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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: "It's in bad taste. It
demonstrates that
[the Clintons']
real agenda is promoting Hillary. It's pretty
craven," quoted
in the NY Post and attributed to an aide to
Democrat Presidential campaign regarding Hillary
being master of ceremonies in Iowa. "As I've said before, if
I saw someone burning the flag, I'd punch them in
the mouth because I love the flag, but the
constitution that I fought for preserves the right
of free expression,"
said John Kerry. "With his unilateral
march into Iraq, President Bush has scorned many
of our key allies, preventing the necessary
cooperation to destroy al-Qaida,"
Wesley Clark said. "Long and humbling
experience,"
said John Kerry about his campaign after riding a
Harley-Davidson, onto the "The Tonight Show With
Jay Leno”. "Dean may have the two
biggest unions, but we have a gang,"
said Don
Kaniewski, political director for the Laborers
International Union of North America, a coalition
member and Gephardt supporter. "That's very, very big,"
said political
columnist Charlie Cook, who publishes the
Washington, D.C.-based Cook Political Report.
"Dean is appealing to the one sector that's
growing and has determined that's where the future
is. He's demonstrated a knack for that." --
Cook commenting
on Dean’s endorsement by AFL-CIO’s two largest
service sector unions, SEIU and AFSCME. "Again, every penny that
is misspent is keeping our troops in Iraq longer.
It is a disservice to them and the American
taxpayer. This entire process is endemic not only
with Iraq but every policy of this administration,"
said Howard Dean said in a speech in Iowa City at
the University of Iowa. "I know something about
how the young men and women who were wounded in
Iraq feel because I experienced it myself. If
there is one thing that can make those tough days
of recovery easier, it's having support from
home," Wesley
Clark wrote in an e-mail to his supporters. “While Iowa Democrats may
see former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean as a fiery
insurgent and U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt of
Missouri as a fighter for working families, Kerry
has failed establish a similar clear theme,”
said Drake
University political science professor Dennis
Goldford. "Kerry's on life support
right now and is desperately trying to find ways
to stay alive,"
one Democratic operative who is familiar with the
campaign said. "It's a little like shifting
the chairs on the Titanic, except he threw off his
best chair." "The World Trade
Organization (WTO) has ruled against tariffs on
which the U.S. steel industry depends. The WTO
would similarly rule against modifications to
NAFTA being proposed by various candidates for
president. If the United States is to be free to
negotiate fair trade agreements that protect jobs,
the rights of workers, and the environment, then
there is no alternative but to repeal NAFTA and
withdraw from the WTO,”
said Dennis
Kucinich.
… TODAY’S
OFFERINGS: Get a clue Shrum’s curse? Clark’s charges The other gang Clark’s opps War profiteering Victory Days Speaking of
celebrities Another 12-point
plan What’s up, Carol? Another Iowa visit
* CANDIDATES &
CAUCUSES: The possible lack of finesse
with which John Kerry handled the dismissal of
James Jordan may have contributed to Kerry’s loss
of additional top campaign staff. Or, some may
just feel they do not want to go down with ship.
Whatever the situation, Mary Beth Cahill-- the
new campaign chief -- has her work cut out for
her. Robert Gibbs, chief spokesman
for the Kerry campaign, and deputy finance
director Carl Chidlow quit in reaction to the
firing of Jim Jordan, abruptly let go by Kerry
Sunday night. Both expressed dissatisfaction with
the campaign, according to officials. Gibbs will be replaced by
Stephanie Cutter, a former spokeswoman for Sen.
Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and currently the
spokeswoman for the Democratic National
Convention. Cahill also was with the Kennedy
before. The
Associated Press is reporting that a source of
the problem was the fractious nature of the
campaign and Kerry himself: The
staff shake-up consolidates power around Kennedy's
former staff after months of internal division.
Kerry's team has consisted of roughly three
factions — his Washington team, paid consultants
and friends and family from Boston. Kerry did get something right
yesterday in New Hampshire. According to the
Manchester Union Leader, Kerry released a list of
400 New Hampshire veterans supporting his
campaign, and sent a former senator and fellow
Vietnam War veteran to campaign for him in the
state – Max Cleland. "We suffered the same war
together. We don't want to see a new generation of
Americans suffer again," former Sen. Max Cleland
of Georgia said. The
NY Times ran a story about Bob Shrum’s
influence in the Kerry campaign. As
Democratic strategists go, Bob Shrum has long been
considered one of the heavyweights: a talented
speechwriter, an expert at debate preparations, an
ideologically committed liberal who has a knack
for distilling the essence of a candidate's
message into a slogan, sound bite or 30-second
commercial. Shrum has advised a number of
preisdential campaigns but has never won one.
There is some criticism that Shrum is not up to
the task of taking down Howard Dean and has not
put the knife in. However, going negative in a
multiple candidate field is a tricky issue. It
takes great timing to bring your own negatives
from attacking the opponent down. Mr.
Shrum has resisted those entreaties, campaign
workers say. But one of Mr. Shrum's confidants
defended his thinking this way: "This is not a
two-person general election at the moment, where
if you get into a mudfest and bang hard enough on
the other guy, his favorables are going to go
down. This is a nine-person field, where if the
attacks strike people as too political, your
unfavorables can go up, and it can cost you more
than it can help you." We are still waiting for Kerry’s
decision to opt in or out of federal campaign
financing. The issue is how much money can he
bring to the high stakes game? CBS’s Washington
Wrap discusses how the Federal law bars Kerry from
using any of his wife’s money. He may use 50
percent of any joint assets and he can use 100
percent of anything in his own name. It’s still
unclear how her fortune is broken down, though
it’s a pretty good chance that most of her money
is unavailable to him since it’s in Heinz funds
and trusts. Additionally, it’s too late for her to
transfer any of her cash over to him without being
in violation of campaign finance laws. Wesley Clark seemed to open up
three fronts at once on Veterans Day. One front
had him taking on flag burners, another had him
clashing with Edwards and his old boss, and then
he was tracking down Bin Laden… Flag burning Clark
in a speech on Veterans Day in New Hampshire said
that he supported a Constitutional ban on burning
the American flag. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in
1989 that burning the flag was protected by the
constitution’s free speech clause. The House has
passed an amendment that would allow Congress to
protect the flag. Both Dick Gephardt and Dennis
Kucinich supported the amendment. Senators John
Kerry, Joe Lieberman and John Edwards have opposed
the amendment. Former boss With
the revelation that former Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Henry Shelton had informally
provided Sen. John Edwards with foreign affairs
advice, the Clark campaign opened a second front
against Edwards and impugned Shelton’s
credibility. Shelton has made the often-quoted
remark that Clark was removed from his Supreme
Commander of NATO troops because of integrity
problems. Clark campaign spokesman Matt Bennett,
in a letter to Edwards, was astounded that he had
retained Shelton as a campaign adviser -- a choice
that "undermines the spirit of civility that you
urged your fellow candidates to uphold," according
to an Associated Press story. Shelton is a
resident of Edwards’ home state of N. Carolina and
a longtime friend. Edwards responded to Clark’s
campaign with the statement:
"Whatever your personal views of General Shelton,
I'm sure you agree that he is a respected military
leader who served our country with distinction,"
Edwards wrote. "Although General Shelton has not
endorsed me or any other candidate, I value his
advice as one of our nation's top military
leaders. Hunting down Bin Laden Clark
thinks that the search for Bin Laden should be
internationalized by demanding that the Saudi
Arabians provide commandos to hunt him down.
Bennett outlined Wednesday morning a three point
plan Clark is to present in a speech at Dartmouth
College in New Hampshire today.
First, Clark would pressure Saudi Arabia to
contribute to a joint U.S.-Saudi commando force to
scour the Afghan-Pakistani border where bin Laden
is thought to be hiding
Second, Clark proposed reassigning some of the
intelligence specialists, linguists, and special
operations forces now searching Iraq for weapons
of mass destruction to the hunt for bin Laden.
Third, the United States needs to repair relations
with allies and friends. Dick Gephardt industrial union
supporters are preempting two large service unions
in the turf war over the Democrat Presidential
nomination. Gephardt’s union gangs are airing ads
in Gephardt’s must-win Iowa. A coalition of 16 of
the 20 unions who have endorsed Gephardt are
sponsoring the ads. "Dean may have the two biggest
unions, but we have a gang," said Don Kaniewski,
political director for the Laborers International
Union of North America, a coalition member and
Gephardt supporter is quoted in an
Associated Press story. The ad features the difference
between Gephardt and his opponents over NAFTA and
China’s most favored trade status. The ad
highlights how workers had to train the Mexican
replacements according to the AP article:
"American workers can compete against anyone,
anywhere," the worker said in the ad. "But thanks
to NAFTA, the rules of the game are no longer
fair. Our jobs are going to Mexico, to workers we
were forced to train. And they're making a
fraction of the money we made to support our
families. NAFTA it may be good for Big Business.
But for thousands of Iowa workers, it's cost us
our jobs and hurt our communities. The next time
someone asks for your vote, ask them where they
stood during the fight against NAFTA." In other union news, Gephardt
announced that the Oklahoma Building and
Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO, has endorsed
his campaign for president. Gephardt has now
received the endorsement of the Oklahoma, New
Hampshire, New Mexico, and Missouri Building and
Construction Trades Councils. Dean is scheduled today to
receive the joint endorsement of the two large
AFL-CIO service workers unions Service Employees
International Union and American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees. In a
Des Moines Register story that explores what
the endorsement will mean in Iowa Caucuses street
fight, it is referred to as a leg up. "The
challenge will be to get the organizers out in
these counties to organize their members and get
them to turn out on caucus night," said JoDee
Winterhoff, a longtime Iowa Democratic organizer
with close ties to organized labor. "It's a leg up
for Dean, but it's not a gigantic advantage." The
Washington Post has in-depth coverage of how
two new rival service unions came to endorse
Howard Dean and set up the classic civil war
within the AFL-CIO. It was
a radical idea, one that would put the AFL-CIO's
two largest -- and among the most politically
potent -- unions behind Dean's candidacy, a move
Stern later described as McEntee's "big-bang
theory" of how the SEIU and AFSCME together could
vault Dean above the rest of the Democratic pack
in a way that each acting alone might not. Washington Post explains how
Clark’s pulling out of Iowa was big mistake: The
fatal blow for Clark came when his campaign team
decided last month to pull out of Iowa. The night
the news was breaking, Clark called McEntee to
tell him. McEntee told him he was making a
terrible "strategic mistake." Last week, a Clark
campaign official told another labor official that
no one on the campaign had known how important
Iowa was to AFSCME and McEntee -- further proof to
AFSCME leaders of the weaknesses inside Clark's
operation. CBS’s Washington Wrap tells of
what is shaping up to be a sign war at Iowa
Democrat’s Jefferson/Jackson Day Dinner: The
Gephardt campaign appears to be gearing up for a
showdown of sorts with Dean and John Kerry at
Saturday’s Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner. In an
e-mail to ‘interested parties,’ Gephardt’s Iowa
communications director, Bill Burton, said the
other campaigns are planning to spend "$100,000"
on signs and campaign materials at the J-J.
Burton, apparently anticipating a dearth of
Gephardt signage, said, "The Jefferson Jackson Day
Dinner, while an important and necessary
fundraiser for the Iowa Democratic Party, is not a
show of organizational strength. It is a
fundraiser for which two candidates have spent
hundreds of thousands of dollars." Howard Dean, using the
inflammatory words of war profiteering, accused
the Bush administration of blocking investigations
into cozy relationships of corporations who are
war profiteers: "In
1940, Senator Harry Truman set off in his old
Dodge to investigate accusations of war
profiteering in the construction of Fort Leonard
Wood in south-central Missouri. What he found
appalled him -- millions of dollars being wasted
due to mismanagement or funneled into the hands of
a small number of large corporations at taxpayers'
expense. Soon thereafter, Congress established
what became known as the Truman Commission to root
out war profiteering and establish oversight of
defense contracts. "But
similar attempts at oversight in Iraq have been
thwarted by the Bush Administration. When Congress
voted to give this President an additional $87
billion for his war in Iraq, both the House and
Senate agreed to attach a provision that would
require the General Accounting Office to conduct
ongoing audits of how our taxpayer money is being
spent. Instead, the White House and Tom Delay
strong-armed Senate Republicans into killing the
provision,” said Dean. The
USA Today checks out Dean’s temperament:
“Howard Dean's temper is no secret here in his
home state. He has called political opponents
"boneheads" and said they're "in la-la land." He's
told lawmakers that he would like to see them lose
their jobs. One longtime adversary wonders whether
he's up to tasks that require tact, such as
international diplomacy.” Dean’s website, Of the People,
By the People and For the People, is touting
Victory Days: “Two
nights a month over the next three months, Dean
supporters will be meeting around the country to
write letters to voters in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Many of you have been writing letters at Meetups
-- and you asked for help organizing your local
groups to meet more often to focus exclusively on
writing letters. Now Victory Days.” Having already introduced the
governor to supporters on a conference call in
September, Melissa Ethridge will officially
endorse Dean just before the Jefferson-Jackson
Dinner in Des Moines this coming weekend. As a
bonus, she will toss in a performance for
supporters and appear with the governor at a
pre-dinner rally.
MSNBC has a story on Front Page about how
celebrities think Americans are dumb: But
what about this Michael Moore screed about
Americans in the London Mirror earlier this month?
“They are possibly the dumbest people on the
planet. ...We Americans suffer from an enforced
ignorance. We don’t know about anything that’s
happening outside our country. Our stupidity is
embarrassing.” Dennis Kucinich, in an interview
with the
Des Moines Register, once again proved why
many refer to the Kucinich campaign as hearing
from the planet Kucinich. In another world like
conversation, Kucinich faced some of the real
world truth that he was a long shot to win the
nomination. However, he still talked about an
upset, despite discounting TV ads and saying he
wasn’t changing anything about his campaign:
"Obviously, my campaign is seen as being way back
in the pack right now," Kucinich, an Ohio
congressman, said in a meeting with reporters and
editors of The Des Moines Register. "But you know
what?" he said. "Some people are starting to say
they like the fact that I'm a long shot, and
that's why they're backing me… "They want to
create a surprise, and I think my campaign is in a
position to be the surprise of the 2004 primary in
Iowa." Lengthy plans with spelled out
details are the fare of campaigns these days and
Sen. Joe Lieberman has delivered another one for
veterans. Lieberman promised as President to give
those who protect us the respect and support their
dangerous job demands. His Service Members and
Veterans Bill of Rights will make clear what we
expect of those who serve, and what they can count
on from us in return. As part of the twelve pillars of
Lieberman's plan, he vowed to deliver:
1.
Gratitude and Respect.
Trust our service members with the truth about the
hard sacrifices and deployments necessary, and
honor them by delivering on his promises;
2.
Strong Leadership. Build
alliances that enable us to ease the burdens on
our troops, including welcoming NATO troops to
join us in Afghanistan and Iraq;
3.
Top-Notch Training. Insist
on the highest standards of rigorous training for
our troops, including peacekeeping; strengthen the
U.S. Army's peacekeeping institute; and change our
force structure where necessary to have enough
units to win wars and prevail in peace;
4.
Cutting-Edge Equipment.
Continue push for a next generation defense and
lead a true transformation of our military,
including peacekeeping.
5.
Predictable Deployments.
Right-size our military, rationalize rotations,
and guarantee that no reservist is involuntarily
mobilized more than once per enlistment for longer
than one year;
6.
Competitive Pay. Provide
retired veterans with concurrent receipt, enabling
them to receive both the full retirement and
disability payments they deserve, and not cut pay
for armed forces, as Bush has done.
7.
Quality Health Care.
Upgrade VA hospitals to cut waiting times and
guarantee that reservists and families receive
adequate care;
8.
No Barriers to Service.
Make sure our military is free of unfair or
arbitrary barriers to service or advancement,
including on the basis of gender, race, or sexual
orientation
9.
Quality Education. Unlike
Bush, who is considering closing or transferring
control of the 58 schools the Department of
Defense operates on military bases here at home,
Lieberman would protect funding and keep the doors
of these good schools open;
10.
Affordable Housing. Today,
military housing is shortchanged; Lieberman would
deliver decent housing to military families;
11.
Family Care. Improve
quality of life for military families by reversing
Bush's record of squeezing those families' wallets
12.
Job Opportunities. Help
give veterans a fair shot at a good job, by
raising standards for defense and government
contractors to hire junior enlisted and recently
veterans, and by ensuring that veterans have a
fair piece of the government contract pie. In a recording obtained by The
Washington Post, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.)
sang yesterday to supporters in Concord, N.H.,
about his plans to campaign for the Democratic
presidential nomination -- in a place where the
wind comes sweepin' down the plain. Oklahoma holds
its primary Feb. 3, a week after New Hampshire The
Washington Post tries to answer the question
of what Carol Moseley Braun is doing: She
has no staff in Iowa, no staff in New Hampshire.
Walk through her home neighborhood of Hyde Park
here, the place that launched her into politics 25
years ago, that proudly claimed her when she was a
U.S. senator and an ambassador to New Zealand and
Samoa, and there's not one "Carol for President"
sign in a window. Nobody wears buttons.
* ON THE BUSH
BEAT: The Washington Times’ Inside the
Beltway offers a vignette for Laura Bush: First
lady Laura Bush recalls one overnight visit with
her husband to the home of his parents, the former
president and Mrs. Bush… "And
George woke up at 6 a.m. as usual and went
downstairs to get a cup of coffee," Mrs. Bush
says. "And he sat down on the sofa with his
parents and put his feet up. And all of a sudden,
Barbara Bush yelled, 'Put your feet down!'
"George's dad replied, 'For goodness' sake,
Barbara, he's the president of the United States.' "And
Barbara said, 'I don't care. I don't want his feet
on my table.'" The
president promptly did as he was told, for as Mrs.
Bush observes: "Even presidents have to listen to
their mothers."
* THE CLINTON
COMEDIES: Iowa is a frequent place where
future Presidential candidates visit. This weekend
Iowa Democrats will not only have $100,000 of
worth of campaign signs hung at the annual
Jefferson/Jackson Day Dinner -- they will also
have Hillary Rodham Clinton as their toastmaster. Back channel clatter from the
Presidential campaigns is that the campaigns are
worried that she will steal the show. Some
campaign aides are not saying nice thing about
their big star Hillary. The Iowa Democratic party has
turned down a request from a Florida group -- with
the title of ‘Draft Hillary’ -- for booth space.
Now, why was it that the Presidential candidates
were upset about Hillary’s showing up? Hillary will do three cash grabs
for the Iowa Democratic Party -- one for an Iowa
congressman, one for her own Senate re-election,
and two in Illinois.
*NATIONAL: Remember McCain Fiengold? Well
they want to reform it by raising caps so people
don’t opt out, according to a story in The Hill: “Tax
forms include a “check off” box that taxpayers can
check to approve sending $3 of their taxes to the
public election financing system. Meehan said the
amount indicated in the check-off box would be
raised, perhaps to $10 indexed to inflation… In
addition, he said, there “should be room on the
tax form to make a voluntary contribution.” [Rep.
Marty] Meehan said the federal government should
start an education campaign that describes how the
system works to make sure taxpayers are willing to
earmark a portion of their taxes for public
campaign financing.”
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