IPW Daily Report – Tuesday, February 10, 2004

* Quotables:

"East. West. North. And, today, in the South," a triumphant Kerry told The Associated Press. "It's exciting and gratifying." – Kerry wins in Virginia.

Gore is still popular with the Democratic base, but after this speech, the question for the party's nominee has to be, do you want this man to speak at the convention in Boston? -- writes Chris Suellentrop, of Slate fame.

“Al Gore is ranting and raving as he never has before. The fact he will not be president has become reality for him. Subsequently, he is going NUTZ-O. Somebody needs to get him a straightjacket, or send him Mary Poppins to sing some medicine down into his sore Gore soul.” – Iowa Presidential Watch

"The media's covering this as a horse race with no inspection of where candidates stand on issues.  And I say, before the horse crosses the finish line, check what's in the saddlebags." – Dennis Kucinich.

“'You've got a front-runner, you've got a good lawyer and you've got an underdog.  I'm the underdog.'" Wesley Clark.

“A former aide to President Clinton is suggesting that John Kerry and the anti-Vietnam War organization he once led were the real reasons Republicans broke into Watergate in 1972.” – from Inside the Beltway.

“He [Trippi] pinned the [Dean] campaign's downturn largely on former Vice President Al Gore's endorsement, which, he said, sparked a torrent of media scrutiny and attacks from rival candidates.” – article in the Las Vegas Sun

“What is that whooshing sound that you hear? It is all the hot air escaping from the self-styled "blogosphere." The blogosphere is the alternative reality Internet world, supposedly populated by vast communities of keyboard tappers linked by the World Wide Web. This campaign season, for the first time, the blogosphere had its own presidential candidate: Howard Dean.” -- writes The Boston Globe’s Alex Beam about the Dean demise.

“His [President Bush] hold on the country is eroding," says presidential historian Robert Dallek. "He's lost credibility . . . I think he's in real trouble."

One vice president at the firm told Davis he was "upset because company resources were being used and company personnel were being utilized in order to organize that [John Kerry] fund-raiser," Davis told ABCNEWS. "As an investor, I was concerned because investor money ought to be used to build a company, to develop technology, not to fund a campaign."

"It's a great people's campaign and it's a hopeful campaign, and when you are fighting for hope and a good image of America around the world ... that's how we fight terrorism; that's how you make friends in the world. And I think that is what America really is," said Teresa Heinz Kerry

"Typically, a politician says that those who support me just want good government and those who support my opponents are special interests," quipped Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, responding to the John Kerry money controversy.

* TODAY’S OFFERINGS:

Kerry wins Virginia & Tennessee

Gore’s sore speech

Pelosi’s PAC fined

Trippi to Dean: Don’t give up the list!

Whooooosh!

Kerry takes illegal funds?

Censure Bush movement gaining

Bush number up, tied with Kerry

Bush releases military info… again

* CANDIDATES:

Kerry wins Virginia & Tennessee

John Kerry has won convincingly in Virginia and Tennessee. with over half the vote in Virginia and 41 percent of the vote in Tennessee, according to the Associated Press story, making him the victor in 12 of the first 14 contests:

"East. West. North. And, today, in the South," a triumphant Kerry told The Associated Press. "It's exciting and gratifying."

With 69 percent of the vote, Kerry had 50 percent, Edwards 26 percent, Clark 9 percent, Dean 7 percent, Al Sharpton 3 percent and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio 2 percent.

Kerry’s fellow candidates had little to nothing left to cling to after tonight. The numbers, according to the AP story are:

With 99 percent of the vote in Virginia, Kerry had 51 percent, Edwards 27 percent, Clark 9 percent, Dean 7 percent, Al Sharpton 3 percent and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio 1 percent. In Tennessee, with 92 percent reporting, Kerry had 41 percent, Edwards 27 percent, Clark 23 percent, Dean 4 percent and Sharpton 2 percent.

Clark, who almost ended his campaign last week, seemed destined for quits-ville after tonight, with the dismal show of support for his candidacy. A Clark aide, speaking under the cover of anonymity, told AP political reporter Ron Fourier that the former general is indeed ending his candidacy, but will announce that formally tomorrow from Little Rock, Arkansas.

A question mark remains concerning John Edwards. Within this party torn with strife and infighting, Dem leaders call for laying down the hatchets. According to the article, former Clinton chief of staff Leon Panetta said, “I think Democrats need to unify behind John Kerry and refocus on winning in November.”

But Edwards has not indicated any end yet to his efforts to secure the nomination, saying he’ll be in through March 2nd – the Big 10-state election day.

Gore’s sore speech

Grab that left over Xanax and donate it to a worthy cause… rescue this mass of fried nerve endings called Al Gore. Place a pill or two in the spoon for him and sing, “Just a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down.”

That’s right – Al Gore is ranting and raving as he never has before. The fact he will not be president has become reality for him. Subsequently, he is going NUTZ-O. Somebody needs to get him a straightjacket, or send him Mary Poppins to sing some medicine down into his sore Gore soul.

The New York Times writes of a frazzled, shouting former Vice President Gore, accusing President Bush of betraying the country. His clouded judgment revealed by the accusation of Bush using 9/11 as justification for the Iraq War.

Using 9/11?

Here’s Gore’s choice of words, according to the NY Times:

"He betrayed this country!" Mr. Gore shouted into the microphone at a rally of Tennessee Democrats here in a stuffy hotel ballroom. "He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place."

Gore’s sore speech repeated “politics of fear” like a crazed parrot  -- politics-of-fear, politics-of-fear … polly-wants-a-cracker. He recanted past sores, like his father’s loss to Richard Nixon due to the politics-of-fear Nixon had used. He likened the Bush administration to the same (uh-huh) politics-of-fear tactics.

Sound obsessive? Well, according to the Times article, Gore says it’s the Bush administration that’s obsessive. Gore claims they are obsessed with re-election.

Talk about transference of issues!

Politics-of-fear, politics-of-fear… Anybody got Mary Poppin’s phone number?

Pelosi’s PAC fined

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi received a $21,000 fine from the Federal Election Commission for “improperly accepting donations over the federal limits” according to a report in the Inside Politics (Washington Times) column today. News of the Fine, paid last October, first hit light yesterday in Roll Call. Excerpt:

The political action committee, Team Majority, was one of two PACs that Mrs. Pelosi used to support candidates during the 2002 campaign. She stopped raising and donating money through the committee more than a year ago, after complaints that she was using the multiple PACs improperly to exceed limits.
The fine, paid in October, was reported in Team Majority's year-end campaign finance records, released recently. The case still is open, and the Federal Election Commission would not comment, the Associated Press reports.

Trippi to Dean: Don’t give up the list!

According to ABC’s The Note, former Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi has advised against that campaign releasing it’s coveted email addresses list of supporters to the Dem National Party. The article referred to by The Note is carried in the Las Vegas Sun. Excerpt from the Las Vegas Sun article:

Joe Trippi, credited with making the Internet a powerful tool for the former Vermont governor's White House effort, told a group of about 300 online mavens Monday that a decision of what to do with more than 600,000 e-mail addresses rests entirely with the Dean campaign. He was ousted from his job after Dean's third-place finish in New Hampshire.

Joe Trippi, appearing at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference yesterday, is on hiatus from politics… for now. But he did take time to speak to reporters while at the conference. Not surprisingly, Trippi has laid some ground work for his political future, though. The article points out that Trippi has recently purchased “several Internet domain names under the moniker ‘Change for America’, but says he hasn’t yet decided what to do with them.

Of course, Trippi was questioned about the sinking of Dean’s campaign. The article states:

“He [Trippi] pinned the campaign's downturn largely on former Vice President Al Gore's endorsement, which, he said, sparked a torrent of media scrutiny and attacks from rival candidates.”

Whoooooosh!

What is that whooshing sound that you hear? It is all the hot air escaping from the self-styled "blogosphere."The blogosphere is the alternative reality Internet world, supposedly populated by vast communities of keyboard tappers linked by the World Wide Web. This campaign season, for the first time, the blogosphere had its own presidential candidate: Howard Dean.

Interesting read: The Boston Globe’s writer Alex Beam takes a level look at the Dean-Internet-Blog phenom and pronounces it “OUTTA AIR!” Exerpts:

Just a few months ago, hype ruled supreme. In early August, on the week that both Time and Newsweek slapped the improbable Dr. Dean on their covers, Time marveled at the "Internet-drive rabble that packs his events." The magazine made much of the mysterious "meetups" and "flashmobs" of Dean sympathizers who held impromptu rallies for the standard-bearer of the New Politics.

And, of course, Internet fund-raising was the shiny object that caught the eye of the Time hacks: "Then Dean's forces burst from their blogs (weblogs are the jungle drums of the Internet age) and made themselves heard in the old-fashioned language the political establishment understands: money."

Game over, webhead.

Beam’s look at the once mighty Dean Machine is a must-read, IMHO…

Kerry leads Wisconsin poll

It’s a week away from voting day in Wisconsin and John Kerry is showing strong. A new poll, used in an AP story and taken by Market Shares Corp. for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel & WTMJ-TV, show Kerry at 45 percent. Kerry was followed by Wesley Clark at 13 percent; Howard Dean at 12 percent; John Edwards at 9 percent, Al Sharpton at one percent and Dennis Kucinich at one percent with 17 percent undecided

The Wisconsin primary is February 17th. The poll of 666 likely Wisconsin voters was conducted by Market Shares Corp. for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and WTMJ-TV, from Wednesday through Saturday. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

According to the AP story, of Wisconsin voters who said they were likely to vote for him, two-thirds said they decided to do so in the weeks since Iowa

Kerry takes illegal funds?

"We're coming, you're [special interest] going, and don't let the door hit you on the way out!" John Kerry said the night of his New Hampshire victory.

ABC News reports that Sen. John Kerry not only took funds from a private special interest company, but that the company illegally used its resources to raise money for Kerry who passed legislation that benefited the company.

ABCNEWS has learned of a story involving Kerry taking legislative action that benefited a campaign contributor: Predictive Networks, a Cambridge, Mass., tech firm co-founded by Paul Davis, although he is no longer directly associated with the company.

"It absolutely is a special interest," said Davis, a Democrat who generally likes Kerry. "Make no mistake about it — we were in that business to make money, not to perform any kind of social service."

Predictive Networks — now under new management and called Predictive Media — monitors what Internet and cable consumers are viewing and targets advertising accordingly. This is done with “cookies’, which are HTML code placed on individuals’ computer hard drives that make it possible to track everything viewed. Kerry helped push legislation that would have made it so Predictive could automatically to keep track of viewers and the individual would have to ask to be removed. Before the legislation, the cable or Internet user had to voluntarily agree (called “opt-in”) to allow Predictive to spy on them. The company was unable to achieve everything they wanted, but Kerry was helpful to their cause.

Besides the hypocrisy of Kerry to suggest that he is against special interest even though no Senator has taken more special interest money than him according to a Washington Post survey of federal election reports, there is the problem that the Federal Election Laws do not allow corporations to contribute to candidates’ campaigns. ABC News reports on one company employee who raised concerns at the time:

One vice president at the firm told Davis he was "upset because company resources were being used and company personnel were being utilized in order to organize that fund-raiser," Davis told ABCNEWS. "As an investor, I was concerned because investor money ought to be used to build a company, to develop technology, not to fund a campaign."

Most of the company executives deny that company resources were used in the Kerry fund-raisers.

Much of why Kerry gets away with having even more special interest tied to him is the art of ‘bundling.’ This is where you get a number of individuals to write checks and put them together to the candidate. Here is what ABC reports about Predictive Networks' CEO, Devin Hosea:

But all together, Hosea "bundled" more than $100,000 for Kerry. Bundling is the process through which an individual — usually a lobbyist or company CEO — collects many lawful individual campaign contributions and bundles them together, giving them en masse to a campaign for maximum impact.

The story is adds fuel to the fire Kerry himself set when he declared “war” on special interest and the grip it has on Washington. It looks like Kerry's caught with his hand in the special interest cookie jar.

Censure Bush Movement gaining

A MoveOn.org recent reports states that over 300,000 people have signed their call for a Censure of President Bush, to be presented tomorrow:

The response to our "Censure" campaign has been incredible. In just days, more than 250,000 people have joined our call on Congress to censure President Bush for misleading us in his rush to war -- a response among the strongest we've ever seen.

The response was so strong, in fact, that you may have had trouble accessing our website to sign on. We've now taken steps to ensure that you'll be able to get through.

Tomorrow, we'll present our campaign to Congress at a press conference in Washington. We'll be joined by former top intelligence officers and by parents whose children have been injured and killed while serving in the military in Iraq.

With your help, we can make our statement even more powerful -- we're aiming for 300,000 signatures on our petition by tomorrow. We can also reach a major milestone in MoveOn's history: our two-millionth U.S. member. True Majority, Working Assets, and the Win Without War coalition are also joining us in this campaign.

* ON THE BUSH BEAT:

Bush numbers up, tied with Kerry

A USA Today article reports President Bush’s approval rating is up from a week ago – from 49% to 52%. The USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll was conducted over the weekend and most of it took place before Bush’s Meet the Press interview aired on Sunday.

As for a possible Kerry/Bush match up, last week showed Kerry with a possible 5-point advantage over Bush. However, the new poll shows the numbers closer: Bush 49% and Kerry 48%. Some of Kerry’s lost ground could be the cooling down of his Iowa/New Hampshire surprising wins.

"This is a very evenly divided country, and this poll reflects that a little better than the last one did," said Stuart Rothenberg of the Rothenberg Political Report, a non-partisan political newsletter.

The poll continued to show Bush’s dominance over the remaining Democrat presidential candidates in head-to-head matchups: John Edwards 50%-46%, Wesley Clark 51%-46% and Howard Dean 53%-43%.

Perhaps the biggest differential showed up in Dean’s support amongst Democrats. Last December Dean had 31% support; this latest poll shows Dean falling to just 14%. Kerry, who has snagged 50% Dem support lately, came in even higher in this poll with a 52% showing.

Bush releases military info…again

Today President Bush is releasing pay records and such in response to questions about his service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War…. again. He also made this information available in 2000.

* Clinton Comedies

Kerry made him do it!!

The WashingtonTimes Inside the Beltway column says a former Prez Clinton aide has pegged the real reason for the 1972 Watergate Break-in… John Kerry:

A former aide to President Clinton is suggesting that John Kerry and the anti-Vietnam War organization he once led were the real reasons Republicans broke into Watergate in 1972. Bob Weiner, the 1971-72 Youth Voter Registration director for the Young Democrats office at the Watergate headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and a White House staffer for six years, told this columnist yesterday that he has re-examined Watergate hearing volumes held by the Library of Congress.
He points out that Watergate burglar James McCord testified that the DNC office was broken into because its staff was "working closely with violence groups." Upon further questioning, he repeatedly named the Kerry-led Vietnam Veterans Against the War, which he accused of being "a violence-oriented group."

Now, how about Deep Throat? 

 

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