IPW Daily Report – Saturday, February 7, 2004
"Kerry has the momentum because he looks like a
winner. He looks like a winner because he's been
winning," said
Ron Kaufman, former adviser to former President
George H.W. Bush.
"What I said is that I'm in favor of choice..."
Wesley Clark
explained. "I would hope that it would be
done only on rare occasions, but it's a woman's
right to choose."
"Several years ago we talked about 'Buy America,'
remember that? Instead of 'Buy America,' how about
'Hire America."
John Edwards said.
Part of keeping America secure is keeping our jobs
secure," John
Edwards said. "It is wrong to have over a
million manufacturing jobs leave this country
because of the Bush administration's trade
policy."
"What George W. Bush and the people who support
these trade policies don't understand is that when
you shut down the factory -- when you shut down
the mill -- you shut down the town,"
said John
Edwards.
"Certainly my military record was fair game and I
think the president's is as well,"
Howard Dean
said. "What's fair game in this campaign is
anything that was asked of me to be asked of
everybody else."
"I look forward to that debate when John Kerry, a
war hero with a chest full of medals, is standing
next to George Bush, a man who was AWOL in the
Alabama National Guard,"
Democrat
Chairman Terry McAuliffe said. "George Bush
never served in our military in our country. He
didn't show up when he should have showed up."
"I was one of millions who asked him to lead us
wisely and well, and he abused the trust of the
people by exploiting the fears of the American
people in order to take this nation on an
adventure that had been preordained before the
attacks of Sept. 11 ever took place,"
said Al Gore.
"This week George Bush and the Republican smear
machine have trotted out the same old tired lines
of attack that they've used before to divide this
nation and to evade the real issues before us,"
said John Kerry.
"They've spent months on the campaign trail
criticizing George W. Bush and his reckless
policies, when, in the 107th Congress, both men
voted with the president almost 70 percent of the
time," Wesley
Clark said.
*End Days
*Kerry takes big lead in Michigan
*Delegate Counts
*Edwards acknowledges tough battle
*Clark hitting harder
*Clark’s Kosovo record
*Money check
*Laura Bush speaks out
End days
The American public is watching the phenomenon of
what effect a crammed short schedule of primaries
and caucuses has on the Presidential nominating
system. Revelations of Sen. John Kerry’s
improprieties of being the largest recipient of
special interest money and a quid pro quo exchange
of legislation in a questionable action on the Big
Dig have done nothing to slow his momentum. Today,
Kerry is likely to take nearly all the delegates
from Michigan and possibly Washington State as
well.
In part, Kerry’s opponents’ lack of funds has
lessened the potential damage from the recent
negative revelations. Another factor is that the
national media has recognized the other
candidates’ shortcomings and are now anxious to
get to the main event of Kerry vs. Bush.
Regardless, the only place we may see the last
battle for the nomination may be in Wisconsin on
Feb. 17. On that day, everyone left standing will
focus on what they can accomplish in the cheese
head state. Dean reports that he has raised $400
thousand of the $700 thousand he needs to make his
last stand. It is in Wisconsin that we will see
whether Kerry’s past indiscretions will have any
effect on his gaining the nomination.
Rep. Dick Gephardt threw his weight behind Kerry
this week. It is nearly certain that the unions
that backed Gephardt have pre-approved the
endorsement and the unions will soon follow in
endorsing Kerry as well. The unions who backed
Gephardt have a good reason to come on-board so
they can still have a strong position in their own
union against the service unions who backed Howard
Dean.
Edwards dismissed Gephardt's endorsement, saying,
"if you look at the history of endorsements in
this campaign, they haven't had a lot of sway with
voters, which is understandable. Voters make their
own decisions."
Michigan’s Gov. Jennifer Granholm and husband Dan
Mulhern with a click of the mouse voted for Kerry
in Michigan’s Primary that ends Saturday. The
Governor’s endorsement is just one of many
endorsements that Kerry has been winning in the
last few days.
Even Southerners have been endorsing Kerry. Rep.
Denise L. Majette (Georgia) stated:
“John Kerry has his priorities straight. He
understands that to ensure the long-term
prosperity of our country, we must empower our
children with a first-rate public education today.
He understands that we need to restore America’s
moral credibility across the globe and lead the
nations of the world into an era of security,
freedom and peace. And most importantly, he
understands that fiscal prosperity and economic
opportunity come when we balance our budget, cut
taxes for the middle class and put Americans back
to work. “
“Unlike the Bush Administration’s hollow rhetoric
on these important issues, John Kerry is a proven
leader and determined fighter who has what it
takes to turn this country around.
“The bottom line is that Americans simply cannot
afford another four years of the Bush
Administration’s failed policies. John Kerry is
the best man to take back the White House and I am
pleased to support him.”
Kerry takes big lead in Michigan
According to the Associated Press, John Kerry has
taken a big, big lead heading into the Michigan
caucuses, easily outpacing rivals Edwards, Clark
and Dean. According to the article, Kerry is
focusing on Bush, and not his Democrat opponents:
"This week George Bush and the Republican smear
machine have trotted out the same old tired lines
of attack that they've used before to divide this
nation and to evade the real issues before us,"
the Massachusetts senator said in remarks prepared
for a Democratic Party dinner in Richmond, Va.
"They're extreme, we're mainstream and we're going
to stand up and fight back," he said. Aides said
Kerry's speech was designed to reassure the party
faithful he would fight far harder against GOP
attacks than Michael Dukakis, the former
Massachusetts governor who led the party to defeat
in 1988.
Returns from 21 percent of Washington's precincts
showed Kerry with 52 percent of the vote to 28
percent for Dean. The other candidates were in
single digits.
"This administration is busy trying to paint
everybody else as out of touch, out of synch,
somehow out of the mainstream," he said in
Nashville. "But let me tell you something, I'm not
worried about coming down South and talking to
people about jobs, schools, health care and the
environment.
`I think it's the president who ought to worry
about coming down here."
Delegate Counts
As of Saturday, February 7: John Kerry 274
delegates, Howard Dean at 121, John Edwards at 110
and Wesley Clark at 82. It takes 2,162 to win the
nomination.
Upcoming delegates to win: Michigan had 128
delegates at stake in caucuses, and Washington
offered another 76. Maine, with 24 delegates at
stake, was holding caucuses on Sunday.
Edwards acknowledges tough battle
Eyeing Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin, John
Edwards acknowledged he must have a strong showing
to prove he’s the alternative to leading rival
John Kerry. Campaigning in Wisconsin, Edwards was
handed his first union endorsement --
the 250,000-member
Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile
Employees. This pales, however, in comparison to
Kerry’s recent endorsement by the American
Federation of Teachers this week, with its 1.3
million members. According to an Associated Press
article, Edwards remains optimistic:
"This is very much for me a long-term process.
It's a war of attrition," Edwards said. "I'm in it
until I'm the nominee."
In Wisconsin, he mentioned a request by Gov. Jim
Doyle that all the candidates remain positive when
they campaign in the state.
"He's right about that. It's exactly what we
should be doing," Edwards told a rocking crowd of
several hundred, mostly union members.
Edwards also continued
to level his harsh attacks on President Bush:
Edwards told an overflow crowd at the University
of Memphis that Bush is out of touch.
"He lives a sheltered existence," he said. "He
needs to be out here in the real world doing what
I'm doing."
Clark hitting harder
Wesley Clark is hitting harder against his
opponents. Clark is not likely to be a factor
after Tuesday’s voting if he doesn’t win
something. Under this pressure, he has turned to
parsing his opponents’ voting records, and using
that as his basis for accusing rival John Edwards
of not supporting veterans.
"When it came to decide between special interests
and veterans, Sen. Edwards blinked and he didn't
support our veterans when the going got tough,"
said Clark.
Clark also accused Edwards of voting against
spending an additional $1.3 billion for veterans
in 1999 and another $650 million for veterans
health care in 2001.
This week Clark has repeatedly sidestepped
reporters' questions about whether he will quit
the race if he loses in Tennessee. Instead, he has
acknowledged he is an "underdog" in the campaign,
having launched his candidacy late and being
without previous political experience.
Clark & Kosovo
Clark’s past actions and claims in his often
stated heroic campaign in Kosovo are coming under
questioning in the Washington Post. His historical
papers are being reviewed and it seems his claim
that he fought the White House to continue the war
might not be accurate. What seems to be more
accurate is that the White House was not sure of
the way Clark was conducting the war:
In his papers, Clark made clear that he frequently
urged a harder line than Washington and its allies
preferred, accusing the Defense Department at one
point of urging "a sellout" in 1998 negotiations
over a plan to begin international monitoring of
Serbian activities in Kosovo. Berger, Clark said,
believed at the time that the risks posed by those
actions were "not real" and favored a weak
solution.
"All along, I always had a terrible feeling about
Milosevic, that we were really sort of making a
compromise with Hitler in 1943," Clark said. He
expressed particular regret that both Washington
and Europe had failed to intervene against
Yugoslavia in the summer of 1998, when, he said,
Milosevic had timed a campaign of ethnic cleansing
to coincide with Western officials' summer
vacations.
Berger disputed Clark's account of his views,
calling it "garbled hearsay that is just
incorrect," because "I was a strong advocate of
action on Kosovo."
The often told stories of Clark’s recklessness in
confronting the Russians, who were allies of
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, are
confirmed in the papers:
Clark told the historian he was unperturbed by the
unlikely prospect of a direct clash once the
British forces pushed the Russian vehicles with
their own. "Yes, they could shoot. When they
shoot, we're gonna shoot. And guess what, there's
a lot more of us than there are of them," Clark
said, recounting his feelings at the time. "So my
guess is, they're not gonna shoot!"
Money check
John Kerry's campaign said it had raised $4.5
million since his come-from-behind win in Iowa on
Jan. 19. John Edwards’ campaign said it had raised
about $200,000 online in the first 24 hours after
his win in South Carolina, and Howard Dean's aides
said they had raised about $400,000 on Thursday
after his dramatic e-mail plea for help in
Wisconsin.
Laura Bush speaks out
First Lady Laura Bush took on the eastern
establishment press and their coverage of her and
her husband. She is reported to have lost patience
with a reporter who asked about her husband’s
difficult reelection:
"I think it's looking tough to people who are
interviewing each other. That's the press," the
first lady quipped.
The newspaper also said the first lady's "aides
say one of her frustrations is that she feels she
has been miscast as a throwback first lady who has
devoted most of her life to her husband's career
and raising twin daughters and that her earlier
work as a teacher and librarian have been
marginalized by an East Coast elite who view those
professions, according to Mrs. Bush, as
traditional women's work."
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