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IOWA
DAILY REPORT Holding
the Democrats accountable today, tomorrow...forever.
This edition of the Daily Report, it will remain
posted through most of the weekend.
PAGE 1
Friday,
Aug. 1, 2003 Quotable:
“If Cuban
voters stay home next time, Florida will
almost surely be won by Bush's Democratic
opponent.”
– Columnist Robert Novak Quotable:
“The
big unreported story at the DLC’s (Democratic
Leadership Conference) meeting is that Mr.
From is positioning his influential DLC
network to back Mr. Dean’s chief rival for the
presidential nomination, Massachusetts Sen.
John Kerry.”
– Columnist Donald Lambro Quotable:
“It’s fair to call him a national advocate
against sparklers.”
– Dean spokesperson Tricia Enright,
reacting to unfavorable letter from the
Vermont firefighters union
GENERAL
NEWS:
Among
the offerings in today's update:
The taxman
cometh – to John Kerry’s Georgetown door.
Report says Edwards four months late
in paying $11,000 in property taxes
Dean
bumps into firefighter opposition. Vermont
firefighters president says the former VT
gov. would “not be a firefighters candidate
for President.”
The most
covered story of the week: Dean vs. Kerry on
tax issues, charges and countercharges.
Gephardt gets caught in the crossfire. Even
the campaign’s newest tag team – Smokin’ Joe
Lieberman and Battlin’ Bob Graham – join in
the rumble
The most
disturbing report of the week: Bob Novak
writes that GWB’s Cuban support in FL shaky
after 12 apprehended by the Coast Guard and
returned to Castro
Multiple
news reports say Teamsters set to endorse
Gephardt, AP says news conference with Hoffa
in DSM set for next week and that the
endorsement is seen as a “slap” at the White
House – which gave Hoffa a prominent seat at
the State of Union address
While Smokin’
Joe and Battlin’ Bob shadowbox in wannabe
obscurity, a Washington Times columnist eyes
possibility of a real heavyweight contest:
Bill O’Reilly vs. Hillary Clinton in ‘06
Poor
People-Powered Howard: VT GOP Chair demands
release of his gubernatorial record. As
Dean’s poll numbers improve, the attacks
come faster – but who ever heard of a gov
sealing his papers for a decade?
Dem
lightweights to battle? Miami Herald says
Lieberman includes Graham among rivals who
make their party “appear weak on defense” –
but he puts the FL Sen in a “separate
category”
From Boston
Globe: Willie Nelson on Kucinich radio
spots in Iowa
Lambro
column: The presidential primary war between
“diehard liberal activists and pragmatic
party centrists” intensifies as Dean’s
insurgency campaign grows, efforts under
way to move Kerry forward
Donna Walker
– the woman named in cruel Indiana hoax –
also wanted on a felony charge in
Urbandale
Dean –
who’s currently getting more media coverage
than the other wannabes combined – moves on
to another state and another issue: “Major”
environmental speech in San Francisco
On reports
that Al Gore’s friends are encouraging him
to run, OpinionJournal’s Tartanto says Dems
shouldn’t settle for Gore. They could go
with a “proven loser” – McGovern, Carter,
Mondale or Dukakis
NE and SD
govs urge out-of-court settlement on
Missouri River flow issues, but
Vilsack wants federal involvement. Vilsack
says, however, he’ll attend planned 9/24
summit – unless he’s in Taiwan
Speaking of
Taiwan, Washington Times military specialist
Bill Gertz reports China “sharply
increasing” number of missiles targeting
Taiwan, modifying missiles to hit U. S.
forces in Okinawa
Two days
after Bush administration outlines AMTRAK
overhaul, four GOP senators counter with
an alternative version
Iowaism:
Davenport’s jewel on the Mississippi –
LeClaire Park – was once a garbage dump
All these
stories below and more.
Morning reports:
… One story
– former Iowa State football player Royce
Hooks found not guilty yesterday of raping a
woman at a party – continued to get top
billing on IA newscasts this morning. Hooks
could have faced 25 years in the slammer.
WHO-TV (Des Moines) notes that another
ISU player, Brent Nash, is still scheduled to
face similar charges in September for the same
incident
… Morning
newscasts say damage reports still coming
in from northern Iowa where tornado
warnings, heavy rain, hail and high winds
mixed together last night. KCCI-TV (Des
Moines) reported that the police chief in
Rockwell – about 20 miles south of
Mason City – said the windshield in his
patrol car was broken by hail. There were no
immediate indications that any tornados
touched down.
… Unless
one of the other Dem wannabes pulls off a
commando raid on Iowa this weekend, Moseley
Braun will be the lone hopeful scheduled in
the state. She’s slated to be at a
Harkin-sponsored forum Sunday in
Waterloo. After her appearance, only two
more wannabes are left on Harkin’s
“Hear it from the Heartland” schedule –
Sharpton next Wednesday (8/6) in Sioux City
and Lieberman in Cedar Rapids on 9/21.
… “VT
GOP Chair Calls on Dean to Open Record To
Public”
– Headline from DRUDGE REPORT. An excerpt: “Vermont
Republican Party Chairman Jim Barnett today
called on former Governor and presidential
candidate Howard Dean to open his
gubernatorial record to public scrutiny. Dean
has sealed his papers for a decade.
‘If Howard
Dean
plans to run on his record in Vermont, he
needs to share that record with the public’
said Barnett. ‘The American people should not
just have to take his word for it.
By refusing to
subject his record to public scrutiny, Howard
Dean is telling the American people to pay no
attention to the man behind the curtain.’
He added: "If Howard
Dean
is serious about straight talk, he can start
by being upfront with the American people
about his tenure as Governor of Vermont.
If
he doesn't open his record, it obviously means
there's something he wants to hide from us.’”
…
Various
media reports: Gephardt set to pull off
political coup by landing Teamsters
endorsement. AP indicates news conferences
already set for next week in MI, IA and NH.
Overnight headline from Washington Post
online: “Teamsters Endorse Gephardt for
President…Union Support Critical to
Democratic Candidate’s Campaign”
Excerpts from AP coverage: “The Teamsters
union plans to endorse Democrat Dick Gephardt
for president, union officials say, giving the
Missouri congressman a crucial political boost
at a time when his weak fund raising has
prompted questions about the viability of his
candidacy. The coveted endorsement by
the 1.4 million-member union is expected
to follow a Friday conference call vote of 22
Teamsters vice presidents, sources in the
union said Thursday. It would be the most
high-profile endorsement so far in the race
among nine Democrats to challenge President
Bush in 2004. Word of the Teamsters' plans
came after Gephardt had spoken with
reporters about endorsements from maritime
unions. ‘What unions give you is both
resources and people -- ground troops’ to help
the campaign organize in the states,
Gephardt said. Teamsters spokesman Bret
Caldwell said the union's executive board was
scheduled to talk by phone Friday ‘to discuss
a potential Teamsters endorsement.’ But he
refused to confirm that a Gephardt
endorsement was expected, and said the union
would make no announcement afterward. But
the union already has scheduled endorsement
events in Detroit, Des Moines, Iowa, and
Manchester, N.H., for Aug. 9 with Teamsters
President James P. Hoffa and Gephardt, The
Associated Press has learned. The
Gephardt endorsement is a slap to the Bush
White House, which has tried to chip away
at organized labor's solid support for the
Democratic Party. Hoffa even secured a special
seat at President Bush's first State of the
Union speech to Congress. The Teamsters were
the obvious target, with the union's past
endorsements of President Bush's father and
Republican presidents Reagan and Nixon…For
Gephardt, who has staked his campaign on
the support of organized labor, the
endorsement was widely expected -- but just
not so early. Teamsters officials haven't
been shy about their affection for Gephardt,
whose father, a milk truck driver, was a
member -- a point the candidate constantly
highlights.”
… The
Washington Times headline yesterday said it
all: “Edwards is 4 months late on taxes”
Excerpt from report by the Times’ Charles
Hunt: “Sen. John Edwards, North
Carolina Democrat and 2004 presidential
hopeful, is four months delinquent in paying
the property taxes on his Georgetown mansion
and owes the cash-strapped District more than
$11,000, city records show. Mr. Edwards
is worth somewhere between $12 million and $30
million after a successful career as a
personal injury lawyer, according to his
financial disclosure forms. He bought the
eight-bedroom, 6,672-square-foot home in the
tony neighborhood for $3.8 million in
September. In February, the city sent Mr.
Edwards a tax bill for $9,562.46, which he was
supposed to have paid by March 31, according
to tax records. As of 3:30 p.m. yesterday,
Mr. Edwards owed $11,092.46 with interest and
penalties, according to the city's tax
collection office. Mr. Edwards' office
was not aware of the unpaid taxes but at 7
p.m. yesterday issued the following response
by e-mail after The Washington Times faxed a
copy of the bill. The senator and his wife,
Elizabeth, ‘had not received a bill. As soon
as they received one, they paid it,’ the
statement says. Mr. Edwards'
delinquency came during a year in which the
city faced a $323 million budget shortfall.
The District was forced to cut funding for
public education and a wide array of city
services. The senator's tax bill is among
the city's largest for private homeowners.
‘That's a lot of money,’ said Virginia Daisley,
a spokeswoman for the city tax collection
office. ‘There's no reason for not paying your
tax bill,’ she said. ‘I guess if you're in the
hospital or something, but still you have to
pay your taxes.’ On the presidential
campaign trail, Mr. Edwards often rails
against President Bush's tax cuts as giveaways
to wealthy people for whom tens of thousands
of dollars is pocket change. For example,
in a June speech at Georgetown University, Mr.
Edwards criticized ‘tax-free tax
shelters for millionaires that are bigger than
most Americans' paychecks for an entire
year.’ In the same speech, where he laid out
his vision for revising the U.S. tax code, Mr.
Edwards said, ‘In these times of
national sacrifice, we should not be asking
less of the most fortunate.’” Update: The
News & Observer of Raleigh reported it the
newspaper’s website yesterday that Edwards has
paid $11,092.46 after the questions about his
bill were raised by the Washington Times.
…
Dean flames
out with homestate firefighters – and,
unfortunately for Dean, they seem to have a
computer or typewriter and the addresses of
other firefighters in other states.
In
yesterday’s The Union Leader, senior political
reporter John DiStaso – under the subhead “Dean
Getting Burned?”
– wrote about the pen pal correspondence. An
excerpt: “The Vermont firefighters union
president is making it a little hot for his
former governor, Howard Dean, advising the New
Hampshire union chief that the high-flying
hopeful ‘would not be a firefighters candidate
for President.’ In a letter, Steven Locke,
president of the Professional Fire Fighters of
Vermont, tells New Hampshire president David
Lang, ‘While he now speaks a
pro-firefighter and pro-labor message, his
record just does not support it.’ Wow. ‘I
just wrote the letter to (Lang) as a
courtesy,’ Locke said this week. Lang, in
turn, said Locke’s letter is important, but
not determinative, as his union considers whom
to endorse in the Democratic Presidential
sweepstakes. Lang said it will be given
weight, ‘but not enough to throw the whole
balance of the endorsement.’ Locke, in his
letter, tells Lang, ‘I would like to tell
you that Governor Dean was a friend to the
firefighters and public safety in general,
however, that would not be a true statement.
In fact, the only positive statement that
I can make about our former Governor is that
he signed our Survivors Benefits Bill once we
had done all the work to ensure its passage.’
Locke says Dean failed firefighters by
never including firefighter training funds in
his proposed state budgets; never attending
the firefighters annual legislative luncheon,
despite being invited; failing ‘to ever put
the weight of the governor’s office behind any
piece of legislation firefighters introduced;’
and seldom allowing firefighters to speak to
him personally. Locke said Dean ‘almost
never included firefighters in crucial
committee assignments. One example of this
was in the creation of a post-9/11 terrorism
task force that included only police
representatives.’ Dean spokesman
Tricia Enright released a lengthy litany of
Dean’s ‘record of support for Vermont
firefighters.’ First, she said, was Dean’s
strong opposition to the legalization of
sparklers — an issue on which firefighters
testified frequently. ‘It’s fair to call
him a national advocate against sparklers,’
the Enright statement said. Enright said the
‘non-accessibility’ charge ‘is just not true,’
that Dean met with Vermont firefighters
when they dropped by his office. She said, in
fact, that Dean appointed Locke himself
to the state’s Fire Service Training Council.”
… Latest
Dean-Kerry exchange stretches from Iowa to New
Hampshire – and beyond. Gephardt joins in the
fray, too. Lieberman and Graham – from the
front row seats – chastise combatants.
Headline from yesterday’s Boston Herald: “Kerry,
Dean tilt over tax issues.” Excerpt from
report datelined Dover, NH by the Herald’s
David R. Guarino: “It was a political
free-fire zone on the presidential trail
yesterday as Democrats John F. Kerry and
Howard Dean exchanged fighting words heard
from New Hampshire to Iowa. Kerry,
the Bay State senator, was in New Hampshire
when he slammed Dean's economic policies
without mentioning the former Vermont governor
- his top rival - by name. Kerry
chided opponents who want to “take away a tax
credit for families struggling to raise their
children or bring back a tax penalty for
married couples who are starting out or
penalize teachers and waitresses by raising
taxes on the middle class.’ Only Dean and
U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri want to
roll back President Bush's 2001 tax cut plan,
including the child credit and abolition of
the marriage penalty. ‘Real Democrats are
straight about who they'll fight for. Real
Democrats don't walk away from the middle
class,’ Kerry said. Kerry aides made
sure reporters had the remarks in hand before
a ‘major’ Dean campaign address to union
workers in Iowa. The combative Dean shot back
that Kerry is a pie-in-the-sky candidate
offering health care and tax cuts to all
despite economic realities. ‘Real
Democrats don't make promises they can't
keep,’ Dean told the Associated Press.
‘Working Americans have a choice. They can
have the president's tax cuts or they can have
health care that can't be taken away. They
can't have both,’ he said. A statement later
released by Dean said he'll stand up to
Bush, ‘even when the polls that day say it
might be unpopular.’ Gephardt too called
the Kerry critique unfair since his health
plan would save Americans money. ‘Most
people would end up with more money in their
pocket if they pay less for health care - it
ends up being a health care tax cut,’ said
Gephardt New Hampshire spokeswoman Kathy
Roeder. Kerry made his remarks at a ‘fresh
air’ forum in this picturesque seaside town.
While Dean and Gephardt favor
full repeals of Bush's $1.6 trillion tax-cut
plan, Kerry wants to preserve the child
tax credit, the repeal of the marriage penalty
and other, smaller credits. Dean and
Kerry have been running first and second
in most New Hampshire and Iowa surveys,
including a Boston Herald poll this week
that put Dean slightly ahead of Kerry among
likely primary voters. Republicans charged
that Kerry is folding under pressure
from Dean's surge and charged he's changed his
position on the Bush tax cuts - which the GOP
said Kerry previously vowed not to roll back.
‘The pressure from Howard Dean has created
a serious identity crisis for John Kerry,’
said Massachusetts GOP Executive Director
Dominick Ianno.”
… More on
Dean Vs. Kerry Tax Feud from the sidelines and
front row seats – Lieberman and Graham join
Gephardt as interested bystanders.
Coverage in yesterday’s The Union Leader by AP
Iowa caucus-watcher Mike Glover. An excerpt:
“Jumping into the fray, Kerry strategist Chris
Lehane said the tax issue was a question of
‘whose side are you on,’ and added that
Dean ‘needs to be straight and explain that he
intends to increase the unfair tax burden on
working families.” Before Kerry
arrived for his speech in Portsmouth, N.H.,
Dean’s New Hampshire spokeswoman, Dorie Clark,
said, ‘It’s unfortunate that Senator Kerry
has decided to launch an attack against
Governor Dean. It also is probably not a
coincidence that in the last several days two
polls have shown Governor Dean in the lead.’
A Franklin Pierce College Poll this week had
Dean at 22 percent and Kerry at
21 percent, while a Boston Herald poll showed
Dean at 28 percent and Kerry at
25 percent. A spokesman for Sen. Joe
Lieberman of Connecticut also criticized
Dean’s plan. ‘While the Bush economic plan
has been a disaster for the middle class,
raising taxes on the middle class would just
be piling on,’ said Lieberman spokesman
Jano Cabrera. ‘That’s not only the wrong path
for economic recovery, but the wrong path for
the Democratic Party.’ Another rival, Bob
Graham, chastised both Dean and Kerry, calling
their economic plans ‘empty rhetoric’
without any details or numbers. ‘Instead of
attacking each other, they should be providing
real details on how they plan to balance the
budget, create jobs and provide middle-class
tax cuts to the American people, as my plan
does,’ the Florida senator said in a
statement.”
… Wannabe
story that probably baffled Boston Globe
readers yesterday – Do they really care if
Willie Nelson is appearing on Kucinich radio
spots in Iowa? Boston Globe excerpt: “Country
singer Willie Nelson is taking his support for
Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis
Kucinich to the radio waves this week.
‘Hey Iowa. This is Willie Nelson,’ says the
singer, as his hit song ‘On the Road Again’
plays in the background. ‘I don't usually get
too involved in politics, but I'm supporting
Congressman Dennis Kucinich for
president. I know Dennis and I know he
speaks up for heartland Americans who need a
stronger voice,’ Nelson says in the 30-
and 60-second spots. The ads, paid for by
Kucinich for President, are running this
week on several Iowa radio stations to
promote a benefit concert Nelson is performing
for Kucinich in Des Moines on Labor Day.
Nelson also will be playing benefit concerts
for Kucinich in Cleveland and Madison,
Wis. Kucinich, an Ohio congressman,
plans to make an official announcement of his
candidacy around Labor Day.”
… Under the
subhead “Gore More Years?,” the
OpinionJournal’s James Tartanto reported on
his “Best of the Web Today” that Dems can find
a better, more qualified “loser” than Al Gore
in ’04. An excerpt: “Former Vice-President
Al Gore is coming under pressure from
political supporters and friends to jump into
the 2004 presidential campaign even though he
ruled himself out in December,’ reports the
Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress.
These ‘Gore confidants’ believe ‘that the
political climate has changed significantly
since December, making Bush more vulnerable to
defeat in his bid for a second term…Yet
Democrats so far have failed to capitalize on
Bush's potential weakness. Whatever you may
think of the Democrats currently in the race,
not one of them has ever lost an election for
president. Gore, on the other hand, is
0-1. Hey, who wants a loser when you can have
a proven loser? And if Gore says no, George
McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale or
Michael Dukakis may want to jump in.”
… Get used
to it: News accounts of the Dean insurgency
vs. Kerry’s efforts to succeed aren’t going
away soon. The Washington Times’ Donald Lambro
notes that the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC)
is pushing Kerry – and trying to stop the Dean
momentum. Excerpt from Lambro’s column:
“The Democrats' presidential primary war
between diehard liberal activists and
pragmatic party centrists intensified this
week at the Democratic Leadership Council's
meeting here. While none of the presidential
contenders attended the two-day event, the
talk in closed-door strategy sessions and in
hotel corridors was all about the threat posed
to their party by the insurgency of Howard
Dean, the left-wing, antiwar, anti-tax-cut
candidate from tiny Vermont. Indiana Sen.
Evan Bayh, the DLC's chairman, fired off the
first round at the beginning of Monday's
session, declaring the party was ‘at risk
of being taken over by the far left.’ Mr.
Bayh's question to the party's liberal base:
‘Do we want to vent or do we want to govern?’ DLC
founder Al From reminded the New Democrat
elected officials who packed the hotel
ballroom how Walter Mondale called for tax
increases at the 1984 convention to the cheers
of liberal delegates. ‘We lost 49 states’
to Ronald Reagan, he said. And Democratic
pollster Mark Penn, who polled for Bill
Clinton, warned of a huge ‘security gap’ among
voters who trust President Bush and the GOP to
do a better job than the Democrats to
safeguard national security in the war on
terrorism. ‘If Democrats can't close the
security gap, then they can't be competitive
in the next election,’ he said. All of
them warned that the party would lose next
year's elections if it did not match the
president's toughness on national defense.
None of them specifically mentioned Mr. Dean,
but they made it clear that's who they were
talking about in interviews with
reporters. Who can stop Mr. Dean? The
big unreported story at the DLC’s meeting is
that Mr. From is positioning his influential
DLC network to back Mr. Dean’s chief rival for
the presidential nomination, Massachusetts
Sen. John Kerry. Mr. Kerry voted
for the congressional war resolution to send
forces into Iraq, but he has also been sharply
critical of Mr. Bush's failure to build a much
stronger coalition for the war and for his
handling of postwar operations. Still, Mr.
From points to Mr. Kerry's centrism on
issues such as free trade, his support for
welfare reform, and hints that school choice
vouchers may be worth trying on an
experimental basis. ‘I think Kerry could be
a very effective nominee. I think Kerry could
run as a New Democrat [in the general
election],’ Mr. From told me in an
interview. The DLC does not endorse
candidates, but Will Marshall, who runs the
DLC's Progressive Policy Institute, has been
advising Mr. Kerry. And Al From's embrace of
Mr. Kerry is the closest he has come to
publicly backing a candidate. Notably, he
mentioned no one else in the Democratic
pack. What worries Mr. From most is the
party's weakness on defense in an age of
terrorism. ‘The problem with [the
Democrats] is that we're not in the debate on
national security,’ he said. ‘We're at a time
when our country is in peril. The Democratic
nominee for president in 2004 has to first
cross the threshold on national security so
that voters will listen to him on the economy.
If we do that we'll have a chance of winning.
If we don't, we won't,’ he said.”
… While
most political news yesterday focused on
Lieberman’s comments – and Bush criticisms –
about sending 12 Cubans back to the island, it
turns out he also decided to take on Graham in
Florida. Excerpt from Miami Herald report
by Peter Wallsten: “Florida Sen. Bob
Graham's opposition to the war in Iraq came
under fire Tuesday from Connecticut Sen.
Joseph Lieberman, a rival for the Democratic
presidential nomination, who said war critics
make their party appear weak on defense.
Lieberman's comments came one day after
he delivered a foreign policy address accusing
his antiwar rivals of sending out a message
that they ‘don't know a just war when they see
it.’ He repeated those exact words during a
Hollywood press conference, citing by name
former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, Ohio Rep.
Dennis Kucinich and the Rev. Al Sharpton as
his targets. When a reporter asked,
Lieberman reluctantly said Graham was a target,
as well. But the Connecticut senator said
in an interview later that he put Graham in a
‘separate category’ because of Graham's
reasoning: that the war in Iraq took the
nation's attention and resources off the
broader war on terrorism. ‘I disagree with
his conclusion, respectfully,’ Lieberman
told The Herald. ‘I think we're strong enough
to do both. And in fact, a victory over Saddam
has helped us in the war against terrorism.’
Graham, the only senator in the race to
vote against the resolution giving President
Bush the authority to go to war with Iraq,
said in a telephone interview Tuesday that the
positions taken by Lieberman and other
war advocates have let terrorist groups such
as Hezbollah, al Qaeda and the Islamic Jihad
flourish. Graham, the former chairman
of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had
unsuccessfully sponsored an amendment allowing
Bush to take military action against the
terrorists, as well. ‘My objection to the
resolution to go to war was not that it was
too strong but that it was too timid, and took
our focus off the principal enemy of the
American people,’ Graham said. ‘I don't
understand what Joe's motivations are,’ Graham
added. ‘I understand that politics is an
issue of competition, but it should be a
reasoned competition.’”
… “Dean in
S. F. for 1st major speech on environment
…Address will urge tougher standards on
factory pollution” – Headline from
yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle. Jane Kay,
the Chronicle’s environmental writer, previews
speech that Dean delivered yesterday.
Excerpt: “Democratic presidential candidate
Howard Dean is calling for an environmental
policy that relies more heavily on wind and
solar power, cracks down on pollution from
older factories and pushes automakers to
improve fuel efficiency standards. Dean,
the leading Democratic presidential candidate
in the latest big California public opinion
poll, is expected to deliver his first major
environmental address of the campaign today at
the Crowne Plaza Hotel in San Francisco. The
Chronicle obtained an advance copy of his
speech. ‘Environmental issues are economic
issues,’ he said in the prepared text. ‘The
right-wing radicals want us to believe that we
must choose between having a healthy
environment or a healthy economy. I believe
that a healthy environment will support a
healthy economy.” Dean, 54, a
former governor of Vermont, has been a strong
critic of President Bush's record, attacking
what he describes as conflict of interest in
the Bush administration when former industry
representatives hold important regulatory
positions with oversight over former
colleagues and old friends. ‘Today, we have
a Republican president who seeks to destroy (a
bipartisan consensus) and reverse decades of
responsible environmental policy,’ the
speech said. ‘We have a president who seems to
regard public resources as gifts to be handed
out to special interests.’ Dean
characterized the Bush administration's naming
of its environmental programs as ‘Orwellian
doublespeak,’ and said it ‘might be
amusing if it weren't so dangerous.’…In a
telephone interview Wednesday, Dean said he
was coming to San Francisco today to speak on
the environment because of the state's
attitudes. ‘California has an enormous
number of voters who're very sensitive to the
environment,’ Dean said. ‘California is
often the leader in the country in
environmental legislation.’ The environment
ranks among his top four issues with jobs,
health care and education, Dean said.
Vermont joined California in a consortium,
along with New York and Massachusetts, in
expanding the use of electric cars, he said.
He ordered emissions in Vermont to be
reduced to levels below those required by the
Kyoto Protocol, which he believes the U.S.
should sign and adopt. He supports a
polluter-pay system for Superfund cleanup, a
requirement that 20 percent of electricity
come from renewable sources by 2020 and a
fuel- efficiency standard of 40 miles per
gallon by 2015, plus closing the loophole on
SUV gas mileage standards. Asked how he'd
handle the powerful lobbying groups in
Washington, D.C., that contribute to campaigns
and influence laws and policies, Dean said,
‘They're not contributing anything to my
campaign …This whole campaign is about
getting out from under special interests.’”
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Have a good weekend.
Quotable:
“Real Democrats are straight about who they'll
fight for. Real Democrats don't walk away from
the middle class.''
-- Kerry, on attack against pet rival
Dean
Quotable:
“Real Democrats don't make promises they can't
keep.”
– Combative Dean, responding to
Kerry’s charges
Quotable:
"Not that I don't trust the people back in
Washington, but I like us to be in control of
our own destinies."
– Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns, proposing an
out-of-court settlement on Missouri River flow
issues and resisting IA Guv Vilsack’s
call for more federal involvement
Quotable:
“I don't understand what Joe's motivations
are.”
– Graham, reacting to Lieberman
criticism of his Iraq resolution vote.
to read past Iowa Daily Reports