IPW Daily Report – Wednesday, March 3, 2004
"This is going to be a campaign different from
campaigns in the past," Kerry said. "This isn't
going to be some kind of, you know, we're like
them, they're like us, wishy-washy, mealy-mouth,
you can't tell the difference deal. This is going
to be something where we're giving America a real
choice," said
John Kerry.
"Boy, wait til you see the fire in my belly. I
didn't win 18 out of 20 caucuses and primaries so
far because I don't have the fire in the belly,"
John Kerry said,
"And people who know me well know that fire is
raging, and on behalf of the working people of
America I intend to make sure that we restore
fairness in our country again."
"This is a 'my way or the highway' crowd,"
Kerry said about
Bush and his administration. "And I got
news for you. It's time for America to show them
the highway."
"I think the president has chosen to divide
America and play politics and to change the
subject. The number one issue in America is not
two people getting married in San Francisco. The
number one issue in America is the economy, jobs,
the inaffordability of health care, schools that
aren't working for our children, the environment,
where the administration is going backwards and
the relationship in the world, where country after
country is asking questions about the U.S. and
where we lost respect and influence,"
said John Kerry.
Is California in play?
Doonesbury’s is a cartoon
Kerry’s loan questioned
The presumptive nominee
Dean wins Vermont
MoveOn.org volunteer push
Senate Judiciary scandal
Give me the money
Is California in play?
"We are not letting our foot off the pedal for a
minute," said Mary Beth Cahill, Kerry's campaign
manager, acknowledging that the election and
popularity of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
"changes the dynamic" of California and is
energizing the state's GOP. The Bush campaign,
Cahill predicted, "will be rejiggering the
calculus as they look at California."
The Boston Globe writes about Sen. John
Kerry’s campaign realizing that they cannot take
California for granted. What has changed the
conventional wisdom that the Globe so accurately
portrays?
It is expensive for any candidate to advertise in
California's big media markets and tricky to find
a consistent message for Latinos in Los Angeles,
gays and lesbians in San Francisco, displaced
dot-com workers in the Silicon Valley, and
culturally conservative suburbanites in the
Central Valley. With California's lopsided
Democratic voter registration, the prevailing
wisdom is that President Bush would waste time and
treasure if he competed in the state. As a
candidate in 2000, Bush poured $20 million into a
last-minute bid to carry the state, yet lost to
Gore by 1.3 million votes.
The election of Arnold Schwarzenegger has changed
California and energized the state’s Republicans
and seen an impressive increase in Republican
registrations. President Bush plans a visit to
California on Thursday. The White House insists
that it is only to correct what has been said
about him by the Democrats.
Any consideration of putting California into play
as a contested presidential electoral state must
take under consideration Senator Barbara Boxer’s
re-election.
Boxer is widely regarded as one of the Senate's
most liberal voices in congress — and not just by
Republicans. She led fights against the ban on
what opponents call partial-birth abortion and
drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,
and she voted against the Iraq war resolution and
President Bush’s $87 billion funding request for
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Boxer could help a Bush challenge be successful in
California. It could help frame Kerry and Boxer as
even too extreme for California if Boxer’s
opponent was running a credible race.
A double win of defeating Boxer and winning the
state for Bush might open Conservative checkbooks
to provide the tens of millions it would take to
wage the expensive but necessary media war in
California to put that state in play.
However, the President could find the state a real
challenge. Last week's Field Poll indicated that
Bush's approval rating among registered California
voters was at the lowest level of his presidency,
with 51 percent of those surveyed saying they
disapproved of the job he is doing, versus 42
percent who said they approved. That was down
significantly from January, when 52 percent said
they approved of the president's performance.
There may be a benefit to the President to put the
state in play just from a tactical standpoint
according to one comment in the Boston Globe:
"I don't think Bush can win California, but if he
can make it somewhat competitive, he forces the
Democrats to spend money here when they don't want
to spend money here," said Elizabeth Garrett, a
law professor at the University of Southern
California, where the Democrats' debate was held.
Doonesbury’s is a cartoon
Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau has created a
political stunt that makes him look like one of
his irrational liberal cartoons that shows the
length and breadth of liberal media types’ hatred
of Bush.
Trudeau has offered a $10,000 reward for "credible
proof" of Bush’s service in the Alabama National
Guard. Trudeau has received over 13,000 responses
that Bush was there. Out of the mass of responses,
guess what -- Trudeau says there is no "credible
proof."
Imagine that.
Real serious Bush haters cling to the Alabama
National Guard absence hope because they believe
that it is the silver bullet for their Senator
Flip-Flop, better known as John Kerry. The Bush
haters know they cannot win with Kerry’s heroic
military service because Kerry’s Senate carrier is
filled with gutting the military budget and voting
against key defense weapons, including his
opposition to adding body armor to the Bradley
Fighting Vehicle. So, they have to show President
Bush as a weak-kneed wimp whose privileged life
let him even skip out on National Guard service in
Alabama.
The problem is, Bush did showed up. He met the
requirements, and the fact of that proof is not
enough for those who are filled with irrational
hate for Bush. No, they continue to argue that the
proof isn’t enough, and it creates more questions
than it answers.
It is enough. He was there. He was honorably
discharged.
We may be witnesses of a reoccurrence to a divide
in this country that’s provided one of the most
slanderous periods in our history. That time was
the feud between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas
Jefferson, at which time there was a big
difference in philosophy about how our country
should proceed.
Kerry’s loan questioned
Did Sen. John Kerry inflate the value of his house
for the purposes of securing a loan for his
campaign? That’s the question a public interest
group is asking, according to the Washington
Times:
"If
there is a serious question about the value of the
house for the purpose of the loan, then he should
release the appraisal documents. What seems to be
happening is that there is some concern that the
house is not valued at $12.8 million," said
Lawrence Noble, executive director and general
counsel of the Center for Responsive Politics, a
public-interest advocacy group.
The presumptive nominee
The title of presumptive nominee will now be added
to Senator John Kerry’s moniker in all press
statements. Despite the courteous call from
President Bush congratulating Kerry, we can expect
a long, bitter and brutal campaign for the next
eight months. Kerry showed us the tenor in his
acceptance speech in Washington, D.C.
"George Bush, who promised to become a uniter, has
become the great divider," Kerry said. "He
proposed to amend the Constitution of the United
States for political purposes, and we say that he
has no right to misuse the most precious document
in our history in an effort to divide this nation
and distract us from our goals. We resoundingly
reject the politics of fear and distortion,"
He also said, "Tonight the message could not be
clearer. All across our country, change is coming
to America. We have no illusions about the
Republican attack machine and what our opponents
have done in the past and what they may try to do
in the future. But I know that together, we are
equal to this task."
Kerry has continued to increase his one-liner
bashes of Bush in the last week and his
accompanying vitriolic statements are sure to
produce negative ads from the bush campaign once
they have re-built the Presidents positives.
Kerry is most vulnerable to the charge of the most
liberal Senator in Congress. He is also vulnerable
to his many flip-flops on positions. His greatest
problem are his votes to gut defense and
intelligence programs and his votes to kill vital
weapons programs.
Bush remains most vulnerable to historical events
in the war and the economy.
We can expect Kerry to undertake massive
fund-raising efforts to reload his campaign
coffers, and this may fuel further concerns about
Kerry’s real positions on issues that were
anti-business and once again make him vulnerable
to the charge of Senator Flip-Flop.
Dean wins Vermont
BURLINGTON- Howard Dean released the following
statement in response to the Vermont presidential
primary results:
"I want to thank the great people of Vermont
tonight who overwhelmingly endorsed our campaign
for change. This win means so much to me. Two
years ago, I entered this race to talk about
health care, children, and to demand change and
leadership in our Party. This Party and this
country still needs change, and tonight you have
helped further that process.
"While I ran for president I often said that
America would be a better place if it was more
like Vermont. I still firmly believe that to be
true: We still need health care for all children,
affordable prescription drugs for seniors, and
equal rights for all Americans.
"Throughout this campaign, I have appreciated the
strong support from the people of Vermont. Our
campaign owes a huge debt to the hundreds of
Vermonters who worked at our
headquarters--answering phones, stuffing mailings,
and responding to emails--as well as to all of
those who canvassed
on our behalf in New Hampshire and elsewhere. I
will never forget the work and the heart that you
put into our campaign. Thank you.
"I look forward to continuing the energy and the
campaign for change that our movement began. We
will be announcing more details of that effort on
March 18th."
MoveOn.org volunteer push
MoveOn.org has sent the following email:
On Thursday, President Bush will go on the air
with his first campaign ads -- a $3.6 million
blitz.
This is it, folks -- the fight is on. So today,
we're launching the MoveOn PAC and our major
campaign to beat President Bush in the fall
election. We'd like to know if we can count on
your help and how much time and energy you're
willing to give to the cause.
As a member of the campaign to take back the White
House, we'll send you special emails that identify
ways in which you can help swing the election --
from writing post cards to voters in swing states
to distributing flyers to holding house parties
for the nominee. We're asking for a committment of
a certain number of hours per week on average --
if you don't have time to help out one week, you
can make it up another.
We'll need MoveOn members to pledge over 1,000,000
hours between now and November 2nd to beat George
Bush and take back our country. It's a big number,
but if we each pledge just a few hours a week,
we'll far exceed it. We've posted a running tally
of the hours pledged on the page above.
President Bush has already raised hundreds of
millions for his bid. Our great hope is in our
collective power to get out the vote. We'll work
via the Internet, the telephone, and face-to-face
conversations with voters. And we'll take back our
democracy, city by city, block by block, and voter
by voter.
Senate Judiciary scandal
The investigations and charges by Democrat Senate
Judiciary members against Republican staff members
for hacking into their system has been blown out
of the water. The Democrats who were exposed for
performing illegal, racist and unethical acts in
the delay of Bush judiciary appointments had
sought to deflect their misdeeds to an
investigations of the fact that the evidence
proving their miscreant acts were attained
illegally by Republican Judiciary staff.
However, evidence has come to light that the
Democrat Judiciary computers were open and
unprotected shared network and no one had to hack
into the computers to acquire the information.
Therefore, charges of hacking into the Democrats’
computer are not valid.
An unnamed aide, who worked for Sen. Chuck
Grassley (R-IA), is said to have "deep security
experience and claims that he knew over two years
ago that the Senate Judiciary Committee network
lacked "security protocols" and was an "open"
server. The aide says in a signed affidavit that
he discovered documents of both Republican and
Democratic staff could be accessed on the server.
According to the affidavit, the Grassley staffer
informed members of the U.S. Secret Service about
the security deficiencies of the server, but
showed little interest. The Secret Service is
responsible for computer security for Congress.
Lost in the coverage of Democratic charges against
Miranda are the actual contents of the memos,
which outline strategies by Democratic senators
and liberal lobbying groups to delay action on
President Bush's judicial nominees.
In January, Elaine Jones, President and Chief
Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education
Fund announced her retirement after a complaint
was filed against her with the Virginia Bar
Association for her role in the scandal. One of
the memos in question shows that she sought to
delay the confirmation hearing of a judge to the
6th Circuit Court of Appeals until after the
Michigan affirmative action case, of which she was
a participant, was decided.
Another judicial memo to Sen. Richard Durbin
(D-IL) stresses the need to delay action on D.C.
Circuit Court nominee Miguel Estrada. The memo
labels Estrada as "especially dangerous." Included
in the reasons for this label was the fact that
Estrada is "Latino."
Give me the money
Bill Clinton is still the key fundraiser for
Democrat National Committee still. He recently was
used in a fundraising letter from the DNC asking
for money to attack Bush. Here are some of the
letter’s appeals for funds:
"Our Republican opponents know that they can't
possibly succeed if they run on their record,"
Clinton argued. "They'd be trying to defend the
indefensible."
The former president specifically identified the
oft-quoted "tax cuts for the wealthy" as evidence
of an "indefensible" record. He also described the
economy under Bush as "the worst economic record
since Herbert Hoover."
On the environment, Clinton says Bush's policies
"would give polluters more freedom to dirty our
air and timber companies more opportunity to
ravage the last road-less areas in our national
forests."
He also noted "senseless attacks on civil
liberties, needless provocation on civil rights,
and dangerous tactics in foreign policy."
Describing America as moving "in the wrong
direction," Clinton says Republicans will choose
to "go on the attack" against the Democratic
nominee rather than debate him on ideas.
"It's our job to help our presidential candidate
and other Democrats caught up in tight races fight
their way through to victory," Clinton explained.
"We've got to be with them every step of the way,
unfailing in our loyalty, unyielding in our
determination."
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