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Iowa 2004 presidential primary precinct caucus and caucuses news">
Iowa 2004 presidential primary precinct caucus and caucuses news, reports
and information on 2004 Democrat and Republican candidates, campaigns
and issues Iowa
Presidential Watch's
IOWA DAILY REPORT
... QUOTABLE:
"I think the Democrats can be fairly charged with
chronic whining, and they ought to look at
themselves first and foremost,"
Ralph Nader
said.
"They have taken us much farther down the road
toward an intrusive, 'big brother'-style
government — toward the dangers prophesied by
George Orwell in his book '1984' — than anyone
ever thought would be possible in the United
States of America,"
said Al Gore.
"I don't like Condoleezza Rice because she's a
murderer," Mr.
McGruder said, adding, "We can discuss this
illegal Iraq war, the slaughtering of innocent
people, and because she's one of the big hawks in
this administration, I do not even see why this is
a point of contention,"
said Aaron
McGruder, "The Boondocks" cartoonist.
“Can we blame these losses on cheap foreign labor
or "free trade"? No. A recent report by Alliance
Capital Management shows our manufacturing sector
has fared better than most other countries.
Between 1995 and 2002, manufacturing employment in
the United States declined 11 percent. Over the
same span of time, Japan lost 16 percent of its
manufacturing jobs, Brazil lost 20 percent, and
China experienced a 15 percent decline.
Renegotiating NAFTA and other trade agreements as
Dean suggests won't save these jobs.”
-- University of
Iowa Daily Iowan.
"There is no time to vet a nominee and let him
perform in public with massive numbers of people
looking at him to see if he is at all flawed,"
Dick Morris said
about Democrat National Committee Chairman Terry
McAuliffe’s bunched primary date strategy.
As for Lieberman
and others seeking to concentrate efforts on later
primary races, "I think it is a huge
mistake from which they will not recover,"
said Dick
Morris.
“Since 1976, when outsider Jimmy Carter won Iowa
and cemented the state's dominance in the election
process, no president has been elected without
winning in either New Hampshire, Iowa or both.
Today, both states' constitutions require them to
hold their nominating elections first, and the DNC
has largely protected that right.”
-- Fox News.
… TODAY’S
OFFERINGS:
Kerry dumps manager
The Sharpton factor
The money factor
Clark’s money
Straw poll
Slave holders
Negative ads?
Campaign disclaimers
Milking Iowa
Speaking of giving
Culinary report
Bush’s on the move
Appeal to Chinese
Gay ads
* CANDIDATES &
CAUCUSES: Sen. John Kerry fired his
campaign manager Jim Jordan and gave the job to
veteran Democratic operative Mary Beth Cahill.
Reports are Jordan was being offered another
position. Cahill’s resume includes:
Assistant to the President and Director of the
Office of Public Liaison for Bill Clinton;
Director of EMILY's List, which provides financial
and political assistance to candidates for office.
She formerly served as the organization's
political director. She has managed a number of
gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, Congressional, and
other political campaigns around the country. Ms.
Cahill served as director of personnel and as
director of the Washington, D.C., office of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts under Governor
Michael Dukakis, and she has worked on the staffs
of Representatives Robert Drinan and Barney Frank.
She received a B.A. degree from Emmanuel College. Al Sharpton may be taking Black
votes away from the leading white candidates in
South Carolina’s important Feb. 3 primary,
according to a
Washington Post story. The story explores how
Sharpton is less of a firebrand in his Southern
visits. Clearly, he not only preaches about the
nuances of the South but practices it as well: "In
New York they wouldn't even understand that,"
Sharpton says later about the complicated nature
of southern race relations. "You have to be in the
South to know, some of these guys who were rabid
segregationists, they were the ones who knew all
the blacks in town." The shake out from Howard Dean’s
decision to forego public financing continues with
numerous articles, and the waiting for John
Kerry’s decision about what he will do now. It is
reported by Dean’s campaign aides that their
campaign has drawn in a record $5 million in the
two days following Dean’s decision. The
Washington Post explores the question of what
it will mean in the future for candidates seeking
the Presidency. Consensus is that the extreme left
of the Democrats and the extreme right of the
Republicans will have the best access to the big
money. The other key in the future will be star
power like Hillary Clinton and Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
USA Today is running a story that campaign
financing could collapse. The
NY Times reports on how Wesley Clark has made
it big in the influence peddling business: “In
2000, the year he left the military, General Clark
had an income of $474,000, of which $184,000 came
from wages, $249,000 from business earnings and
the rest from investments. In 2001, he reported
income of $762,000, of which $213,000 was wages,
$84,000 was pension, $434,000 was business and the
rest was from investments.” As Clark was looking at ways to
market himself he called on some old friends for
advice. He did not get much support from former
United Nations envoy, Richard C. Holbrooke. “Mr.
Holbrooke was brutally honest about the general's
marketability. "I told him, 'Trust me, no one has
ever heard of you,' " Mr. Holbrooke recalled in an
interview. "And he shot back, `Well, I was the
supreme commander of NATO.' " Florida is not the only one
holding up Democrat Presidential candidates.
Harrison County, Iowa Democrats thumbed their
noses at national and state party rules forbidding
straw polls. In their straw poll Kerry received 37
percent of the vote, and former Vermont Gov.
Howard Dean was second with 29 percent. Sen. John
Edwards of North Carolina had 19 percent, while
Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri garnered 10
percent. The rest are not worth mentioning. The
Harrison County Democrats shook down campaign
supporters for a $10 ticket-- far less than
Florida’s scheme. Todd Dorman, Lee Enterprise Iowa
political reporter, weighs in on the Howard Dean
flag flap in several of Lee Enterprise-owned Iowa
newspapers
(Link). “Does
Dean deserve the labels being affixed to his
bumper? Probably not. Dean may end up being the
next George McGovern, but he's not George Wallace…
Dean is guilty, however, of exercising remarkably
bad political judgment. And when folks set out to
pick the next president, judgment counts.” Dorman makes the point that
Saturday the Iowa Democrats are holding their
Jefferson/Jackson day dinner. Hillary Clinton will
be gracing the event along with Democrat
Presidential candidates. “For
example, several Democratic presidential
candidates will be speaking at the Iowa Democratic
Party's Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner Saturday
night. The event is named for Thomas Jefferson and
Andrew Jackson, two slave owners… It could be
argued that the failure of Jefferson and his
revolutionary contemporaries to tackle the issue
of slavery allowed the institution to persist.
Battle flags followed 70 years later.” A Des Moines Register story
covers the probable change in campaigning
advertising from introduction of the candidate to
explaining why their opponents don’t deserve your
vote. You know -- negative campaign ads.
While most of the country is just beginning to
wake-up to the fact there is a Presidential race,
Iowa has experienced $2.5 million in political
advertising already. The rest of the country does
not need to feel bad, though -- given that Dean
and Bush have foregone spending limits and unions
and MoveOn.org are all raising $100’s of millions
that must be spent during the primary cycle.
However, if you are in a targeted state like
Wisconsin or Florida you probably will become sick
of the ads. Most agree that so far the
advertising put up by the Democrat presidential
candidates is not all that inspiring. It is clear
that if the ads are to do their job of peeling off
voters from opponents and firing up supporters to
get out to caucuses and primaries that the ads
will have to take on an edgier tone. Candidates
looking for support through of the use of the
campaign tactic of negative ads have a friend in
an Iowa State professor, according to the
Register:
Steffen Schmidt, a political science professor at
Iowa State University, said he advocates
candidates going negative and becoming nasty in
their ads sooner… "With a field this large, it's
not strange to me that the one who is ahead is the
one who first went negative," Schmidt said.
"Negative campaigning is part of imprinting
yourself, of setting yourself apart from the
others. Dean is the first one who went horribly
negative on Bush, and that's what made him stand
out of the field." The Register reports that 22 ads
have run in Iowa: five by former Vermont Gov.
Howard Dean, eight by North Carolina Sen. John
Edwards, five by Missouri Congressman Dick
Gephardt and four by Massachusetts Sen. John
Kerry. Iowa Democrat Party Chairman Gordon Fischer
offers candidates campaigning in Iowa some advice
about the shortcomings of TV ads. "You
can't buy the caucuses with TV ads," Fischer said.
"You really have to meet with Iowans in church
basements, union halls, coffee shops and school
auditoriums, look them in the eye and tell them
you have a plan for change." This presidential campaign cycle
has premiered a new disclaimer on the television
ads with candidates on camera stating, "I approved
this message." This connecting of the candidate to
the ad is the result of the new McCain-Feingold
campaign-finance bill. "The
reason is basically to make it crystal clear to
viewers whom this ad is about," said Mary Boyle, a
spokeswoman for Common Cause, a key backer of the
legislation. "The "stand by your ad' amendment is
also meant to discourage negative ads by making it
impossible for candidates to conceal their
involvement in the ad. Anything that makes clear
to people who's behind it, who's paying for it, is
great." The
Des Moines Register reports Iowans are not
only sought after for their votes, but their money
as well. Candidates are required to file quarterly
reports with the Federal Election Commission.
Those reports require candidates to report the
names of contributors giving $200 or more and
pertinent information about the contributors such
as occupation. The surprise in the story is that
records show that trailing candidate Dennis
Kucinich has 46 contributions from Iowa totaling
more than $20,000 -- more than he's collected in
such states as New Jersey, Michigan and
Pennsylvania. Dean has collected 107 reportable
contributions in Iowa through Sept. 30, bringing
in $35,000. Dean's campaign is famous for its
groundbreaking fund-raising by Internet. He has
collected 55 percent of all contributions from
non-reportable contributions according to the
Campaign Finance Institute.Rep. Dick Gephardt has
received 40 large contributions in the state of
Iowa -- totaling $23,550. Bush has picked up 220
large contributions in Iowa totaling more than
$228,000. The Washington Times’
Inside Politics brings attention to the recent
study of charitable giving, titled “Generous red
states.” Excerpt: "In
news sure to depress those for whom Republican
stinginess and antipathy for the less fortunate is
an article of faith, the Massachusetts Catalogue
for Philanthropy has just released its Generosity
Index 2003, which ranks states not just by how
much their residents give per capita but also by
how much they give relative to what they earn,"
the Wall Street Journal says in an editorial… "As
OpinionJournal.com reader Gabriel Openshaw pointed
out to us, the resulting index shows that the top
20 states all went for George W. Bush in the 2000
election — while 15 of the 20 least generous went
for Al Gore. Maybe, he suggests, the difference is
that those in red states are more generous with
their own money while those in blue states are
more likely to be generous with other people's
money." The Iowa Presidential Caucuses
finds hordes of staff from campaigns and reporters
that follow them frequenting the State Capitol’s
restaurants. Federal Election reports indicate
that the new Des Moines restaurant ‘Centro’
(pronounced: chen-tro) is the hot spot to
be. The restaurant features NY style pizza, and
Italian and American dishes. ‘Noodle Zoo’ in West
Des Moines and ‘Beggars Banquet’ in Des Moines are
also popular.
* ON THE BUSH
BEAT: The President and First Lady are
on the hustle Monday. President Bush is heading
south to Arkansas and S. Carolina. Laura Bush is
traveling to Maine. Both will give policy speeches
and attend fund-raisers. Mrs. Bush will read a
book to elementary school children at Shortlidge
Academy in downtown Wilmington and attend a
fund-raiser in the city. She will also give a
speech on preserving the nation's cultural and
historic sites before attending a Bush/Cheney
fund-raiser.
* THE CLINTON
COMEDIES: Former President Bill Clinton
was in China calling on the famous planning
ability of the Chinese to take on the problem of
Aides in their country. He stressed that Aides is
a much bigger problem than Sars for their country.
*NATIONAL: The Washington Post reports on a
$1 million advertising campaign by gays to reshape
gay marriages in a positive light. "We want to
educate people about what marriage is," says
spokesman Mark Shields of the Human Rights
Campaign. The ads will run in major newspapers.
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