|
 Hillary
(& Bill) Clinton
excerpts
from the Iowa Daily Report
official draft Hillary website:
September
1-15, 2003
… Must read: “Hillary's
expertise” – subhead from yesterday’s
“Inside Politics” column in the Washington
Times. Excerpt from Greg Pierce’s report: “We're
not making this one up, folks. In a video
snippet you can play for yourself on the NY1
News Web site, Hillary Rodham Clinton accuses
the Bush White House of ‘a coverup at the
highest level,’ the Wall Street Journal
says in an editorial at www.OpinionJournal.com.
'What transpired in the White House?' an
angry Mrs. Clinton asked this
[past] week from the steps of New York's City
Hall. 'I know a little bit about how White
Houses work. I know somebody picked up a
phone, somebody got on a computer, somebody
sent an e-mail, somebody called for a meeting,
somebody, probably under instructions from
somebody further up the chain, told the EPA,
'Don't tell the people of New York the truth,'
and I want to know who that is. Mrs.
Clinton's coverup accusation was prompted
by a report from the Environmental Protection
Agency's inspector general, which says the
Bush Administration prodded the EPA to issue
reassuring reports about the air quality in
Lower Manhattan after September 11. She's not
buying the argument that, in the chaotic
aftermath of that day, no one really knew what
was going on with air quality. Maybe the first
couple of days, Mrs. Clinton allows.
'But a week later, two weeks later, two months
later, six months later? Give me a break.
They knew, and they didn't tell us the truth,'
she says. This, of course, comes from the
same woman who as first lady thought it
understandable that her long-subpoenaed
records could suddenly materialize in a room
right next to her White House study. 'I
think people need to understand that there are
millions of pieces of paper in the White
House,' she told Barbara Walters, 'and for
more than two years now people have been
diligently searching.' Recall that she also
dismisses the collection of hundreds of FBI
files of Bush and Reagan appointees as a
'bureaucratic snafu' by innocent newcomers
'who did not recognize the mistake.' And who
can forget her classic disavowal of any
responsibility for the sacking of staffers in
the White House Travel Office?” the newspaper
asked. We suppose Mrs. Clinton's
explanations have to be taken on faith. So if
the honorable junior senator from New York now
wants to argue that she knows a coverup when
she sees it, because she knows all about how
these things work, who are we to argue?”
(9/2/2003)
… “Hillary
Clinton should join Dem race” – headline
on Mark Steyn’s column in the Chicago
Sun-Times. Excerpt: “Driving through Lebanon,
N.H., the other day, I accidentally veered off
on to the shoulder and just missed slamming
into a huge billboard proclaiming, ‘HOWARD
DEAN--THE DOCTOR IS IN!’ Not the way I'd
want to go. But the sign's right. Dr. Dean
is ‘in.’ The Democratic presidential
candidate is raising a ton of money on the
Internet, and he's taking it in itsy-bitsy $20
donations, a rare distinction in a party
that's become far too dependent on big
contributions from a small number of wealthy
donors. A presidential campaign has to have
an element of romance, and right now Howard
Dean is the only guy in the Democratic field
providing any. Even those of us who've
spent enough time watching him govern Vermont
to dismiss him as a mean, thin-skinned,
low-down, unprincipled, arrogant no-good have
to salute the canniness he's shown in running
his presidential campaign. A year ago, no
one outside New England had heard of him, and
the famous fellows were all the senators--Joe
Lieberman, John Kerry. Now
everyone's heard of Dean, and Lieberman and
Kerry are getting more obscure by the hour.
With the California recall election sucking
all the attention away from the presidential
midgets for the next month and a half, these
fellows will be lucky if they're still in the
game at all by Oct. 8. All this was
predictable. In the modern era, governors
make the best candidates and senators the
worst…As I said a couple of months back,
Dean's on course to kill off two big-time
rivals in the first two votes: Dick Gephardt
in Iowa, John Kerry in New Hampshire.
By Jan. 27, he could be the nominee. In the
last week or two, he's started behaving like
he already is. Dean's suddenly ceased
pandering to the party's anti-war base, and
begun equivocating his way back to the center.
Meanwhile, the previously relatively
sensible candidates he's tugged to the left
over the last few months are now beached out
on the fringe: Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, a
hitherto sober chap with a solid foreign
policy reputation, was last heard of
threatening to impeach Bush over Iraq…If
you think Bush is unbeatable (as incumbents
generally are), then it's just a question of
picking out who you want to nosedive into
oblivion with. Going for, say, Dick
Gephardt, the terminally dull congressman
who's been around way too long, would
guarantee you a genteel, respectable
defeat--like Bob Dole in 1996. But, if
you're going to flop anyway, wouldn't it be
more fun--and maybe better for the long-term
health of your party--to take a flier on
Dean? And that brings us to the second
possibility: What if Bush is at least
potentially vulnerable? Despite the Democrats'
most fervent prayers, the economy refuses to
collapse. But it's a pretty freaky world out
there, and who knows what else might happen in
the next 14 months?… Which brings us to the
third scenario: What if you seriously believe
that Bush is defeatable? Who's the best
candidate to do that? Dean? Hmm. Gen. Wesley
Clark, the former NATO supreme commander and
lion of Kosovo, currently playing electoral
footsie with the Dems? I don't think so. The
one to watch is the candidate who polls better
than any other against the incumbent: Hillary
Rodham Clinton. The Clintons didn't get
where they are without being bold: No experts
thought Bush Sr. could lose in '92, but an
obscure Arkansas governor did; no experts
thought a sitting first lady could run for
office, but Hillary did. They had
plenty of luck: Ross Perot vote-splitting in
'92, and the pre-9/11 Rudy Giuliani going into
emotional meltdown in 2000. But fortune favors
the brave, and if Hillary was to shoot
for the big one, I wouldn't be surprised if
some equally unforeseen breaks go her way. The
way to look at it is like this: What does
she have to gain by waiting four years? If
Bush wins a second term, the Clinton aura will
be very faded by 2008. And, if by some
weird chance Bush loses to a Howard Dean,
she's going to have to hang around till 2012.
Logic dictates that, if Hillary wants to be
president, it's this year or none. In her
reflexive attacks on Bush over the war and the
blackout and everything else, she already
sounds like a candidate. The press will lapse
into its familiar poodle mode (‘Do you think
you've been attacked so harshly because our
society still has difficulty accepting a
strong, intelligent woman?’ etc.). And,
more to the point, when the party's busting to
hand you the nomination, you only get one
opportunity to refuse. Realistically,
Hillary has to decide in the next eight
weeks. If the meteoric rise of Howard Dean
has stalled by then, the answer's obvious.
And, even if it hasn't, you need an awful lot
of $20 Internet donations to counter a couple
of checks from Barbra Streisand. This is
Hillary's moment. You go, girl.”
(9/2/2003) …
Hillary’s credibility gap – like Pinocchio’s
nose – keeps growing and growing. Despite her
repeated denials about any interest in running
in 2004, the stories keep surfacing that she
will. Headline from report yesterday on
CBSNews.com: “Hillary for President?”
Excerpt from the CBS report: “Most
voters haven't started paying attention to the
Democratic presidential race, says a poll
released on Labor Day weekend — the campaign's
traditional starting point. And one person who
may decide to take advantage of the fact that
there is no clear leader among the Democrats:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (R-N.Y.).
Despite her repeated denials, rumors continue
that she is considering a run for the White
House in 2004. Craig Crawford, a columnist
for Congressional Quarterly and political
analyst for The Early Show, is among those who
think she'll run. According to a CBS News
poll out Sunday, President Bush's approval
rating is down slightly. He may be vulnerable,
and the thinking among some of Clinton's
supporters is that this might be the perfect
time for her to run, given that two-thirds of
Americans can't even name any of the
candidates right now in the Democratic field.
That would indicate, says Crawford, that none
of those candidates ‘are catching on that
much.’ When all voters were asked whether
President Bush will definitely be re-elected,
38 percent said yes, but 50 percent said they
think a Democrat can win. ‘That is fertile
ground for Hillary,’ notes Crawford. ‘Her
staff and advisers and friends are buzzing
about this. They really are. There are a lot
of folks in Washington who swear she will not
run and, of course, she swears she will not
run. But there's so much activity on the part
of her staff, campaign Web sites, fund-raising
operations, campaign meetings coming up.’
Crawford also says there is talk of a trip by
Clinton to Iowa in the fall, ‘which is the
critical early test first voting state in the
presidential contest, come January.’…Crawford
says that another reason for ‘Hillary buzz’ is
the fact that there is some concern among
Democratic leadership that if Howard Dean were
to get the presidential nomination, he would
not be electable.” (9/3/2003)
… Well,
that would give her three supporters – Mario,
Bill and Hillary – but why doesn’t she just
decide to run so we can put a stop to these
daily run-Hillary-run reports? The latest
subhead – “Cuomo and Hillary” – topped
Greg Pierce’s “Inside Politics column in
yesterday’s Washington Times. Excerpt:
“Former New York Gov.
Mario Cuomo says he would back Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton for president, if she
should decide to enter the race. ‘I would
support her in a flash if she came into the
race, absolutely,’ Mr. Cuomo told the New York
Post's Fredric U. Dicker. ‘I believe she
would have an excellent chance to defeat
President Bush and, yes, I believe she would
win,’ said Mr. Cuomo, who just last month
urged former Vice President Al Gore to
enter the race. Mr. Gore declined. Mr.
Cuomo's comments ‘came as a new round of
excitement surrounded the former first lady,
whose official Web site has been featuring
e-mails from supporters urging her to run for
president,’ Mr. Dicker said. ‘Clinton,
however, insisted again over the weekend that
she would not enter the race.’” (9/3/2003)
… Dean & The
Clintons I: Wall Street
Journal’s John Fund reports that the
“hostility of Team Clinton” could be one of
the obstacles blocking Dean’s route to the Dem
nomination. Hillary may not want the
nomination, but she doesn’t want Dean to get
it either. Headline on Fund’s column
yesterday on OpinionJournal.com: “The
Anti-Dean…Why Hillary opposes the
Democratic front-runner.” Excerpts from “John
Fund’s Political Diary”: “While
Hillary Clinton swears she isn't running for
president, she certainly isn't happy about
Howard Dean becoming the Democratic
frontrunner. The Clintons--along with Terry
McAuliffe, their hand-picked chairman of the
Democratic National Committee--could become
some of the biggest behind-the-scenes
obstacles to Mr. Dean's insurgent candidacy.
The fevered speculation last week that
Hillary, seeing polls showing softening
support for President Bush, just might make a
last-minute parachute entry into the 2004 race
was based on poor reading of the tea leaves.
The evidence was the fact that several e-mail
postings on Sen. Hillary Clinton's Web
site urged her to run now and the news that
she is meeting with political strategists
about her future. Then it turned out that the
meeting was one of a series she routinely
holds and Mrs. Clinton herself told reporters
on Friday: ‘I am absolutely ruling it out.’
Some of the media speculation about a Hillary
run is generated by potential Democratic
candidates who aren't running in 2004.
Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic consultant who
worked on President Clinton's 1996 re-election
campaign, told the Associated Press ‘There
are those in my party who might like to see
her go, so she can get knocked off [by Mr.
Bush], opening up a different field in 2008.’
He added that ‘so long as she's in the way,
anybody who wants to run [in 2008] can't
consider it.’ Similarly, it's clear that
many of allies and supporters of Bill and
Hillary Clinton don't want Howard Dean to be
the party's 2004 standard bearer. Sen.
Evan Bayh of Indiana, chairman of the
Democratic Leadership Council, dismissed Mr.
Dean's fiery speeches against the Bush White
House by asking, ‘Do we want to vent or to
govern?’ Al From, the founder of the
moderate DLC, was instrumental in promoting
Mr. Clinton as a candidate back in 1992. He
now says that Mr. Dean belongs to the
party's ‘McGovern-Mondale wing’ and that he
would repeat their failed candidacies by being
swamped in the popular vote. The Clintons
may not be keen on a Democrat winning the
White House in 2004, but a Bush blowout might
weaken the Democratic Party for 2008 when Mrs.
Clinton is expected to run. But Clinton
supporters have other reasons to be leery of a
Dean candidacy. In June, the Drudge Report
noted that Mr. Dean had confided to
associates that he intended to change the
leadership of the Democratic National
Committee if he became the party's nominee…Anti-Bush
partisans may be having their joy ride with
Howard Dean, but it's clear they are secretly
pining for Hillary. Once they are absolutely
convinced she won't answer their calls, I have
no doubt many of them will grow tired and
skeptical of Mr. Dean. That doesn't mean
he can't win the nomination, just that the
obstacles blocking his way--including the
hostility of Team Clinton--will likely
remain.”(9/3/2003)
… Dean & The
Clintons II: Dean, inspired by
“Sleepless” tour and other successes, eyes
matching – or exceeding – Clinton’s
fundraising mark. Headline from
yesterday’s Washington Times: “Fruitful
tour spurs Dean to aim at Clinton’s record”
Coverage – an excerpt – by Waltraud Kaserer: “The
success of Howard Dean's cross-country tour
last week has inspired the former Vermont
governor to try to break a $10.3 million
Democratic fund-raising record set by Bill
Clinton in 1995, campaign organizers say. During
the three-day ‘Sleepless Summer Tour,’ Mr.
Dean visited 10 cities and raised more
than $1 million — the amount President Bush
collected in one recent fund-raising dinner.
The average contribution to Mr. Dean's
campaign was $58.60. The $10.3 million
aimed for the quarter ending Sept. 30 is the
amount Mr. Clinton raised during the similar
period in 1995 and was the best performance by
any Democratic presidential candidate in a
single quarter in the year before an election.
The rallies and various fund-raisers along the
6,100-mile route attracted more than 40,000
people. One of them, Cheryl Dehnt from
Leander, Texas, said she hadn't been
politically active until now. She came to the
fund-raiser in Austin because ‘Dean
is the first guy who gives us hope, that there
will be a chance…I saw him first on TV,
and he was the first one who was telling the
truth," she said…Although the campaign
tried to have blacks and Hispanics on the
podium in every city, the hands holding the
blue ‘Howard Dean for America’ placards were
mainly white.
Mr. Dean
considers as unfair the criticism from fellow
Democratic candidates and Republicans that he
can motivate only the ‘Birkenstock
liberals.’…’Nobody is asking those questions
to one of the other white candidates. It's
just because we are out and doing very well,’
he said. ’We are working on
diversity…Our prime message is very
powerful to the African-American community.
It's about health insurance, about jobs, about
education. The African-American community did
not support the war on Iraq.’…A few months
ago, the former governor was running behind
most of the other eight Democratic candidates
for the primaries, which kick off with the
District's primary in January. In the latest
Zogby poll, Mr. Dean leads New
Hampshire, with 38 percent approval from
likely Democratic voters, 21 percentage points
ahead of the second-best candidate, Sen. John
Kerry of Massachusetts. Critics say Mr.
Dean could peak too early. ‘We have
momentum,’ he said. ‘Keeping it is going to be
a struggle.’ Mr. Dean has about 339,000
supporters and wants to increase that number
to 450,000 by the end of the month. His
staff totals more than 120. Volunteers were
recruited mainly on the Internet. His next big
event will be the Democratic National
Convention's debate in Albuquerque, N.M., on
Thursday. ‘We are expecting to be attacked
there,’ Mr. Dean said. ‘But I will
handle that.’” (9/3/2003)
… “Drafting
Hillary” – subhead from Greg Pierce’s
“Inside Politics” column in Friday’s
Washington Times. Excerpt: “Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton has said she is not interested
in running for president in 2004, but a
political activist from Florida has started a
campaign to draft the New York Democrat into
the race. Bob Kunst of Miami has set up a
Web site (http://www.hillarynow.com) to
collect signatures on a petition urging the
former first lady to run for president,
Reuters reports. Mr. Kunst, who also operates
a Web site critical of the Bush administration
(http://oralmajorityonline.com), says he is
convinced his ‘Draft Hillary Now’ campaign
will produce the one candidate who can oust
President Bush from the White House. ‘We
have a whole year to put this together. It
doesn't matter whether she decides to enter
the primaries or not. It's irrelevant,’ he
said.” (9/7/2003)
… Despite her continuing denials that she’s
interesting in being a Dem presidential
candidate, Hillary sounds like a wannabe – as
she charges GWB broke a
“president-to-president” promise on AmeriCorps
support. Headline from Friday’s Chicago
Tribune: “Sen. Clinton says Bush
breaking AmeriCorps vow” Excerpt: “Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton says President Bush is
breaking a ‘president-to-president’ promise
made to her husband to protect one of the
Clintons' favorite programs, AmeriCorps.
‘I personally know that there is a tradition
among presidents when they succeed one
another,’ Clinton (D-N.Y.) told
AmeriCorps supporters Wednesday. ‘When my
husband spoke with the present President Bush
as they were changing the leadership of our
country, the only thing my husband asked
President Bush was to take care of AmeriCorps
and national service. So far, that promise
made and even mentioned in the State of the
Union has not been fulfilled,’ Clinton
said. Democrats and Republicans have bickered
through the summer over the financially
strapped AmeriCorps volunteer program. House
Republicans have resisted Democratic attempts
to spend an additional $100 million to
maintain current programs across the country.
Clinton noted that Bush has pledged to
support AmeriCorps, but faulted him for not
forcing the issue within his party. Katy
Mynster, a spokeswoman for Bush's USA Freedom
Corps volunteer program, said Thursday that
the president ‘believes strongly in the
AmeriCorps program’ and wants to expand it in
2004. AmeriCorps provides stipends and
scholarships to young people in exchange for
community service. The fight over funding the
Clinton-era program has taken a decidedly
personal turn, in part because Bill Clinton
honored a similar request in 1993 from Bush's
father. Former President George H.W. Bush
asked Bill Clinton in 1993 to protect the
Points of Light Foundation, according to a
1997 briefing with then-White House spokesman
Mike McCurry. The Points of Light program,
also an effort to encourage volunteerism, was
widely identified with the elder Bush, and
Clinton continued its federal funding after
taking office. Robert Goodwin, president and
CEO of the Points of Light Foundation, said
the organization was ‘very pleased that former
President Clinton embraced the mission’ while
in office and said his group supports the
effort to fund AmeriCorps. But Goodwin also
said he believes Bush has supported AmeriCorps
and the current responsibility for helping the
program rests with Congress.”
(9/7/2003)
There she goes again: This time Hillary says
she’ll block EPA nomination in effort to force
answers (and probably some admissions) on
post-9/11 report.
Headline on FOXNews.com this morning: “Hillary
Clinton Says She’ll Block Bush’s EPA Nominee”
From New York, AP’s Erin McClam reported:
“Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday
she planned to block President Bush's nominee
to head the Environmental Protection Agency
over an internal report saying the EPA misled
New Yorkers about health risks after the World
Trade Center attack. In a telephone
interview, Clinton told The Associated
Press she would place a hold on the nomination
of Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, a procedural move
that would prevent the full Senate from voting
on his confirmation, though it does not stop
committee hearings. ‘This is an effort to
get the administration that he wants to join
to take responsibility,’ she said.
Clinton said she would lift the hold only
if the White House answered her concerns about
the EPA report. She said she held no
personal grudge against Leavitt but hopes the
hold to force the administration to answer
questions. ‘This is a very big issue,’ she
said. ‘It not only has to do with the health
and safety of the people I represent. It has
to do with the credibility and trust of this
entire government.’ A spokeswoman for Leavitt
did not immediately return a call seeking
comment. There was no immediate comment
from the White House. The report, issued
by the EPA's inspector general Aug. 22, said
the agency gave New Yorkers misleading
assurances that there was no air-quality
health risk after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack
that spread debris, smoke and dust across
lower Manhattan. The White House
‘convinced EPA to add reassuring statements
and delete cautionary ones’ by having the
National Security Council control EPA
communications after the attack, said the
report by EPA Inspector General Nikki L.
Tinsley. Seven days after the attack, the EPA
announced that the air near ground zero was
safe to breathe, but the agency did not have
enough information to make such a guarantee,
the report found.” (9/9/2003)
… Hillary’s
Political Goldmine: Headline from
yesterday’s New York Post – “Hillary Hoards
Pac $$” Coverage – an excerpt – by the
Post’s Deborah Orin and Vincent Morris: “Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is becoming more and
more of a PAC-rat, using her political-action
committee's cash to build her own political
network rather than to boost other Democrats.
Last year, HILLPAC gave only 31 percent of
what it raised to other candidates; this year,
that figure is down to 20 percent. That means
she's spent $4 out of every $5 on her own
political operation.
In all, HILLPAC
spent $589,000 in the first half of this year
-- and only $120,000 of that went to other
Democrats. Most went for Clinton's
staff, fund-raising, legal fees and travel.
Critics say personal PACs like HILLPAC let
lawmakers double dip and effectively exceed
legal limits by raising cash twice from the
same source -- once for their own campaign and
once for the PAC -- and then spend both on
themselves. In Clinton's case, it's hard to
tell the difference between HILLPAC and her
own campaign committee, Friends of Hillary,
since both have the same address, the same 16
staffers and pay the same communications
consultant. Last night, the New York
senator was already looking to 2006 as she
kicked off her re-election bid with a posh
party feting deep-pocketed donors of campaigns
past -- and, hopefully, future. A steady
caravan of BMWs, Lexuses and Mercedes pulled
up around 6 p.m. to the tony Chappaqua home
Clinton shares with ex-president hubby Bill.
The guests were immediately greeted by valet
workers dressed in white dinner jackets and
quickly whisked inside. Both Clintons
schmoozed and mused with the crowd -- more
than 100 of the senator's most generous
campaign contributors and top fund-raisers
from the 2000 race -- for 2 1/2 hours.
While Sen. Clinton says she's shelved a
possible plans for a White House run in 2004,
aides said she is far from shying away from
the national political spotlight.”
(9/9/2003)
… More from
the Clinton’s Sunday night event: They turned
off the Bush speech in favor of Clinton chief
of staff Podesta. Excerpt from New York
Newsday coverage by Glenn Thrush: “While
President George W. Bush was making his case
to the American people last night, a
high-powered gathering of 150 Democrats was
convening at Hill and Bill's house in
Chappaqua. The pow-wow consisted of
supporters and fund-raisers of New York's
junior senator, and the topic was Hillary
Rodham Clinton's 2006 re-election bid,
according to sources close to the Clintons.
The gathering was not related to any 2004
presidential aspirations, although that topic
wasn't off limits to those in attendance,
sources said. Part of the discussion centered
on the distribution of funds from the
senator's personal fund raising committee and
Hillary.com, her newly started
cash-generating Web site. Attendees were
treated to the senator's reports on her recent
activities in Washington, including her
intention to block Bush's appointments to the
Environmental Protection Agency. It wasn't
specifically a fund raising meeting, sources
said, but some checks may have changed hands.
Bill Clinton was also on hand. The Dems
were not exactly glued to the tube at 8:30 pm,
when Bush went on national TV to urge support
of his war on terror and continuing operations
in Iraq. At that moment they were
attentively listening to Bill Clinton's former
White House chief of staff John Podesta, who
is now a visiting professor at Georgetown Law
Center, deliver a talk.” (9/9/2003)
… So, if Gore sees a
real possibility to beat GWB, does Hillary
decide to jump into the wannabe pool, too?
Dick Morris says Gore would “make quick work
of Dean” and enter general election as
favorite -- but Hillary would be “most
unhappy.” Headline on Morris column in
yesterday’s New York Post: “As Dubya sinks,
Al & Hill scheme” Excerpt: “Here’s what
I see happening in the 2004 presidential race:
Al Gore is watching President Bush. Hillary
Clinton is watching Gore. Bush is watching
Hillary and the Democrats are watching Dean.
Everything clear? Here's the long version:
Bush's poll numbers continue to tank. The
Zogby poll has his job approval at 45 percent,
a drop of seven points since August and 19
since last year…The Fox News/Opinion
Dynamic poll shows that Bush would get only 50
percent of the vote in a trial heat against
Gore. It would be a rerun of 2000 -- and
we'd still be waiting up all night to learn
the count in Florida. But the Democrats
know that the president has an ace up his
sleeve: Howard Dean. This ultra-liberal, who
Bush could defeat with his eyes closed, is
racing into the lead in the Democratic field.
The latest Boston Globe poll shows the former
Vermont governor beating John Kerry in
New Hampshire, a state each must win to
survive, by 38 percent to 26 percent. (And
with 54 percent of former McCain voters
backing Dean.) Richard Gephardt,
who must win in Iowa, and John Edwards,
who must win South Carolina, also face Dean
surges in those key states. So Bush can
hope Dean's surge continues and presents a
McGovernesque target for him in November.
But Democrats are slowly waking up to the
possibility that they may have the '04
election in their grasp, only to throw it away
on the Dean candidacy. This is generating
tremendous intra-party pressure on Gore and
Hillary to run. My guess is that
Hillary would be just as happy to see
Dean win the nomination and get
slaughtered in November by Bush. That would
make W a two-term president despite having no
real base of popularity, and open the way for
her to run in 2008. Since Dean has no
chance of beating Bush, she needn't worry
that an incumbent Democratic president would
bar her way until 2012, when she'll be 65. But
Gore may suddenly see a real possibility of
a straight run for the nomination and a
general-election win. A review of the donor
lists of the Democratic contenders shows that
most of the former vice president's money
people are still sitting out the race. Were he
to run, Gore would force out most of the other
Democrats and likely make quick work of Dean.
In November, Gore would enter the
election as the favorite against Bush. But
Hillary would be most unhappy to see
Gore get the nod. Since Al would be
a good bet to win, her nightmare scenario of a
Bush defeat and no open field in 2008 would be
coming to pass. So should Gore begin to
make a move, Hillary will likely get into the
race to pre-empt him. The White House must
realize the temptation the president's low
ratings pose for Gore and Hillary, and
understands that if Bush's numbers keep
sinking the pressure for one or both of these
heavyweights to run may prove irresistible.
So Karl Rove et al are scrambling to raise
Bush's numbers in the crucial next 40 to 50
days, during which Hillary and Gore
must make their move or watch the filing
deadlines for the primaries pass them by.
Hence the speech to the nation on Sunday, the
TV movie about Bush on the same night and the
focus on the 9/11 anniversary, all designed to
raise the president's polling and keep the big
guns out of the Democratic presidential
sweepstakes.” (Editor’s Note: Two related
reports below – New York Times writes about
Hillary hints about possible ’04 bid and
Washington Post’s Kurtz reports that Dean’s
detractors believe he’s “for real” and could
be Dem nominee.) (9/10/2003)
Hillary
keeps saying “no” to ’04 bid, but playful
discussions seem to leave door open.
Coverage
yesterday by the New York Times’ Jim Dwyer: “When
the guests descended on the Clinton family
home in Chappaqua on Sunday evening, most of
them had already heard that the answer to the
question was, roughly speaking, no, a thousand
times no, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton would
not make a run for the presidency next year.
By the end of the night, ‘no’ was not quite
the word ringing in every ear as the guests —
about 150 major campaign donors to the former
president or to the senator — left the
gathering. During cocktails in the back
yard, one group heard former President Bill
Clinton say that the national Democratic Party
had ‘two stars’: his wife, the junior senator
from New York, and a retired general, Wesley
K. Clark, who is said to be considering a run
for the presidential nomination. And
during the dinner, according to a dozen people
who were at the event, they heard Mrs.
Clinton say how important their support would
be ‘for my next campaign, whatever that may
be.’ Later, Mr. Clinton, in discussing the
presidential field, said, We might have
another candidate or two jumping into the
race.’ To John Catsimatidis, the chief
executive officer of the Gristede's
supermarket chain, those remarks shifted his
own views of whether Mrs. Clinton had
definitively ruled out the presidential race.
‘I was sitting next to her last night, and I
didn't get the impression that she had pulled
the trigger in her mind’ for or against a
national campaign, Mr. Catsimatidis said.
‘Some people might have been left with the
impression that there's always a possibility.
I was.’ To others at the party, Mrs.
Clinton, in alluding pointedly to an
unspecified campaign, was merely having mild
fun about a candidacy that not only has never
been announced but whose existence has
repeatedly been denied. ‘She clearly
laughed after that — she was totally making a
joke,’ said Lisa Perry, one of many guests who
contacted The New York Times at the request of
Mrs. Clinton's staff to douse whatever heat
may have risen from the senator's words.
‘She was playing with the notion that everyone
thinks she may.’ Any other interpretation, say
Senator Clinton and her aides, was a
matter of wishful listening among eager
political supporters. While they did not deny
the remarks attributed to either of the
Clintons, they said that these were casual
comments, made about the need to raise funds
for Mrs. Clinton's race for the Senate
in 2006 — not about a run for president next
year. In a telephone interview, Mrs.
Clinton said the entire focus of the evening
was how to marshal forces against the as-yet
unformed and anonymous opposition she will
face when her Senate term expires in 2006.”(9/10/2003)
“Hillary’s
Free Ride” – headline from yesterday’s New
York Post. Editorial excerpt: “Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton has found a hot-button
issue with which to pummel the Bush
administration -- and never mind the facts,
ma'am. New York's junior senator disclosed
over the weekend that she is placing a hold on
the president's nomination of Gov. Mike
Leavitt as head of the Environmental
Protection Agency; the move would keep the
full Senate from voting on Leavitt's
confirmation. At issue is a report last month
by the EPA's inspector general -- an Al
Gore ally held over from her husband's
administration - charging that the White House
forced the EPA to cover up possible health
risks in the air around Ground Zero after the
9/11 attacks. Clinton, in typical
Hillaryesque hyperbole, claims the report ‘has
to do with the credibility and trust of this
entire government.’ Such words coming from
a Clinton drip with irony; as we noted
at the time, if anybody knows cover-up, it's
Hillary. It's all about politics, of
course -- and even if the net effect of the
effort is to call into question the legitimacy
of America's War on Terror, what's a little
aid and comfort to the enemy when there's a
Republican president to smear?…In
particular, why have Gov. Pataki and state GOP
Chairman Sandy Treadwell been so quiet?
The governor has expressed his own ‘concern’
about the report. And, asked whether he was
disappointed in the president, Pataki said he
didn't ‘want to draw any conclusions.’ Why
not? Why is Sen. Clinton getting a free
ride? Shouldn't Republicans be calling her to
account, politically, for her pernicious
nonsense…Yet no evidence has been
presented since to contradict the EPA's
position. As for the White House's desire to
prevent widespread fear -- well, what's wrong
with that? After all, thousands of Americans
lay dead in smoking ruins. It wasn't at all
clear that the attacks were over. Maybe
Sen. Clinton -- who seems to be hard at work
pumping up a presidential bubble of her own
these days -- would have handled things
differently. Maybe she would have fomented
panic in the streets of New York. Well, we
hope not. Bottom line: The evidence over the
past two years validates the EPA's judgment on
this matter. All the more reason, then, for
Pataki and Treadwell to ‘draw [some]
conclusions’ -- and call Mrs. Clinton
out on her slanderous accusations. She appears
to have no shame. Do they?” (9/11/2003)
From yesterday's
WSJ.com OpinionJournal's John Fund's
Political Diary column comes the headline:
"Clinton the Undertaker... He comes to
bury Gray Davis, not to praise him."
Excerpts: "Bill Clinton is heading to
California this weekend, but so far he
has scheduled only one public meeting with
Gray Davis, an appearance at a black
church Sunday. The beleaguered governor is
playing up the former president's visit
anyway. But it will likely end up being much
less than the originally promised antirecall
barnburner. Mr. Clinton has become the
Democratic Party's political undertaker,
and his visit may foretell the end of Mr.
Davis's political life. Many Democrats have
already concluded that Mr. Davis is in
trouble. This week, Lt. Gov. Cruz
Bustamante announced that he is
simplifying his message. He will no longer
urge voting "no" on the first part of the
recall ballot. He will instead focus on
persuading people to vote for him to replace
Mr. Davis. California's Oct. 7
recall election would proceed even if the
governor resigns, but the anti-Davis animus
driving much of the electorate could subside.
Mr. Bustamante, the only major Democrat
running to replace Mr. Davis, would
become the incumbent governor, which could
enhance his chances of winning a plurality
against a divided Republican field.... 'He's [Clinton]
done this kind of dirty work before. He helped
push Andrew Cuomo, previously a member
of his own cabinet, out of the race for the
Democratic nomination for New York governor
last year... The New York Post reported that
Mr. Cuomo got a phone call from Mr.
Clinton. "You fought the good fight,
and you're going to lose," the
ex-president told Mr. Cuomo. "You
should do the right thing and step down for
the good of the party." Mr. Cuomo
did so the next day. Bob Torricelli
also met Clinton the Undertaker. A few
weeks after Mr. Cuomo stepped aside,
the bottom fell out of the scandal-tarred New
Jersey senator's campaign. ... Mr.
Torricelli claims that he decided to
withdraw for the good of the party even though
Mr. Clinton and the others all urged
him to stay in the race. Few New Jersey
Democrats believed that... But the
question remains: Would the notoriously
proud and stubborn Mr. Davis actually step
down? .." (9/12/2003)
… “Advice
from the Clintons” – subhead on Robert
Novak’s column in today’s Chicago Sun-Times.
Novak reported: “Hillary and Bill
Clinton, responding to growing speculation,
advised a longtime Iowa supporter this week
that under no conditions would the senator run
for president in 2004. The supporter, who
has committed to Sen. John Kerry for
2004, personally asked the former president
about renewed talk that his wife would enter
the race. Bill Clinton said that would not
happen. That was confirmed in a separate chat
with Hillary Clinton.
Hillary-for-president talk was revived by fear
engendered among some Democrats that Howard
Dean may become the presidential nominee.
Sen. Clinton leads all possible
candidates in Democratic preference polls and
runs best against President Bush.”(9/14/2003)
… Headline
of the weekend: “Tricky Dick and Slick Willie,
another comparison” Headline and coverage
on CNN.com – excerpt from report: “Bill
Clinton has an autobiography to finish on
Martha's Vineyard and a presidential library
to open in Arkansas. But this weekend, from
Indianola to the City of Angels, he'll once
again show us how seamlessly he has risen from
disgraced former president to Democratic
man-to-see.
Much like Tricky Dick did in the 1980s, Slick
Willy has emerged as his party's most
sought-after political guru, a
genius-strategist whose private counsel is
treasured like no other.
Unlike Nixon, however, a Clinton marquee still
guarantees sellout crowds and media hordes
that would make any politician, especially
embattled ones, drool. And when we talk
about embattled Dems these days, we're usually
talking about Gray Davis, who's hoping that no
freeway chase or natural disaster dilutes the
local media coverage of his and Clinton's
joint appearance Sunday at a black church in
Los Angeles…In his remarks, aides say
Clinton will artfully intermingle the words
‘impeachment’ and ‘recall’ in a way that will
leave few listeners confused by his message --
or his disdain for what's happening in
California. During his trip, Clinton will
also attend an anti-recall fund-raiser Monday
with Davis at the home of billionaire
businessman Ron Burkle, sources said. Sources
say Davis secured Clinton's pledge to campaign
with him (and against the recall) when they
privately last month at the AFL-CIO convention
in Chicago. Although Davis and his wife Sharon
have visited the Clintons' home in New York
and the governor was one of the few Dems who
appeared with the humbled president soon after
the GOP sweep in 1994, Clinton and Davis are
not personally close, associates say.
Sources say two things now motivate Clinton to
fight for Davis: His desire to keep California
in Democratic hands (friends say he and
Hillary would be living in Los Angeles if Pat
Moynihan hadn't retired in 2000) and his
hatred of Republican hijinks.”
(9/14/2003)
In today’s,
WashingtonTimes.com /Inside Politics,
writer Jennifer Harper files this report
titled “Why,
Bill, why?”
Excerpts: “Former
President Bill Clinton is bustling
around the country on behalf of one candidate
or another, and handicapping the race to
unseat President Bush next year. But
why does he keep praising his wife, Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat, and
retired Gen. Wesley Clark? Neither is
running for president, the Albany Times Union
pointed out yesterday. "What Mr. Clinton has
done by oohing and aahing over two Democrats
who aren't running is a slight to those who
are. It has become too easy for him, and
others, to collectively dismiss the current
field of contenders. The truth is that with
the election still 14 months away, the
Democratic field is taking shape. Mr. Clinton
might pay a bit more attention to these
candidates." The Times-Union continued, "What
would Mr. Clinton have said if this sort of
star-based handicapping were applied to him
when he ran? Bill, Part 2 Mr.
Clinton was also busy yesterday shoring up
the reputation of California Gov. Gray
Davis as he faces the Oct. 7 recall
election. Mr. Clinton spoke on his behalf
during a church service yesterday in Los
Angeles, with the accompaniment of organ
music. Bill Simon isn't buying any of it.
"This is all window dressing," Mr. Simon, who
ran against Mr. Gray in the California
gubernatorial race last year, told CNN
yesterday. (9/15/2003)
 September
1-15, 2003
September
16-23, 2003
September
24-30, 2003
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