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Iowa primary precinct caucus and caucuses news">
Iowa primary precinct caucus and caucuses news, reports
and information on 2004 Democrat and Republican candidates, campaigns
and issues Iowa
Presidential Watch's
IOWA DAILY REPORT Holding
the Democrats accountable today, tomorrow...forever.
THE DAILY
REPORT for Thursday, September 18, 2003 ...
QUOTABLE: midday quotes: morning quotes: … Among
the offerings in today’s update:
midday offering: morning offering:
* CANDIDATES/CAUCUSES: Midday
… Clark Decision: To
debate or not debate next week – Lieberman says he
should, but Clark campaign no decision has been
made. Headline this afternoon on latimes.com
(Los Angeles Times): “Lieberman Wants Clark to be
in Debate” Excerpt from report by AP’s Nedra
Pickler in DC: “Retired Gen. Wesley Clark's
day-old presidential bid is already drawing
criticism from Democratic rivals who say he should
not skip a party-sponsored debate next week.
Clark is scheduled to give a paid speech next
Thursday, the day the nine other candidates are
scheduled to participate in a debate on economic
issues in New York City that will be broadcast
live on CNBC. Clark has not yet said which event
he will miss. Connecticut Sen. Joe
Lieberman's campaign on Thursday challenged
Clark to attend the debate. ‘The economy is
going to be arguably the most important topic that
will be discussed this entire political season,’
said Lieberman spokesman Jano Cabrera.
‘Surely the general can change his schedule to
discuss this issue with the American people.’ Jim
Jordan, campaign manager for Massachusetts Sen. John
Kerry, said, ‘I think all Democrats will be
disappointed if General Clark passes on an
opportunity on national television to lay out his
policies for making the American economy stronger
and fairer.’ In Little Rock, Ark., Mary Jacoby,
Clark's press secretary, said, ‘We haven't
made a decision on the debate.’ The New York
debate will be the second in a series of six debates
sponsored by the Democratic National Committee.
The candidates also have appeared together at
several other forums hosted by Democratic interest
groups, including a debate last week in Baltimore
sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus. DNC
officials said party Chairman Terry McAuliffe has
mentioned the debate every time he spoke to Clark
in recent weeks, telling him how important it is
that he participate.” … “Gen. Is Hill’s Ace in Fox Hole” –
headline from today’s commentary by Deborah Orin in
today’s New York Post. Column excerpt: “Bill
Clinton’s effusive praise for new Democratic
presidential candidate Wesley Clark is sparking
chatter that he sees the good general as a
place-holder for wife Hillary, safeguarding her
option to make a late entry into the race. So
there was Bill Clinton talking up Clark to
his wife's donors and then, out in California,
saying he's brilliant and ‘he's got a sack full of
guts.’ Bizarrely high praise considering that
Clinton, as president, let his secretary of defense,
William Cohen, abruptly dump Clark ahead of
schedule as NATO supreme commander, a move that
could hardly be seen as a vote of confidence. The
theory on how Clark helps Sen. Hillary: With the
media cheering him on, Clark slows front-runner
Howard Dean and muddles the race, making it easier
for her to jump in just before the Nov. 21 filing
deadline for New Hampshire - or even later. Then
Clark, whose staff is conveniently crammed with
Clinton-Gore types, can step out of the way later
this fall, endorse Clinton and become her perfect
vice-presidential running mate, shoring up her
national-security credentials. Or maybe Clark,
as the 10th candidate, keeps Dems fractured so
there's no clear nominee. That leads to a
brokered convention next July that turns to
…Hillary, of course. Or alternatively, Dean
still gets nominated but Clark weakens him, all but
guaranteeing that Dean loses big time to President
Bush - neatly clearing both Dean and Clark out of
the way for Hillary's 2008 presidential bid.
‘The more muddled they can keep the field, the
better it is for the Clintons. They want the
Democratic race to go on as long as possible because
they don't want anyone but her to be able to beat
George Bush,’ said GOP pollster Jim McLaughlin,
expressing a view shared by a lot of Dems who don't
want to be quoted by name. Hence, the endless
Hillary Tease -- an official Web site that her staff
lards with ‘Run, Hillary, run’ messages. She could
shut that down in an instant, but won't - because it
helps her rake in big bucks and keeps her options
open. The logic here is that Sen. Hillary
can't afford to have another Democrat win in 2004
because then she'd have to wait to run until 2012,
when she'll be 65. And no one thinks a senior
citizen can be the first female president.” … “Congressional Democrats Happy to See
Clark Enter Race” – headline this morning on
FOXNews.com (Fox News Channel). Excerpt from AP
report: “Wesley Clark's entry into the Democratic
presidential primary is already proving
advantageous, say congressional Democrats who argue
that the retired four-star general's bid negates
their image as soft on defense. Several
lawmakers interviewed said regardless of whether
Clark wins the nomination, having him among the
party's candidates increases their credibility on
the military and foreign affairs. ‘It's very bad
for me as a Democrat to be tagged as somebody who
doesn't support the military,’ said Rep. Baron
Hill, D-Ind. ‘He takes that issue back for us.’
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., a decorated
veteran of the Korean War who is backing Clark,
said the former NATO supreme commander ‘is Teflon to
the question of being a patriot.’…Rep. Marion
Berry, a fellow Arkansas Democrat who is lining up
support for Clark on Capitol Hill, said more than 30
members of Congress have told him they will back the
former general. The only other Democratic
presidential candidate who can match that is former
House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt. Clark
plans to visit Capitol Hill next week in an effort
to line up even more support, Berry said. He said
he expects close to 50 lawmakers will be ready to
endorse Clark by then, including more than
half of the ‘Blue Dog’ coalition of centrist
Democrats as well as more liberal members.
Clark plans to make his first campaign stop
Thursday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., site of the 2000
presidential recount. He's also under pressure
from Democrats to participate in a party-sponsored
debate next week that will focus on economic issues.
Clark's economic positions are largely undefined,
and his aides said he may miss the event because he
is supposed to give a paid speech that day.
"Anyone who has never run for office before needs to
articulate his position on issues," said Rep. Martin
Frost, D-Texas. ‘I'm very open to him, but I
want to win.’ Those who have already announced
that they support Clark include all five of the
Arkansas Democrats in the House and Senate, Rangel
and Reps. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, Steve Israel of
New York, Jim Matheson of Utah and Betty McCollum of
Minnesota.” … Edwards to
California too. The News & Observer’s John
Wagner reported today that “U.S. Sen. John
Edwards plans to voice his support for Gov. Gray
Davis on Saturday during a planned swing through
California. With the event in San
Francisco, Edwards will become the fourth
Democratic presidential contender to appear on
behalf of the embattled California governor, who is
facing a recall election. ‘It think it's
important for us to be united against the recall,’
Edwards said Wednesday as he campaigned in New
Hampshire. He said he wants to appear with Davis
‘just to help him out.’ Former Vermont Gov.
Howard Dean, U.S. Sen. Bob Graham of
Florida and U.S. Sen. John Kerry of
Massachusetts have all previously campaigned with
Davis.” … Kerry campaigns with Guv Davis in LA
against the CA recall effort. Coverage – an
excerpt – of Kerry visit by Los Angeles Times
staff writer Michael Finnegan in today’s editions:
“Two Vietnam veterans, Gov. Gray Davis and U. S.
Sen. John F. Kerry, appealed to former
soldiers Wednesday to rally to Davis’ side and
against the effort to oust him from office. They
also sought to blame President Bush for many of the
problems that fuel the recall effort…During the
morning appearance before several dozen veterans,
Kerry, the Massachusetts senator and
presidential candidate, described his stops in
California during his Navy service, and quickly made
a transition to the recall. ‘This recall is an
abuse of the democratic process, and I hope
California will reject it,’ said Kerry, one of a
string of Democratic officials to visit California
this week He called the recall ‘a rejection of
common sense.’ Kerry, in an organized effort to
bolster Davis' chances, said Californians do have
cause for anger -- and then listed several
criticisms of the Bush administration, citing what
he called the president's ‘contribution to the
deficit’ in California and the administration's
favoritism of Enron and other energy companies over
electricity users in California. Kerry also
criticized the Bush administration's environmental
policies and praised Davis' record on veterans'
issues. ‘Don't let the Republicans monkey with
the democracy of California,’ Kerry said.” … “Braun remakes a name for herself” –
headline from today’s Chicago Sun-Times. Coverage
excerpted from column by Washington bureau chief
Lynn Sweet: “In Sunday's debut episode of '’K
Street,’' the HBO series on Washington politics that
blurs fact and fiction -- where the characters
anchor themselves to real events -- Democratic
political consultant Paul Begala pays a compliment
to White House hopeful Carol Moseley Braun.
‘Carol Moseley Braun has this wonderful
line,’ Begala says as he and his buddy, James
Carville, are coaching former Vermont Gov. Howard
Dean for a Democratic primary presidential
debate sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus.
Begala delivers Braun's quip, that George W. Bush
became president ‘because of the black vote,’ but
forgets to tell the television audience the kicker
that always gets Braun a laugh: the ‘black
vote’ is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
That Braun was included in the HBO show --
and even got a nice mention -- shows that her
decision to test the waters for the 2004 Democratic
primary back in February was not foolhardy. Far
from it, by jumping into the presidential race,
Braun, the nation's first black female senator, put
her herself on the national political radar screen
at a time where she had no political future in
Illinois and needed to rehabilitate her image.
Braun, who also served as ambassador to New Zealand,
launches her formal bid on Monday at events in
Chicago, Washington and (hurricane permitting) South
Carolina. Her announcement tour and subsequent
events -- she is beefing up her rather sparse
schedule -- show she is focusing on her black and
female base…Next month, Braun plans a
college tour of all-female and historically black
schools. Braun's shoestring campaign received
a tremendous boost with twin endorsements from the
National Organization for Women's Political Action
Committee and the National Women's Political Caucus.
Braun's campaign had a near-fatal meltdown last
June, when she consolidated her operation in
Chicago. She vastly overestimated her fund-raising
ability and was further strapped because she
overpaid some staff and had nasty salary and
contract disputes with a few others who no longer
work for her. ‘At one point, the campaign was on
the brink of organizational collapse,’ said
Patrick Botterman, the Illinois campaign veteran who
is Braun's campaign manager. At $7,000 a
month, Botterman is paid almost half of the salary
of the person he replaced. Much of Braun's
campaign centers on group appearances with the other
eight Democratic candidates, and she has lately been
doing more solo voter registration trips. Her Web
site, after languishing for months, is finally
updated. Braun has handled herself well enough in
the debates and is not important enough for any of
the candidates -- all men, as she often notes -- to
beat up on her. She has been stuck in the low
single digits in national polls, but she is in good
company: the margin of error takes in the
better-funded candidacies of Sen. John Edwards
(D-N.C.) and Sen Bob Graham (D-Fla.), as well
as Braun's lower-tier companions, Rep. Dennis
Kucinich (D-Ohio) and the Rev. Al Sharpton
of New York. And retired Gen. Wesley Clark's
entry into the race limits anyone's claim to
frontrunner status. Braun has scored no runs, no
hits and, surprisingly, no errors. To win, a player
needs to get points on the scoreboard. It's safe
to predict that Braun will not be the Democratic
nominee. But she is in the game, and for now, for
Braun, that's the point.” … “The Clinton’s Candidate…Bill and
Hillary line up behind Wesley Clark”
Excerpt from “John Fund’s Political Diary” on
OpinionJournal.com (Wall Street Journal): “The
Democratic presidential campaign has been a bust so
far. After nearly a year of campaigning, the only
one of the nine announced candidates to catch fire
has been Howard Dean, whom party leaders deride as
too liberal and too error-prone to beat President
Bush. That explains the extraordinary welcome
that many Democrats yesterday gave Wesley Clark's
announcement that he was joining the presidential
race. The chief boosters of Mr. Clark's
candidacy are none other than Bill and Hillary
Clinton. Mr. Clark hails from Little
Rock, Ark., knew President Clinton when he was still
a governor, and had an extraordinary degree of
contact with him when he served as NATO commander
during the Kosovo bombing campaign of 1999. Mr.
Clinton has nothing but praise for him: ‘He is
brilliant, he is brave, and he is good.’ As for New
York's junior senator, she distanced herself
yesterday from reports that she had already agreed
to serve as co-chairman of the Clark campaign.
But Fox News reports that her office doesn't deny
that such a role ‘is in the works and might happen
soon.’ If that happens, Mrs. Clinton could walk
into the Clark campaign headquarters and feel as if
she had stepped back in time to her husband's White
House circa 1996. Clinton commerce secretary
Mickey Kantor will be a senior Clark adviser.
Bruce Lindsey, the White House counsel for President
Clinton, will be providing advice. So too will Eli
Segal, Mr. Clinton's 1992 campaign chairman. Mr.
Clark's spokesman is none other than Mark
Fabiani, who handled damage control on scandals for
President Clinton. No one would be surprised if
Chris Lehane, Mr. Fabiani's business partner and Al
Gore's former press secretary, also joined
the campaign. Mr. Lehane resigned from Sen. John
Kerry's presidential campaign just last week…One
of the challenges Mr. Clark will face will be his
closeness to the Clintons. It is no secret that they
are suspicious of Dr. Dean, the current
front-runner, whom they fear would be trounced so
badly against President Bush that he could hurt
Hillary's prospects in 2008. Should Mr. Clark
be elected president, the Clintons would have a
strong ally in the Oval Office. If he does well but
doesn't get the nomination, he may be viewed as a
suitable running mate for Mrs. Clinton or some other
Democratic nominee in the future. Mr. Clark
is no doubt running for president for many reasons.
But an important, unacknowledged one is that he is
the favorite candidate of the Democratic Party's two
best-known figures. To the extent that he
succeeds, the Clintons will see their already
substantial influence in the Democratic Party grow.
Mr. Clark no doubt is his own man, but with so many
old Clinton hands surrounding him, don't be
surprised if Mr. Clinton is occasionally tempted to
act as if he were still Mr. Clark's
commander-in-chief.” … Don’t Mess with New Hampshire. It turns
out that after all the pro-Clark activity in NH that
The General is going to Florida and Iowa first –
making the locals uneasy. Report from column by
the Union Leader’s senior political reported, John
DiStaso: “Tomorrow, two days after his
announcement for President, Wesley Clark will head
to Iowa, a state whose leadoff caucuses are attended
by a relative handful of liberal party activists.
We’re told the Iowa visit was scheduled long
before his decision to announce. Perhaps, but how
quickly will Clark get himself here? New
Hampshire appears more appropriately built than Iowa
for a candidate who enters the race late and doesn’t
yet have a complete grassroots organization. We
usually have a large turnout of moderate Democrats
(as well as liberals) and independents vote in the
primary. Clark was on the telephone yesterday to
several Granite State reporters, telling this one
that he’ll be here very soon, but that a specific
date has not yet been set. Late yesterday,
though, an Associated Press report called into
question the degree to which Clark intends to
campaign in New Hampshire — or Iowa, for that
matter. Aides told the AP he’d head first to
Florida and ‘Clark wants to cast himself as a
credible candidate in the South and one willing to
stretch his campaign beyond the traditional early
battleground states.’ Aides said Clark ‘has not
decided how hard to campaign in states such as Iowa
and New Hampshire, but they quickly concluded that
he can’t catch up to his competitors through
conventional means.’ We maintain, as several
Democratic activists said in our report yesterday,
that there is room for Clark in this race.
He downplays this state at his own peril.
Remember, no big-name, late-entry candidate ever
looks better than the day before he announces. Now,
Clark is under the microscope with his nine
fellow candidates.” … Yesterday, Dean unloaded on Kerry during
New Hampshire appearance (Iowa Pres Watch Note:
See this morning’s update for report) – and now
Kerry (via website posting on
www.johnkerry.com ) has responded. Headline:
“Statement from John Kerry on Howard Dean’s
speech at St. Anselm’s” Kerry’s statement: “Unfortunately,
Howard Dean once again stated he wants to repeal the
tax cuts Democrats gave middle class families at a
time when middle class families are taking too many
hits already. Their health care costs are
rising, their housing payments are higher, their
jobs less secure, and college is costing more.
This would hurt those who most deserve our help --
the hard-working, middle class Americans who have
borne the brunt of the Bush bust. For example,
Ted Walsh and Maya Glos, a middle class family from
Barrington, would pay nearly $3,000 more in taxes
even as they try to get ahead and raise a family if
Howard Dean has his way. I believe we should
give Ted and Maya a tax cut not a tax increase.
We can cut the deficit in half in four years, give
Americans access to the health care coverage they
need, invests in education and homeland security
without putting a penalty on married people and
without taking the child tax cuts the middle class
needs. Howard Dean wants to correct
George Bush’s economic mistake by penalizing the
middle class and that’s wrong. The problem with this
economy is not that the middle class is making out
like bandits. What George Bush has done to the
middle class is wrong. And, unfortunately, what
Howard Dean wants to do is wrong for our middle
class families as well. Putting real money into
the pockets of the hard working middle class is true
to our principles as Democrats – and right for the
American economy.” … IOWA PRES WATCH SIDEBAR: In his column,
the Union Leader’s John DiStaso reported –
“Undaunted by Clark’s not-very-polite decision to
‘step on’ his formal announcement on Tuesday, John
Edwards today unveils his fourth New Hampshire
television ad. In the 30-second spot, to air on WMUR,
Edwards says, ‘Money and lobbyists run our
government and they own this White House.’ He vows,
‘I’ve never taken a dime from PACs or Washington
lobbyists and I never will.’ … Not an eye for an eye, but an editorial
for an editorial. In a Union Leader editorial
this morning, Gephardt says that Kerry was wrong
when he claimed Dean and Gephardt were destroyed the
Clinton economic legacy – in an editorial yesterday.
(Iowa Pres Watch Note: See yesterday morning’s
update for Kerry’s editorial.)
Headline from this morning’s Union Leader – “Dick
Gephardt: Economic plan preserves Clinton legacy of
growth” Excerpt: “President Bush’s
economic plan has failed because his irresponsible
tax cuts have not worked. Since he took office,
the country has lost 3.3 million jobs, making his
record on jobs the worst for any President since
Herbert Hoover. Now, if you think those misguided
tax cuts have worked for you, vote for George Bush.
If you want to preserve some large part of the
failed Bush tax cut, vote for Senator Kerry or
another of the Democratic candidates articulating
that view. But, if you want to exchange the Bush
tax cuts for guaranteed health care that can never
be taken away, then you should vote for me. In
1993, I led the fight to pass the Clinton economic
plan that restored fiscal discipline and asked the
wealthy to pay their fair share. The Republicans
said it would be a ‘jobs killer.’ Well, they
weren’t only wrong, they were dead wrong. Without a
single Republican vote, the Clinton plan created 22
million jobs and the best economy this country has
ever had. Now, George Bush has turned the
economic success of the 1990s on its head. I
supported the Clinton plan because I believe what’s
good for the middle class is good for America. I
look at the economy from a middle class perspective,
because I was raised in a middle class home. My
father was a Teamster and my mother was a secretary.
Instead of George Bush’s trickle down approach, I
believe we have to build the economy from the bottom
up and from the middle out. That’s why the first
thing I’d do as President is get rid of all the Bush
tax cuts and use the money to provide guaranteed
health insurance to every American. My health care
plan does more for the economic security of the
middle class than any of the Bush tax cuts. It will
pump billions of dollars into the economy, create
millions of new jobs and allow employers to invest
in new equipment, free up investment capital and
increase employee wages and benefits. In fact, a
recent independent study found that under my plan a
middle class family would receive between $2,000 and
$3,000 in new increased wages and benefits. That is
a great deal more than any working family would ever
see from the Bush tax cuts. I am confident of the
economic benefits of my health care plan. But those
economic benefits alone are not the reason I feel so
strongly about providing universal health care to
every American. This is the centerpiece of my
campaign because it’s the right thing to do. To me,
this is not just the basis of my economic growth
plan, but a moral imperative…In the most
powerful country in the world, it’s wrong for health
care to be a luxury, an unattainable dream, and not
a right of citizenship. Throughout this
campaign, I’ll be offering the American people a
clear choice on the economy. We can keep pursuing
George Bush’s tired, old, failed economic policies
like Senator Kerry and other Democrats in this race
have suggested. Or we can learn from the policies
that worked for us after 1993 and move forward
together. If we reward the work and initiative
of all Americans, then everybody benefits, from the
factory floor to the corporate boardroom. In the
end, we’re all bound together. We’re all members of
the American family. And I won’t be satisfied until
every family, not just the few, can share in the
bounty of America. That’s why I’m running for
President. Join with me, and we’ll build a new and
shared prosperity.” Morning
… “Dean rips Kerry as Bush Lite” – headline
from this morning’s Boston Herald. Coverage –
dateline: Manchester, NH – by David R. Guarino: “Front-running
Democrat Howard Dean, letting loose after weeks of
sniping by rival John F. Kerry, yesterday branded
Kerry a budget-fudging Bush defender who epitomizes
Beltway politics as usual. In a bare-knuckled rebuke
here and on Kerry's Bay State turf, Dean alluded to
Kerry as ‘Bush Lite’ and lambasted the senator for
defending some Bush tax cuts. ‘I get criticized
for saying we should repeal all the Bush tax cuts,
we need to repeal all those tax cuts,’ Dean
told an audience at St. Anselm's College. ‘We cannot
approach this campaign being the usual folks,
politicians in Washington who promised everybody
everything.’ Later, at a union gathering in North
Andover, Dean lambasted Kerry for using fuzzy
math to say the middle class is being helped by some
cuts. ‘Sen. Kerry unfortunately is using
the Bush figures to defend the Bush tax plan, I
think that's a mistake on Sen. Kerry's part,’
Dean told reporters, saying most middle
income earners got hundreds -- not thousands -- from
the cuts. ‘We can't have politicians promising
health care, special education and a tax cut too --
that's not going to happen. I think some truth in
budgeting is necessary.’ Kerry spokeswoman
Kelley Benander said Kerry is using
non-partisan figures from the Brookings Institute
and the Joint Committee on Taxes for his estimates
-- not the White House. Kerry showed no signs of
wanting the inter-party tax battle to wane, penning
a column in Manchester's largest newspaper -- and
later issuing a similar statement -- accusing Dean
of abandoning the middle class. ‘Howard Dean
wants to correct George Bush's economic mistake by
penalizing the middle class and that's wrong,’
Kerry said. ‘What George Bush has done to the
middle class is wrong. And, unfortunately, what
Howard Dean wants to do is wrong for our
middle class families as well.’…Dean and U.S.
Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) have said the
tax cuts must be repealed in order to give Americans
better health care and other social programs.
Dean has also said he wants to use the savings
from the cuts to eliminate the gaping budget
deficit. Trying to upstage Dean's plan for a
major tax address planned for today at St. Anselm's,
Kerry took Dean and Gephardt to task in The
Union-Leader. ‘America has been suffering under
an investment deficit, a jobs deficit, a fairness
deficit; and all those deficits would be made worse
by a breakneck rush to raise the tax burden on
struggling middle class families,’ Kerry
wrote. ‘Our party should put substance ahead of
sound bites.’ But Dean said, ‘I know that
you can't repeal just the wealthy portions of the
tax cut and do all the things that Sen. Kerry
and I would like to do for the country because we
looked at that and we couldn't do it. So I would say
Sen. Kerry and I have a disagreement here and
I do not think it's worth defending the Bush tax
cut.’”
… Dean and Kerry continue to attract NH voters
while others fade – The two account for more that
50% of the vote while others all now in single
figures. Undecided 27%. Excerpt from AP report:
“Howard Dean holds a 10-point lead over John
Kerry among likely voters in the New Hampshire
primary, according to a poll that suggests the race
is tightening between the two New Englanders. Dean,
the former Vermont governor, had 31 percent in the
poll by the American Research Group of Manchester,
N.H., while Kerry, the Massachusetts senator, had 21
percent. The remaining candidates were in single
digits; 27 percent were undecided. Dean's
lead over Kerry is about half what it was in
a different New Hampshire poll late last month but
close to the 12-point difference in another poll a
week and a half ago. In the last ARG poll, in
mid-August, Dean was 7 points ahead of
Kerry, 28 percent to 21 percent. Rep. Dick
Gephardt of Missouri was at 8 percent, and Sen. Joe
Lieberman of Connecticut had 5 percent. Florida Sen.
Bob Graham, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and
retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who entered the race
Wednesday, had 2 percent, while Ohio Rep. Dennis
Kucinich and Carol Moseley Braun had 1 percent. Al
Sharpton had 0 percent. While two-thirds of
those surveyed had a positive view of Dean
and Kerry, only a third of the primary voters
had a similar opinion of Lieberman. Seven
in 10 voters are familiar with Clark, but only 22
percent had a favorable view of him, while 5 percent
were unfavorable. Forty-three percent said they
don't know enough about the retired general yet to
form an opinion. The poll of 600 likely primary
voters was taken Sept. 14-17 and had a margin of
error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.”
… Edwards and Dean gang up on Bush yesterday in
New Hampshire. Coverage – an excerpt – from this
morning’s Union Leader by Michael Cousineau: “U.S.
Sen. John Edwards yesterday called the latest
entrant into the Democratic Presidential field, Gen.
Wesley Clark, ‘a nice man’ and that he was focusing
on his own White House effort. Another contender,
former Gov. Howard Dean, went out of his way
yesterday not to criticize his Democratic rivals who
voted for the USA Patriot Act that the Bush
administration is using to fight terrorism and Dean
considers partially unconstitutional. In
campaign stops 30 miles and two hours apart, the two
Presidential hopefuls focused their aim at the
current White House occupant, George W. Bush — and
even the Republican President before him, George H.W.
Bush. Dean pointed out he was ‘governor through
both Bush recessions.’ And Edwards said ‘this
President is making his father look pretty good.’
Edwards said he would climb out of the single
digits in the New Hampshire polls by meeting voters
at his town hall-style meetings. Yesterday’s was
approximately his 30th out of 100 he pledged to
host. ‘I’m going to keep being here in front of the
voters, letting them ask their questions,’
Edwards told reporters afterward. ‘They know
sincere and real, and they can spot it a mile away.’
Edwards got traditional questions about the
economy and some off the beaten path, regarding hog
farms or whether he supports industrial hemp being
used for fuel…Dean said the economy has lost
manufacturing jobs, and federal tax cuts have meant
increases in property taxes and tuition bills
because more federal responsibilities have been
pushed to states, local communities and colleges.
‘Middle-class families didn’t get anything out of
the Bush tax cut,’ he told about 200 people at the
school’s institute of politics. ‘They lost money.’
He also talked about his process for selecting
judges, a duty he may be called on to do for the
U.S. Supreme Court if elected President. ‘I’m
not looking for a clone of Howard Dean on the
bench,’ Dean said. ‘(Former New Hampshire
justice) David Souter has done a terrific job and we
need more people like that” on the Supreme Court.”
… “Worries for Clark’s Rivals Vary” –
headline on analysis by Dan Balz in this morning’s
Washington Post. “Retired general Wesley Clark is
a candidate in search of a constituency and
depending on where he might find it, almost any of
his major rivals for the Democratic presidential
nomination has something to fear. Too much is
not known about Clark, Democratic and
Republican strategists said Wednesday, to know
whether his attractive resume and grass-roots
following will translate into political success. At
a minimum, the Arkansan has launched one of the most
unusual candidacies in the recent history of
presidential campaigns -- that of an anti-war
general. His impact already has been felt.
Over the past week, he has soaked up valuable
television time and columns of newsprint at the
expense of his nine Democratic rivals. At a time
when all the Democrats are trying to raise their
profiles, Clark's arrival in the race makes it more
difficult. ‘I think there will be a lot of noise
for a while and it will take awhile to settle in,’
said David Axelrod, media adviser to Sen. John
Edwards, D-N.C. ‘We know what the potential and
the power is. I expect he will get quite a bit of
attention the next few weeks. They don't call it
news for nothing and he's new.’ For Howard Dean,
the intense media interest in Clark that may have
been propitious, given that it has temporarily
diverted attention from what was intensifying
scrutiny and criticism of a series of controversial
statements the former Vermont governor has made.
But that's a short-term effect. Clark's
candidacy, several strategists said privately, may
serve to flatten the entire Democratic field, as if
to underscore that there are questions about each of
the candidates among undecided Democrats to make it
possible for a novice candidate to attract
significant attention. Republican strategists in
particular said Clark's entry diminished the rest of
the candidates, although they have a political
interest in saying so. Clark's impact also could
be felt quickly in fund-raising. Between now and
Sept. 30, all the candidates will be pushing to
raise as much money as possible to increase their
totals for the third quarter. July and August are
traditionally slow fund-raising months, but the last
weeks of September are normally some of the best
weeks of the year…Several Republican strategists
said they did not see Clark as a strong candidate.
‘I don't go to bed worrying that we're going to face
General Clark,’ GOP pollster Bill McInturff
said on CNBC's ‘Capital Report.’ Because the
Democratic contest remains so unsettled, however,
any growth by Clark will come at the expense
of one of the other candidates, and Democratic and
Republican strategists have been busy attempting to
measure Clark's potential impact on the
field. The most popular assumption is that he
could hurt Dean and Kerry most. ‘I think he's
going to compete in the Dean-Kerry space as a
critic of the war and a critic of Bush's foreign
policy,’ said Bill Carrick, an adviser to
Gephardt. ‘He's going to be in there competing
with the same universe of voters that Dean
has been dominating so far, and Kerry
obviously has shown an inclination to compete
there.’”
… IOWA PRES WATCH SIDEBAR: Edwards confronts the
hemp question. From AP coverage of Edwards’ town
meeting in New Hampshire – “Stumping for votes in
New Hampshire, presidential candidate John Edwards
breezed through questions about war, health care and
poverty before being stumped by a query about
industrial hemp. ‘I could tell you, in general, my
position about the medical use of marijuana, which
is not what you are talking about,’ Edwards told a
questioner Wednesday at an outdoor town meeting.
‘You are talking about industrialized hemp being
used for WHAT?’ Fiber from the plant, a relative of
marijuana, is used to make paper, clothing, rope and
other products. Its oil is found in lotions,
cosmetics and some foods, and Paul Stillwell of
Concord, N.H., said hemp also can be used to produce
fuel. Stillwell said he had just gotten his first
fuel-oil delivery and noted that textile jobs are
being lost in Edwards' home state of North Carolina.
He asked if Edwards supports legalizing industrial
hemp. ‘I didn't know that's where that question was
going,’ Edwards said, with a laugh. ‘I had not
thought about that as a solution to the problem,
honestly.’ Edwards promised to get him an answer.”
… Boston Globe columnist compares Kerry to “a
poodle at a Ping-Pong match.” Under the headline
“The two minds of John Kerry,” Scot Lehigh
wrote: “So
let’s see. Just two weeks after John Kerry issued
a statement saying that no campaign shakeup loomed,
the assurance that all is fine is now apparently,
ah, inoperative. Chris Lehane, Kerry's
communications director, has now jumped ship, said
to be frustrated that Kerry sat on his hands
while Howard Dean soared by him. And last
week, Kerry distanced himself from the
controversy-dousing declaration that he planned no
changes in his team. ‘Those weren't precisely my
words,’ he told the Globe's Michael Kranish.
‘They were the words of a press release sent out.’
Apparently only utterances from the candidate
himself can be taken at face value. Of course, when
it's the senator himself speaking, the sentiments
can be awfully hard to decipher. Last Tuesday,
during the Democratic debate in Baltimore, Kerry
was asked about his vote to authorize the use of
force (or ‘to threaten the use of force,’ as
Kerry has tried to characterize it) against
Iraq. Replied the candidate: ‘If we hadn't voted the
way we voted, we would not have been able to have a
chance of going to the United Nations and stopping
the president, in effect, who already had the votes
and who was obviously asking serious questions about
whether or not the Congress was going to be there to
enforce the effort to create a threat.’ To call
that answer incoherent is to pay it a fulsome
compliment. Kerry, a close friend of John McCain,
must know that voters want someone authentic,
direct, genuine. Can he honestly imagine he is
within a country mile of meeting that standard?
With Lehane gone, there's now some talk that
Kerry may install someone to supersede campaign
manager Jim Jordan. Given the candidate's recent
performance, here's a better idea: The campaign
should find someone to supersede John Kerry. Oh, not
forever. Just until the candidate decides who he is.
And what he stands for. Maybe Teresa Heinz could
do it. She is more real and far less programmed than
her husband…Now, as I've argued before, the
senator's plight is hardly as dire as the death
spiral sometimes portrayed. Two new polls show
him narrowly leading the Democratic race nationally.
And a new Boston Globe survey in New Hampshire
reveals that the 21 point lead that Dean
supposedly held over Kerry there is really a
more manageable 12 point margin. So Kerry is
still positioned to bounce back. But to do so, he
will have to improve. Dramatically. His problem?
Seeking an office he has coveted all his life, Kerry
still can't decide how he wants to run. His
campaign is a study in duplication: Two media
consultants, two pollsters, two inner circles.
Which, in one sense, is perfect for a candidate
often of two minds. The various duplicates can
line up and debate their competing approaches -- and
Kerry can take it all in, head pivoting back and
forth like a poodle at a Ping-Pong match…If he's
to regain his footing, the senator will have to
decide what he really wants to say about Iraq. Was
his vote the right one to confront a dangerous
tyrant, as he has sometimes said? Was he misled by
faulty intelligence, as he has suggested at other
times? Was it, therefore, a mistake? It can't be
both. And he must decide when, and how, he will
take on Dean. At a time when Kerry needs
to be at his very best, his campaign looks
undisciplined, divided, and adrift. But there's an
axiom in presidential politics that's as true as it
is old: Problems in the campaign usually reflect
inadequacies in the candidate. The basic problem
here? John Kerry. The only one who can solve it?
John Kerry.”
… Cyberspace warriors Dean and Clark expected to
try to battle it out over Internet. Under the
subhead “Click Clark” in the “Inside
Politics” column in this morning’s Washington Times,
Jennifer Harper reported: “The race between
Howard Dean and retired Gen. Wesley Clark for the
Democratic nomination for president may play out
heavily in cyberspace, Wired magazine reported
yesterday. Mr. Dean is ‘staging an insurgent
campaign on the Internet.’ Though he was practically
drafted by an Internet-based campaign, Mr. Clark
‘faces a huge number of obstacles in making use of
it,’ Wired observed. ‘First, he needs to figure
out how to co-opt the leadership of the draft-Clark
movement, which has been divided by infighting.
Beyond that, Clark will have to figure out his
relationship to the larger online community that has
backed him. While he summoned leaders of the
draft movement to Little Rock, Arkansas, in advance
of [his campaign] announcement, Clark has
otherwise been surrounding himself with Clinton
campaign veterans who have little online
experience…’Some Dean supporters are upset
that Clark is running, and some Clark
supporters realize that he could bring Dean
down,’ a Dean supporter told Wired. ‘There's going
to be a lot of bad blood, but ... what we dish out
to each other will be nothing compared to what we'll
get from the Republicans and their allies.’”
… Gephardt faces union challenge in Iowa, but his
backers are working to stifle Dean support.
Headline from yesterday’s Washington Post: “In
Iowa, Gephardt Struggles to Keep a Key Constituency”
Report – an excerpt – by the Post’s Terry M. Neal: “One
by one, Iowa's labor unions lined up behind Rep.
Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.). The machinists. The
steelworkers. The Teamsters, among others. In Iowa,
where stress over America's shrinking manufacturing
base runs high, they all said Gephardt was
the guy who could best represent their interests in
the White House. But then something surprising
happened. Polls started showing that former Vermont
governor Howard Dean had moved ahead of Gephardt in
Iowa. Even more shocking was this: One poll
showed Gephardt trailing Dean in union households.
How could it be that a virtual unknown from a tiny
New England state could be leading the well-known
pol from nearby St. Louis, who has led his party in
Washington for years and stood up to both a
Democratic and a Republican president on a host of
trade of issues? ‘Our membership is like everyone
else in the state -- they watch the news,’ said
Chuck Rocha, Gephardt's labor director, who
is on leave from his permanent job as national
political director of the United Steelworkers of
America in Pittsburgh. ‘They see all the stuff about
Dean. But it's early, and when [Iowa's union
rank and file] start to get the information, you're
going to see Dick Gephardt become the
overwhelming favorite.’ That education process
has begun. Union leaders have begun aggressively
distributing opposition research on Dean's trade
record among their members. Gephardt's folks accuse
Dean of flip-flopping on trade issues, and they
suggest his conversion to NAFTA critic is
politically motivated to draw support among
Democratic activists in states such as Iowa. And
in a fiery speech last week, Gephardt accused
Dean of siding with the Newt Gingrich-led GOP
in trying to ‘privatize’ and ‘scale back’ Medicare
and raise the Social Security retirement age to 70.
Gephardt on Friday stood before about 100
Iowans -- mostly men with rough hands and work boots
-- telling them in the most urgent tones why he is
the candidate who can best represent the interests
of working people like them in the White House. ‘We
have a real difference of opinion on Medicare and
Social Security and on how those issues should be
handled,’ he said to reporters after the speech.
‘When I was fighting to hold a Democratic position
against Newt Gingrich and his Contract with America,
the governor was siding with the Republican few.’
Gephardt's campaign wouldn't make him
available for a one-on-one interview during my trip
to Iowa last week, but Dean was eager to explain
Gephardt's attacks on him. ‘Well, he's clearly
in trouble, and he's trying to do what all the other
candidates -- Lieberman, Kerry, all of
them -- are trying to do, which is attack the
frontrunner,’ Dean said in a phone call he
made to me while I was waiting to talk with his
campaign manager. ‘But to do it you have to be fair.
It's fair to say I switched my position on trade,
but to cast me as an enemy of Medicare and Social
Security is beyond the pale.’”
… Lieberman typically bland, unexciting during
Iowa visit, but still pretends he believes he can
beat Bush. Excerpt from report – dateline:
LeMars – in this morning’s Sioux City Journal by
Bret Hayworth: “Close to being in the White House
in 2000 after coming up short in the Electoral
College count, Joe Lieberman said he believes in
2004 he can unseat George W. Bush for the
presidency.
Introduced by Iowa House Rep. Kevin McCarthy of
Des Moines as the ‘vice president by the
popular vote,’ Lieberman said he had enjoyed
his Iowa campaign trips three years ago. He knows
what it takes to beat Bush, the U.S. senator
from Connecticut said, since ‘Al Gore and I
already did it.’
Lieberman
visited LeMars, Storm Lake and
Holstein on Wednesday, his first
presidential campaign trips to Northwest Iowa after
seven of the nine other Democrats have been to the
area a combined 20 times. At the Lighthouse Cafe
on U.S. Highway 75, he set aside notions that he
is embarking on a bypass-Iowa campaign, focusing on
other states. After making the point he is the
only Democrat a California poll showed can beat Bush
head-to-head, Lieberman said, ‘It all starts
here in Iowa, that is why I am here.’
Lieberman said that ‘no matter how much money
George Bush is going to raise in his campaign from
the interest groups he has protected for three
years, the fact is that we the people can get
together, one by one, and turn him out of the White
House.’ Lieberman chastised the Bush
administration's handling of the war on terrorism,
the war in Iraq and domestic issues. He said the
president ‘is going to run a commander-in-chief
campaign,’ wrapping himself in the flag, while
overlooking domestic issues. But Americans are
concerned about the sluggish economy, health
insurance and the security of their retirements,
Lieberman said. The senator said ‘the middle
class is under stress,’ and questioned the values
the Bush administration is displaying when the
president took a $260 billion budget surplus and
drove it to a deficit of more than $500 billion.
That negatively impacts the ability to do needed
things, Lieberman said, like funding public
schools and enacting a prescription drug benefit for
Medicare.”
… Woe is NOW – feminists say they’ve been
targeted since Moseley Braun endorsement.
Jennifer Harper – subhead: “Now and then” –
reports in this morning’s “Inside Politics” column
in the Washington Times: “Feminists
are peeved over a New York Times editorial that
called the National Organization for Women (NOW)
decision to support Carol Moseley Braun in her quest
for the presidency ‘silly,’ adding that
NOW ‘trivialized the important role women will play
in the coming election.’ …’We have become a
target,’ Roselyn O'Connell of the National
Women's Political Caucus told the Associated Press
yesterday. ‘There is a movement coming from a
number of different places to marginalize and
discredit the feminist movement,’ she said. ‘The
parties and candidates want women's votes, but they
expect us to capitulate on the things that are
important to us.’ NOW President Kim Gandy said
Sunday's Times editorial ‘smacks of sexism.’…’Are
they going to call a civil rights group silly, or a
veterans group, or a labor union, for making an
endorsement they don't agree with?’ she asked. ‘We
know they wouldn't use that language with any group
of men.’ The Times ran a protest letter from NOW on
Tuesday Republican
consultant Bill McInturff said, ‘NOW is a
marginal political organization with no impact or
clout, that no one takes seriously, and now they
endorse a candidate that no one takes seriously, so
they're perfect together.’”
* ON THE BUSH BEAT:
… GWB: A flat “no” to federal job offer
for brother Jeb. In yesterday’s Orlando
Sentinel, Tamara Lytle reported: “President
Bush likes to keep tabs on his little brother. But
not from too close up. Would the president appoint
Jeb Bush to a federal position once the Florida
governor's term ends in 2006? ‘No!’ Bush said
Tuesday with a mischievous grin, heading off any
speculation the Bushes might follow in the footsteps
of that other famous American political family, the
Kennedys. President Kennedy appointed brother
Bobby attorney general. Would Bush like to see his
brother follow him -- and their father, for that
matter -- into the Oval Office? ‘It's up to him,’
Bush said in a roundtable with regional reporters.
‘It's a little early. I'm trying to get re-elected.’
In a tour of the Oval Office, Bush also referred to
his hopes for a second term. He pointed out Texas
touches in the famous office, including a painting
of a bluebell-laden landscape that he said looks
like his Crawford ranch. ‘The Texas paintings
remind me of what I love, where I'm from and where
I'm going, hopefully later rather than sooner,’
Bush said. Bush also showed off a portrait of
Abraham Lincoln and lauded his work keeping the
country from splitting during the Civil War. ‘I
think he's the country's greatest president,’ Bush
said. Apparently, his father didn't rate that
designation any more than brother Jeb rated a job
offer.”
* THE CLINTON COMEDIES: … The Clintons are not going gently into
the political night. Headline from this
morning’s New York Daily News: “Bill on Hil: It’s
a maybe” Excerpt from report by Daily News
political correspondent Michael R. Blood: “Clinton
loyalists were startled yesterday to hear former
President Bill Clinton suggest that his wife hasn't
made up her mind yet about running for the White
House. Asked in Monterey, Calif., on Tuesday
about chatter that Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.)
might join the crowded Democratic field, the former
President hinted that it remained an open question.
‘That's really a decision for her to make,’
he said, according to The Californian newspaper.
Clinton said his wife was being urged to run by
supporters in spite of her commitment to serve out
her six-year Senate term, the newspaper said.
The former President's statement tantalized
Democrats who have heard the senator say repeatedly
she will be on the presidential sidelines next year.
‘He's clearly not discouraging speculation that
she could be in the race in 2004,’ said former
New York State Democratic chairwoman Judith Hope,
who is close to the former First Lady but is
supporting ex-Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.
Former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta, who
moderated the Monterey event, said the
ex-President's remarks should be taken ‘at face
value. In the end, she's going to make the
decision.’…’She's getting a lot of people talking,’
said Panetta. One New York Democratic operative
who spoke with confidence earlier in the week that
Clinton was not a candidate was stunned to find out
that story might be changing. Despite Sen. Clinton's
public statements, doubt continues to linger among
some Democrats, especially with the field lacking a
breakaway candidate…A national poll yesterday
found Sen. Clinton would trounce the field of
presidential wanna-bes in a Democratic primary and
run as well as or better than any of the Democrats
against President Bush. The Quinnipiac survey --
taken before Clark entered the race -- found
Clinton would snag 45% of the primary vote
and leave her rivals in single digits. But it
also showed Bush would comfortably defeat any of his
potential Democratic challengers. Bill Clinton's
office did not return calls yesterday. Sen.
Clinton's office said she ‘has repeatedly said
that she will serve out her full, six-year term.’”
*
NATIONAL POLITICS: … In Iowa and New Hampshire political
battlegrounds, new ad campaign warns of nuclear
threat. Excerpt from report by AP’s San Hananel:
“A new advertising campaign hits the battleground
states of Iowa and New Hampshire this week, warning
that politicians are not doing enough to keep
nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in foreign
countries out of the hands of terrorists.
Sponsored by the nonpartisan Nuclear Threat
Initiative, the ads urge President Bush and the
Democratic presidential candidates to make securing
nuclear weapons sites, destroying aging chemical
weapon stockpiles and strengthening defenses against
biological attacks a higher priority. ‘I think
that the biggest threat to American security is
weapons of mass destruction in the hands of
terrorists,’ said Sam Nunn, co-chairman of NTI and
former Georgia senator who headed the Senate Armed
Services Committee. ‘We're trying to get the
message across that some things are being done but
we're not doing it nearly enough or fast enough.’
The group is spending nearly $1 million for TV,
radio and print ads to run through January in Iowa
and New Hampshire, with plans for a limited run in
the Washington, D.C., area beginning in the next few
weeks. The first ad describes one site in Russia
with 1.9 million chemical shells - enough to kill
every person on Earth -- stored in poorly secured,
dilapidated buildings. ‘In the hands of
terrorists, just one shell could kill thousands,’
the 30-second spot says, featuring footage of
the town of Shchuchye, Russia, which holds
one-seventh of that nation's declared stockpile of
chemical weapons. ‘It could fit in a suitcase and be
here in days.’ Nunn said the ads focus on
changing public opinion and are careful not to blame
any elected official or endorse any presidential
candidate. ‘It's stopping terrorism at the most
efficient point, which is securing these weapons at
the source,’ Nunn said in an interview. ‘Once they
leave the source, it's like finding a needle in a
haystack.’ Under a program established by Nunn and
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., the United States has
spent $7 billion over 12 years to help Russia and
other former Soviet republics dismantle
unconventional weapons and keep them from being used
against Americans. Founded in January 2001, NTI
is co-chaired by Nunn and CNN founder Ted Turner and
governed by a board of directors from nine
countries.”
* MORNING SUMMARY: This morning’s headlines:
·
Des Moines Register, top front-page
headline: State – “Fish-kill fines seem exceeding
$1 million…State to use its cut to aid river
access area habitat” In copyrighted story, Perry
Beeman reported that the company responsible for a
2001 pipeline break near Algona will pay up.
·
Main online heads, Quad-City Times: “Ashcroft
says FBI has not sought library records” & “House
bill provides new tax breaks for charitable
donations”
·
Nation/world heads, Omaha
World-Herald: “Already drenched, Mid-Atlantic
braces for deluge” & “Purported Saddam tape
urges resistance”
·
New York Times, featured online
reports: “Chairman Quits Stock Exchange in Furor
Over Pay” & “U. S. Is Speeding Up Plan for
Creating a New Iraqi Army”
·
Sioux City Journal, top online
stories: “Lieberman seeks White House position
one step higher than 2000” & “Tape purporting
to be Saddam warns against cooperation with U. S.
occupation”
·
Main heads, Chicago Tribune online: “Isabel
Begins Moving Ashore in N. C.” & “NYSE
chairman resigns”
* WAR/TERRORISM:
* FEDERAL ISSUES: … “Three GOP
senators back marriage amendment” – headline
from this morning’s Washington Times. Excerpt from
report by Cheryl Wetzstein: “Three Republican
senators, flanked by several dozen community,
religious and civil rights leaders, voiced their
support yesterday for efforts to amend the U.S.
Constitution to define marriage as the union between
a man and a woman. ‘I believe it would be
eminently appropriate and wise and good if the
American people would speak on this subject,’ said
Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican. He and
other senators spoke at a Capitol Hill gathering
organized by the Alliance for Marriage, a coalition
that is promoting a federal marriage amendment.
Speakers at the event included representatives of a
Hispanic evangelical network and the African
Methodist Episcopal Church, as well as an Orthodox
rabbi and the executive director of the Islamic
Society of North America. ‘Let's consider and
draft a marriage amendment that protects the family
and strengthens marriage ... and let the American
people speak,’ said Mr. Sessions. No state has
adopted same-sex ‘marriage.’ However, the
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is expected to
make a ruling on whether that state should grant
marriage licenses to seven homosexual couples. There
is widespread belief that should any state legalize
same-sex ‘marriage,’ homosexual couples will use the
ruling to bring marriage lawsuits into every
state. ‘The reason we're talking about a
constitutional amendment is because, but for a
constitutional amendment, there is a great fear out
there — a legitimate fear — that the Constitution
will be amended without us. It's called a court
decision,’ said Sen. Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania
Republican. ‘So, many of us believe that maybe we
should actually use the vehicle’ established by the
Founding Fathers to amend the Constitution ‘instead
of waiting for someone else to do it for us,’ he
said. ‘In other words,’ said Sen. Sam Brownback,
Kansas Republican, ‘a constitutional challenge to
our marriage laws requires a constitutional fix.’ No
U.S. senator has yet introduced a marriage amendment
bill. In May, Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, Colorado
Republican, and bipartisan co-sponsors introduced a
bill to amend the Constitution to define marriage as
a one-man, one-woman legal union. The House bill
also has language to clarify that state
legislatures, not courts, decide issues concerning
public marital benefits. Senate Majority Leader
Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, endorsed the
amendment idea this summer, around the time the
Supreme Court struck down a ban on sodomy.” … “Presidential succession law marker for
change” – headline in yesterday’s Chicago
Tribune. Report – an excerpt – by the Tribune’s
Shannon McMahon: “What used to be the stuff of
pulp novels and action films -- who takes charge of
government if the president is incapacitated by a
terrorist attack -- has become the stuff of serious
conversation in the nation's capital since the Sept.
11 attacks. In a hearing Tuesday that seemed
more suited for an episode of ‘The West Wing’ or a
Tom Clancy novel, senators warned that in the event
of an attack that would incapacitate the nation's
top leaders, it may be impractical or even
unconstitutional to implement the existing
succession law, the Presidential Succession Act of
1947. The joint Senate committee hearing was
part of a larger risk evaluation begun in the wake
of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Legislation
tackling the presidential succession puzzle is
pending before a House subcommittee as well. Sen.
Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said the existing succession
plan is unworkable in a major catastrophe. ‘If
Washington, D.C., is attacked and the entire line of
succession is wiped out, there is no provision to
deal with such a scenario,’ Lott said. ‘Two years
[with no plan] is too long.’ Under the law, the
House speaker would become president if both the
president and vice president were incapacitated.
Next in line after the speaker is the Senate
president pro tem, followed by the secretary of
state and then other Cabinet members. Yale Law
professor Akhil Amar said the succession law faces
practical, political and constitutional problems.
Amar also said that having a member of Congress take
over the presidency violates the constitutional
separation of powers between the legislative and
executive branches of government. In addition,
Lott noted that the speaker may be from a different
party than the president, and the electorate would
then be forced to accept a transfer of power to the
opposition party. ‘Since the late 1960s,’ Lott
said, ‘the political party in control of the White
House would have flip-flopped more than 80 percent
of the time if members of Congress had succeeded to
the presidency.’ Amar said Congress could resolve
these problems by establishing a second vice
presidency. This ‘assistant’ vice president
would be confirmed by the Senate and live outside
the Washington area, Amar said. He or she would
receive regular briefings and be prepared to serve
at a moment's notice – ‘in the line of succession
but out of the line of fire,’ Amar said. Another
approach Amar suggested would be to skip over the
speaker and the Senate president pro tem so that
succession would pass directly to the president's
appointed Cabinet. Amar argued that this would
uphold the separation of powers, while at the same
time ensure that a successor would be someone with
an ideology similar to the president's. John
Fortier, executive director of the Continuity of
Government Commission, said a last solution could be
to hold a special national election. Fortier
admitted this is the least likely, and perhaps most
frenzied approach to solving the problem, but it's
better than no plan at all.”
* TODAY’S LINKS: -- Des Moines Register:
www.DesMoinesRegister.com -- NWS Des Moines:
http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/current/KDSM.html -- Quad-City Times:
www.QCTimes.com -- Radio Iowa/Learfield Communications:
www.radioiowa.com -- Sioux City Journal:
www.siouxcityjournal.com -- WHO Radio (AM1040), Des Moines:
www.whoradio.com -- New York Times:
www.nytimes.com -- Washington Times:
www.washingtontimes.com -- Boston Globe:
www.boston.com -- New York Daily News:
www.nydailynews.com -- Omaha World-Herald:
www.omaha.com -- Washington Post:
www.washingtonpost.com -- The Union Leader, New Hampshire:
www.theunionleader.com -- Orlando Sentinel:
www.orlandosentinel.com -- WMT Radio (AM600), Cedar Rapids:
www.wmtradio.com -- WHO-TV, Des Moines:
www.whotv.com -- Chicago Tribune:
www.chicagotribune.com -- Various morning and midday newscasts from
around IA.
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