The Iowa Daily Report

…Arizona report: Graham says Bush 43 will “face the same decline in popularity” as Bush 41

…DSM Register story this morning questions whether GWB is ignoring Iowa, last visit was back on 11/5/02

…Register’s Beaumont says Edwards and Kucinich are the early surprises in the wannabe field

…In copyright front-page coverage this morning, Beaumont reports that Graham charges GWB has “manipulated” the facts on Iraq

…During Carolina birthday celebrations, Edwards says he’ll introduce community service legislation this week

…In Burlington, Kucinich says U S. is “losing the capacity to make things” & calls for withdrawal from NAFTA and WTO

…Quad-City Times report today: Critics say Bush administration trying to dismantle Head Start program

…Omaha World-Herald: Coverage of the Clintons returning from the political wilderness

… Edwards continues weekend birthday celebration in the Carolinas while five rival wannabes – Dean, Graham, Kucinich, Lieberman and Sharpton – were scheduled to be in Mount Pleasant today for Guv Vilsack’s fourth annual family picnic fundraiser. The event, held on the Old Threshers grounds, was scheduled from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. It’s a big day for Vilsack since news reports indicated that he’s also scheduled to start his walk across IA on the opposite side of the state – in Pacific Junction – later this afternoon.

… Although the Dem wannabes find IA irresistible – and five will be in the state today – the Des Moines Sunday Register this morning raised a question: “Where is the president?” Headline – “Bush stays away from Iowa…President has visited nine times since taking office, but hasn’t been here since Nov. 5.” Excerpt from coverage by Jane Norman of the Register’s Washington Bureau – “After visiting Iowa nine times since he was elected president, George W. Bush has been absent for seven months from the land of pork tenderloins and presidential caucuses. Bush, missing from Iowa since Nov. 5, 2002, hasn’t stayed away for so long since late 2001, when the Sept. 11 attacks, and the war on terrorism kept him pinned down in the nation’s capital for months. Now the war against Iraq is concluded, the tax-cut package has been approved by Congress, and Democratic presidential candidates are roaming around Iowa pummeling the president in a state that only narrowly went for former Vice President Al Gore in November 2000. Where is the president? ‘I expect him to be out here two or three more times this year, and quite a bit next year,’ said Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the Republican who will be at the top of the ticket with Bush in Iowa in the 2004 election.”

… The Register, at the very least, must think this is a big story. In a front-page, copyrighted report – headline, “Bush manipulated facts on Iraq, Graham says” – Beaumont reported that “Graham on Saturday became the first Democratic presidential candidate to accuse President Bush of deliberately misrepresenting intelligence information about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq for political purposes. Graham said the Bush administration withheld uncertainties about Iraq’s weapons stockpile and production capability in order to build support for war. ‘That information was essentially politicized, manipulated,’ said Graham, a U.S. senator from Florida, during a campaign stop in Council Bluffs. ‘Those parts that the president liked became placed in the president’s speeches, and those that they didn’t like got put in the trash can.’ Graham, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, was basing his allegations on reports that surfaced Friday that the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency provided classified information to the Bush administration last fall that was less than conclusive about Iraq’s weapons potential.” (Iowa Pres Watch Note: There’s little doubt that Graham was the first – and basically only – Dem wannabe accusing the Bush administration of “manipulating” the Iraq info, but whether it’s a great revelation, deserving front-page, copyright coverage, is questionable. Graham has been making similar comments in the Florida media and during a West Coast campaign swing before coming to Iowa. In fact, the Iraq intelligence issue has been a cornerstone of Graham’s candidacy – including his announcement speech in Florida – although he has become increasingly accusatory and employed hotter rhetoric in recent days.)

… The Charlotte Observer – headline: “A day of politics, partying…Edwards talks with high school students, then raises money at birthday celebration” – reported yesterday that “Edwards mixed business with politics in Charlotte on Friday, touting a proposal to boost community service by high school students and raising money for his presidential campaign at an early 50th birthday party. Edwards met with about 50 students and teachers at Harding University High…Edwards said he’ll introduce legislation Monday to create a national high school “Community Corps” that would make federal grants to schools that make community service a graduation requirement. ‘I’m a strong believer in the need to get young people involved in every facet of the community,’ he said. Edwards aides said the grants would cost about $65 million a year. They say he would pay for it by repealing tax cuts for wealthy Americans and cutting the federal work force…Later, Edwards held a birthday party fund-raiser for himself at The Flying Saucer, a restaurant near UNC Charlotte. A crowd of about 150, who had each paid at least $50, sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and watched him blow out candles shaped like a ‘5’ and an ‘0.’ In what has become a standard campaign speech, Edwards offered the partisan crowd red meat. He blasted Attorney General John Ashcroft for allowing what Edwards called an erosion of civil liberties and attacked Bush, saying he favors the wealthy and is presiding over a sour economy. ‘I want to be on stage with George Bush in 2004 because I have a question for the American people,’ he said. ‘Are you better off now than you were four years ago?’”

… The Arizona Republic report from yesterday: “As the glow of military success in Iraq fades, President Bush will face the same decline in popularity his father experienced after the first Gulf War, U.S. senator and presidential candidate Bob Graham said Friday. A bad economy sack the first President Bush, and ‘we’re having a very parallel. Indifferent, clueless” approach to the current slump, the Florida Democrat said on his first visit to Arizona. With a $350 billion tax cut benefiting mostly the richest taxpayers, the son is ‘using the economy cynically to pay off contributors rather than to generate jobs and economic growth,’ Graham charged. ‘From the economy to the war on terror, to the environment, education and health care, America is on fundamentally the wrong track today,’ the Florida Democrat told a new conference before delivering the same message to 30 Democratic leaders at a Phoenix luncheon…He promised a vigorous campaign in Arizona, where the Feb. 3 presidential primary is among the first to follow New Hampshire’s. Of the five current members of Congress seeking the White House in 2004, Graham was the only one to vote against authorizing Bush to go to war in Iraq. Graham said the nation should have finished the war on terror by focusing on al-Qaida, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups.” (Iowa Pres Watch Note: This is another reason other states – outside of IA and NH with past experience – should not be allowed to get into the early stages of the presidential nominating process. The main daily in Arizona believes there are five – that’s right, five – members of Congress running for president. Count after us – Edwards, Gephardt, Graham, Kerry, Kucinich and Lieberman. Those names may add up to five in AZ – but in Iowa, New Hampshire and 47 other states it’s six.)

… Headline from yesterday’s Des Moines Register: “Caucus race offers surprises… Edwards is off to a slower start than expected after frequent visits in 2002…Kucinich’s quick organization, nine trips since February, have impressed activists.” The Register’s caucus-watcher, Thomas Beaumont, wrote: “The race for the 2004 Iowa caucuses has produced two surprises in the campaign’s early going, according to Democratic officials and activists. Sen. John Edwards’ caucus campaign has gotten off to a slower start than expected, especially considering the U. S. Senator from North Carolina visited the state regularly in 2002 and made generous contributions to Iowa Democrats that year…Edwards said visiting Iowa only once in the first three months of 2003 was part of a plan that focused more on raising money and hiring staff than visiting early nominating states. Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, among the least known in the field of nine Democrats two months ago, has impressed some activists with his nine trips to Iowa since February and his quick work putting together an Iowa staff and headquarters. But the former Cleveland mayor so far has not acquired the state Democratic Party’s voter file, considered the road map to caucus activists and a gauge of a candidate’s seriousness in Iowa.”

… The Burlington Hawk-Eye reported yesterday that Kucinich “couldn’t have planned the ending of his campaign rally here Friday any better. As he got ready to answer the final question of the night in the Little Theater at Southeastern Community College, the man who would be president discovered a little girl, clad in pink, at his feet. Uninterested in the political question-and-answer session that followed his speech, 4-year-old Rachel Patejak of Burlington rolled across the floor, bumping right into Kucinich. Looking down to meet the child’s gaze, he put out his hands and picked her up into his arms. ‘We’ve been talking about your future,’ Kucinich told her, to an audience of about 50 listeners. The girl’s father, Marek Patejak, said they got to the meeting late. So he missed a lot of what the candidate had to say. He heard enough, however, to want to find out more…If elected, there are a great many things Kucinich said he would do. His first act as president, he said, would be to cancel the North American Free Trade Agreement, a pact that he said has cost the U.S. too many jobs and too much of its manufacturing base. His next act would be to pull the United States out of the World Trade Organization, which he said threatens American sovereignty by putting local and national interest at odds with international trade. He called steel, automobiles and aerospace vital to national security, but said those American industries are at risk because the federal government hasn’t been putting the nation’s interests first in trade agreements. ‘We’re losing the capacity to make things,’ he said.”

And now it’s time for…THE RADICAL ROUNDUP.

Most news organizations skipped standard coverage of the “Take Back America” conference held in DC late last week – in favor of general stories about the growing divisions within the Dem Party. Only a handful included actual coverage (and quotes) by the Dem wannabes, but Iowa Pres Watch has compiled some of the coverage – and comments – from the latest anti-GWB rally. Some of the coverage and the wannabe’s comments:

DEAN said: “I think the Democratic Party has made a fundamental mistake in the last few years thinking we are going to win by being like Republicans. The way to get elected in this country is not to be like the Republicans, it’s to stand up against them and fight.”…From the Los Angeles Times’ Ron Brownstein: “Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean roused the left-leaning crowd with a call to arms against centrist Democrats.”

EDWARDS “used his speech to announce his proposal to lower the cost of prescription drugs. He assailed Bush for not adequately addressing health care costs, corporate fraud and equal rights. ‘The president keeps telling us he wants a debate about values in 2004 – and we are going to give him a debate about values,’ Edwards said. ‘Because this president’s values are not the values of the American family.’”…Brownstein coverage: “Echoing language President Clinton effectively used as a campaigner, Edwards said he was raised to believe that ‘if you work hard, you play by the rules, you can build a better life for yourself and for your family. But, he charged, ‘this president is doing everything in his power to break that bargain every single day. He is betraying the American people.’”

GEPHARDT told “the forum that Americans are eager for a change from the Bush administration – and he promised to provide it. ‘If we don’t have a candidate with clear alternatives, they’re going to vote for George Bush. I’m not going to be Bush-lite.’”

GRAHAM did not attend the conference.

KERRY “brought the crowd to its feet by criticizing Bush’s domestic agenda. He blamed Bush for a failure of diplomacy but went on to stress that Democrats must be a party of national security as well as domestic security…”He called for a ‘tough-minded strategy of international engagement.’”…”If Democrats are not prepared to make America safer, stronger and more secure, for all we care about all those other issues, we will not win back the White House and we don’t deserve to.”

KUCINICH “who got a standing ovation when he said housing, education and other domestic priorities should be funded with money taken out of the defense budget. He called for peace and demanded the Bush administration disclose its evidence for claiming that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. ‘Iraq did not have those weapons of mass destruction. This administration went in anyway,’ he said, ‘This war was wrong and we must expose this administration.’”…Brownstein coverage: “Kucinich, in an impassioned speech repeatedly interrupted by standing ovations, called for federally run, single-payer health care and sweeping cuts in defense spending. ‘We don’t need World War III; we need peace for the first time,’ he said.”

LIEBERMAN did not attend the conference.

MOSELEY BRAUN “got some of the loudest applause by tapping into the crowd’s lingering anger over the U.S.-led war against Iraq. She criticized the Bush administration for failing to capture terrorist leader Osama bin Laden ‘all the while pandering to fear to keep us at war until the elections are over. This administration is using our pain out of 9-11 as a smokescreen for an extreme political agenda.’”

SHARPTON: “We’ve come out of a war with weapons we can’t find, guided by a president who told us a year and a half ago we’re getting bin Laden – he can’t find them”…”Everything President Bush is after he can’t find.”…”If you can find the weapons before the war, how come you can’t reveal the weapons now?”

THE CLINTON COMEDIES:
… Headline from this morning’s Omaha World-Herald: “Storms abated, both Clintons back on national political scene” The W-H publishes New York Times coverage: “With the tabloid headlines about her marriage, the prime-time interview tonight with Barbara Walters and the promise of a cover story in Time magazine, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton rode the wave of an extravagant publicity campaign last week that befits the publication of a book for which she was paid $8 million. But in many ways, some friends of the Clintons said, it is not just a memoir by a former first lady that is being rolled out. It is also the Clintons themselves, embarking on the latest chapter in a public life that made then an object of admiration, scorn and puzzlement since the former governor of Arkansas ran for president in 1992 and sold them as a ‘buy one, get one free’ team of public servants. Hillary Clinton is dealing with an issue, her husband’s infidelity, which she has until now rarely addressed in public, and which her own advisers viewed as a hindrance to a public career that they would like to see end back in the White House. And, by design or not, her book arrives this week at a time when her husband appears to be ending a self-imposed moratorium and taking more of a hand in national Democratic politics. The Clintons spent much of the first 30 months of the Bush presidency keeping a low profile and trying to avoid the storms that engulfed Clinton’s presidency, his friends say. But that period is coming to an end, as they try in different ways to assert their presence in American politics. And embark on promoting books for which they were paid advances totaling close to $20 million. Former President Clinton’s memoir is to be published in 2004.”

… Under the subhead “Cabinet campaign,” Paul Bedard reports in his “Washington Whispers” column in U.S. News & World Report: “Much of President Bush’s cabinet will get a new chore in the coming year: campaigning for the boss’s re-election. Insiders say that all but the four top-tier agency secretaries will hit the trail to promote Bush. Look for them also to speak at fundraising events, all legal moves. Those left out – the secretaries of state, justice, defense and treasury – have jobs the administration doesn’t want to politicize. ‘You’ll see a bunch of us out’ campaigning, says one cabinet head.”

Des Moines Sunday Register, top front-page headline: “Investment burns Iowans… Stung: Pay telephone leases promise big returns, are big losers…Stuck: State struggles to discipline sales agents who run afoul of laws.” Copyright story about “the magnitude of the problems posed by a growing number of suspect investment products being sold by people who are not licensed security brokers.”

Quad-City Times, main online headlines: “Bush mulls Head Start revamp” (More below.) & “ Soldier killed, 4 wounded in [Iraq] attack”

Online heads, Sioux City Journal: “Suspected suicide bomber kills four German soldiers in Afghanistan” & “Bush wants changes in Medicare that would offer more coverage options”

Omaha World-Herald online, nation/world headlines: “Death toll reaches 4 in apartment plane crash” Two more bodies were found Saturday in the burned wreckage after small plane crashed in California. & “Kabul bombing kills 4 Germans”

Top stories, Chicago Tribune online: “Catholic reforms lagging” Report says a year after the U. S. Catholic bishops “promised reforms to ensure child abuse allegations are dealt with fairly and promptly few of the changes have been completed and fewer wounds have healed.” & “Taliban-like fires burn in Pakistan”

New York Times, online headlines: “Lobbying Starts as Groups Foresee Supreme Court Vacancy” & “Barrels Looted at Nuclear Site Raise Fears for Iraqi Villagers”

… Authorities in Story County (Ames) are looking for those who last week participated in a late-night joy ride on a Colo-Nesco school bus that resulted in more than $2,000 in damages. The report said at least two buses were taken for unauthorized rides near the school’s maintenance yard in McCallsburg. The driver apparently misjudged a turn and hit an ash tree, valued at $250, and then grazed another bus, causing about $1,900 in additional damages.

… VOANews (Voice of America) – headline “EU Signs Extradition Deal with US in Bid to Curb Terrorism” – reported: “In a move to help the United States in a fight against terrorism, justice ministers of the European Union have agreed to sign a key extradition deal with Washington. The pact is part of Europe’s effort to support the United States in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. It will enable the European Union to handle extradition requests through one simplified procedure. The extradition accord is linked to another pact that will allow American and EU police officers to share evidence, establish joint investigation teams and cut through bureaucracy in gathering information for terrorism and criminal cases.”

… From the Korean Front: Another VOANews headline: “Japan, South Korea Still Disagree on Approach to North Korean Nuclear Crisis” Excerpt: “At a summit between the leaders of Japan and South Korea, a statement emerged Saturday that papers over their differences on how to deal with North Korea’s nuclear weapons development. However the two are still divided over how much pressure should be placed in North Korea…a statement issued in Tokyo on Saturday by the two governments stopped short of explicitly mentioning any tougher measures – such as economic sanctions against the North.”

… Under the headline “Bush mulls Head Start revamp” this morning, the Quad-City Times’ Ed Tibbetts wrote: “Head Start was born in the 1960s’ War on Poverty. Over the past 38 years, 20 million poor and disabled kids across the country have gone to church basements, classrooms, cottages and a myriad other settings for the purpose of getting ready for kindergarten. Or getting a head start. This year, more than 1,200 kids are enrolled in Head Start programs in a seven-county area surrounding the Quad-Cities. Even for people who don’t have kids in it, it is one of the most popular federal programs in history. Now, the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress are proposing changes they say will take it to another level, that will ensure that poor kids are not left behind…The way to do that, they say, is to let willing states administer the program along with their own early childhood programs. The federal Department of Health and Human Services would oversee the states. Critics do not buy that rationale, and they do not like the idea of turning control over to the states. What is really going on, they suspect, is that the administration is trying to dismantle Head Start by dumping it onto already-cash-strapped states.”

… Statewide no smoking ban gets thumbs down from Iverson. From yesterday’s Quad-City Times, Todd Dorman reported that “Republican leaders in the House and Senate poured cold water Friday on the prospects for any legislative action next year that would allow local governments to ban public smoking. Anti-smoking advocates are seeking Statehouse help after the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that cities do not have the authority to approve restrictions that go beyond state laws. ‘The person who owns a restaurant can determine whether or not smoking is there,’ Senate Majority Leader Stewart Iverson, R-Dows, said after taping Iowa Public Television’s ‘Iowa Press’ program.”

… Today’s editorials, Des Moines Register: “Medicare reform: Focus on costs” Editorial says “some changes are justified. But Congress must not let the drug industry and private insurers write the legislation. It must be designed in the interests of seniors and taxpayers.”

… Register columnist David Yepsen – headline, “Take a bow, sign the bill” – this morning writes that Guv Vilsack is “hinting he might not sign the economic-stimulus package approved by the Legislature. That’s probably an act. He has to sign this package. It’s a solid compromise that netted him much of what he wanted.”

… Register columnist Rekha Basu – headline, “War, lies and oil contracts” – writes this morning: “Every day, another chip seems to crumble off the Bush administration’s case for having waged an unprecedented preemptive war on a sovereign country.”

… The college football matchup that fans wanted to see last fall – Iowa vs. Ohio State – has already been picked for nationally televised coverage this year. Because of the Big Ten scheduling system, the two teams – which shared the conference championship and were ranked in the Top Ten most of the season – didn’t meet. ABC has announced that the game will be televised from Columbus on 10/18 with a 2:30 p.m. kickoff, although it may not be the contest that fans expected last year – most early preseason polls have the Buckeyes in the Top Five while the Hawkeyes are usually ranked around 20th in the nation.

… DSM 7 a.m. 55, light rain, fog/mist. All Iowa reporting stations in the 50s at 7 a.m. – from 51 in Lamoni to 57 in LeMars, Algona and Clinton and 59 in Oelwein. Today’s high 68, morning showers. Tonight’s low 52, partly cloudy. Monday’s high 78, partly sunny. Monday night’s low 62, chance T-storms. From WHO-TV meteorologist Brandon Thomas: “A few lingering showers Sunday morning, with a partly sunny sky in the afternoon. Highs will be in the upper sixties to low seventies. A slight chance of isolated showers/t’storms Sunday afternoon, but mainly in northern/eastern Iowa. Partly sunny to start off Monday, with highs in the mid/upper seventies. A good chance of showers/strong t-storms Monday evening into early Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon will be dry, with highs in the upper seventies to low eighties. Mostly sunny on Wednesday, with highs in the low eighties.”

… Big flood hit Sioux City 50 years ago today. Headline from today’s Sioux City Journal online: “Floyd River flood of ’53 wreaks havoc on Sioux City” Excerpts from Joanne Fox’s article: “The report on the impending flood was called in to the Sioux City Police Department about 9:30 a.m. Monday, June 8, 1953. Officers were dispatched to warn people and radio stations encouraged listeners in the flood plain to evacuate the area…It was the suddenness and violence of the June flood that caught most people unprepared, even though rains for the previous two months should have been an omen…A gentle rain started early Sunday morning, June 7, 1953, then changed to a severe storm system that spread over Siouxland, bringing thunderstorms, cloudbursts and several damaging tornadoes. Record rainfalls were reported in Sioux Center, 7½ inches; Sheldon, 8½ inches; Remsen, 6 inches; Akron, 5 inches, and Spencer, 4 inches.”