-level peace office as
pie-in-the-sky kookiness, on a par with vegan
lifestyles or 1960s flower power. But it's far
from kooky. Peace is the wave of the future. The
sooner we embrace it, the better off we'll be.
Love candidate
Patch Adams, the famous clown
physician, dubbed Dennis Kucinich the love
candidate during an appearance in Portsmouth, New
Hampshire:
Adams
said that, after a one-on-one evening meeting with
Kucinich, he came away with a new label for the
Ohio lawmaker: "The love candidate."
A love
candidate, Adams said, would look at the
discrepancy between the rich and the poor, would
solidify the labor base and would get out of North
American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade
Organization.
The
"love candidate" would also invest huge amounts of
money into schools and take away the tax cuts for
the rich, he added.
"Thirty percent of those tax cuts could feed and
clothe everyone on the planet," Adams said. "A
love candidate would not break the bill of rights,
but would defend it," Adams said.
Democrat anger
The
NY Times covers the issue of the
Democrat Party’s anger:
But as
the Republicans tell the story, the Democrats'
animosity is less a question of being mad as hell
than of having anger issues. Conservative
commentators analyze the Democrats' problems in
therapeutic terms that they would once have
derided as Marin County psychobabble.
Charles Krauthammer talks about "the unhinging of
the Democratic Party," as it passes from "from
partisanship to pathology," and David Brooks
describes Democrats as "caught up in their own
victimization." In one of his last columns before
his death, Robert L. Bartley of The Wall Street
Journal located the "subconscious roots'' of
Democrats' anger in a crisis of self-identity,
compounded by "inner doubts about their own moral
position" after the Clinton scandals.
Hence
the picture of the Democrats pitched into a fever
of self-destructive rancor, as disdain for Mr.
Bush gives way to "a hatred that is near
pathological," in Mr. Krauthammer's words. Or, as
Mr. Gillespie puts it, the Democrats have demeaned
the presidency with "political hate speech" -
"harsh, bitter personal attacks . . .
unprecedented in the history of presidential
politics."
Bush’s chances
"If in the battleground states
there's a continued loss of industrial jobs, and
if we have a Democratic candidate who can use that
effectively in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan,
Wisconsin and Oregon, then Bush may be in
trouble," said James Thurber, a presidential
scholar at American University, reports USA Today
on Bush’s chances of winning reelection. The story
by and large points out that Bush is in good
shape:
Democrats are emphasizing job losses, shortcomings
in the new prescription drug bill, meager funds
for schools, and tax cuts they claim are too
beneficial to the wealthy.
For
now, Republicans, while warning against
complacency, are not taking such criticisms too
seriously.
"On
the two issues that matter the most, national
security and economic security, Bush is winning.
And no Democratic rhetoric or spin will undermine
that," said GOP pollster Frank Luntz.
homepage
|
click here
to read past Iowa Daily Reports
|