|
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 Holding
the Democrats accountable today, tomorrow...forever.
The Iowa Daily Report,
WEDNESDAY, October 29, 2003
... QUOTABLE: "Howard Dean's opposition
to affirmative action, his current support for the
death penalty and historic support of the
[National Rifle Association] agenda amounts to an
anti-black agenda that will not sell in
communities of color in this country,"
said Al Sharpton
after learning of Congressman Jesse Jackson’s
intentions of endorsing Howard Dean. "I'm disappointed with
Governor Dean's shoot-from-the-hip reaction, which
is full of factual inaccuracies to a tragic,
complex incident the committee has conscientiously
struggled with for a year,"
said Sen. Carl
Levin, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services
Committee, in a statement to Bloomberg News
regarding Dean’s criticism of the promotion of
Maj. Gen. Robert Clark to lieutenant general. "He says 'Oh, let's do
everything with U.N., but yet he doesn't say
whether U.N. wants to take on all that
responsibility or how we are going to get the
troops out of there,"
said Candace
Cunha, a freshman at Saint Anselm College, from
Loudon in New Hampshire after hearing Dennis
Kucinich’s speech. "Now, if he just took
Social Security and Medicare off the table, the
question is, what entitlements are on the table?
Veterans' pensions? Food stamps? Medicaid? Social
disability?"
asked John Kerry regarding Dean’s statement that
he would slow the growth of some entitlements. "It is hard to look at
the newspapers today and say this difference on
Medicare in 1995 is as important as a difference
on how to fight the war on terror and what we
should be doing in Iraq,"
said Republican
strategist William Kristol, editor of the Weekly
Standard magazine. "Reality has helped
Dean. It is the biggest issue facing the next
president." “Students of history —
including Bill Clinton — will recall that the
image of Democrats as weak on defense and in favor
of tax increases was a big part of what kept the
party out of the White House for many years”--
from ABC’s The
Note on-line. “The ‘Mission
Accomplished’ sign, of course, was put up by the
members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, saying that
their mission was accomplished. I know it was
attributed some how to some ingenious advance man
from my staff,”
President Bush said at a press conference. "Yesterday, the President
claimed that the wave of attacks that left dozens
dead and scores injured proved that the US was
winning the peace in Iraq. At this point, nothing
he says really surprises me anymore,”
said Howard
Dean. “…Ask our troops in Iraq
whether the mission has been accomplished. Ask our
troops in Iraq whether they’d rather have had a
fancy aircraft landing from the President or a
responsible post-war plan to keep them safe. It’s
not our troops’ fault that the White House turned
over to media strategists and advance staff an
occasion that should have been used to bring other
countries to our side and begin the multilateral
rebuilding of Iraq and the end of an American
occupation,”
said John Kerry. “…Politicizing the
mission of those troops in the first place was bad
theater, and diminished the office of Commander in
Chief -- but to now turn his comments on those
very troops is outrageous. Instead of trying to
blame the sailors and soldiers, the President owes
our troops in harm's way and the American people a
plan to bring peace to Iraq and stability to the
region," said
Wesley Clark. "Today was another banner
day in George Bush's quest to bring honor and
integrity to the White House. If he wanted to
prove he has trouble leveling with the American
people, mission accomplished,"
said Joe
Lieberman. "It truly did signify a
mission accomplished for the crew,"
Navy Cmdr.
Conrad Chun said, adding the president's visit
marked the end of the ship's 10-month
international deployment.
… Among the
offerings in today’s update: Marijuana Can’t we all just get
along? Dean’s weapon of mass
destruction Dean’s rapid response Dean’s anti-war drum
beat Lieberman’s ads The clash of titans Gephardt burning Dean Clark armed Get your bullets Where have all the
Liberals gone? National Green party
disavows Kucinich Cut defense spending The War Bush Banner Flap Bush & Medicare Democrat investigation Bubba’s Booty party
* CANDIDATES &
CAUCUSES: The
Des Moines Register carries an interesting
story regarding Democrat candidates’ position on
medical marijuana: On medical marijuana.
The candidates' positions on medical marijuana,
according to their campaigns:
JOHN EDWARDS: Science is still unclear. There
needs to be a high-level Food and Drug
Administration commission to determine right away
whether medical marijuana is the best way to treat
pain.
JOHN KERRY: Supports the use of real science
to determine the effectiveness, safety and need
for the controlled medical use of marijuana. If
scientifically warranted, and studied by an
objective commission, the use must be closely
restricted to prevent abuse and illegal
trafficking.
HOWARD DEAN: As a doctor, he believes
marijuana should be treated no differently from
any other drug. It should be evaluated by the FDA
for its safety and then approved if it is safe and
effective, rejected if it is not.
DENNIS KUCINICH: Disagrees with President
Bush's methods of "harassing medical marijuana
patients" and instead favors medical marijuana
being used to relieve the suffering of seriously
ill patients. JOE
LIEBERMAN: Is aware of reports that marijuana
may provide therapeutic relief for some
individuals, but isn't aware of any reputable
studies to support this. He opposes legalizing a
drug that many health professionals believe has
greater health risks than therapeutic benefits.
CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN: Is in favor of medicinal
marijuana use. Campaigns for Dick Gephardt,
Wesley Clark and Al Sharpton did not respond
timely to requests for information about their
position on this issue.
Drudge is reporting a developing story over a
Dean staff member who attended a Gephardt meeting
and was shoved and verbally abused by a Gephardt
staff person. ``I urge you to find the staff
member responsible and fire him, and send a strong
signal to the rest of your staff that behavior of
this kind will not be tolerated,'' Dean campaign
manager Joe Trippi said in a letter sent late
Tuesday to Gephardt campaign manager Steve Murphy.
Howard Dean’s campaign upset a
leading senate Democrat with its press operation.
Senator Carl Levine, ranking member of the Armed
Services Committee, accused Dean of
shooting-from–the-hip. The flap is regarding the
Senate Armed Services Committee’s approval of the
promotion of Maj. Gen. Robert Clark to lieutenant
general. It seems the gay community has lobbied
against Clark’s promotion because of the handling
of a murder investigation at Fort Campbell in
1999. Subsequently Dean has tried to take
political advantage of the situation by issuing a
release dated Oct 23 on his website asking
supporters to contact their senators to block the
promotion. There were substantial errors in the
original release. The first release by Dean said
that Gen. Clark was being promoted to the 2nd
highest rank. That would have been a promotion to
Army’s Vice Chief of Staff, not Lieutenant
General. The second mistake was saying that Clark
never met with the parents of the murdered victim,
which was not true. The Dean campaign has put up a
new release, which omits these factual errors, but
has failed to post the fact that the release is
revised or the date of the revision. In a campaign style reminiscent
of Bill Clinton’s rapid response team, Dean fired
back against Al Sharpton’s charge that Dean stated
in 1995 that he did not favor affirmative action.
Dean is quoted as saying, "You know, I think we
ought to look at affirmative action programs
based, not on race, but on class and opportunities
to participate." Dean excused away the comments as
being about people who don’t have money and
insisted that he is for affirmative action.
Sharpton continued to push the issue by suggesting
that Dean should just say that he has changed his
position rather than “accusing someone of not
talking straight. The accusation by Sharpton
against Dean came after the announcement that
Jesse Jackson Jr. planned to endorse Dean.
Jackson’s office also became part of the mix by
saying that Sharpton was inaccurate in saying that
Dean was against affirmative action. All of this
is important on Feb. 3 when the South Carolina
primary is held. It is expected that half of the
voters in that primary will be black voters. Howard Dean stepped up his
anti-war drum beat with intensified criticism of
President Bush’s handling of the war. Dean also
used veiled language in his press release
indicating President Bush is a liar regarding the
banner on the USS Abraham: "…We heard him
[President Bush] try to walk away from the USS
Abraham 'End of Major Combat Operations'
announcement, absurdly claiming that the White
House was not responsible for the 'Mission
Accomplished' banner that decorated the flight
deck. He tried to argue that our actions are
supported by the Iraqi people, when poll after
poll suggests that more and more Iraqis are
becoming fed up with the American occupation. And
he was adamant that the US will remain in Iraq,
but failed to offer any insight as to what he
would do to address the increasingly dire
situation. This President appears to lack the
leadership skills required to do what is necessary
to successfully stabilize and reconstruct Iraq
before the window of opportunity closes. Instead,
President Bush seems content to pursue the current
flawed plan, unwilling to do what is necessary to
encourage our friends and allies to assist,
incapable of taking the steps necessary to
expedite the transfer of sovereignty to the
Iraqis, and content to direct billions of dollars
to special interests like Halliburton. And US
troops and taxpayers are suffering as a result,”
said Dean. Joe Lieberman is putting up
television ads in New Hampshire. He is using the
old political trick of letting the contributor
pick which ad they want to buy on his website. The
visitor to his website can view two new Lieberman
ads. The pitch for money goes like this: Here's
your chance to be a media consultant AND help Joe
stay on the air in New Hampshire. Choose your
favorite ad and then make a contribution that will
go directly toward keeping that ad on the air in
New Hampshire. One of the ads uses the tried and
true social security scare tactic tied to class
warfare. Here is the meat of the ad: "Look
at this. The Republicans are talking about
billions of dollars in new tax breaks for
corporations. It's unbelievable. They're going to
ransack the whole social security trust fund if we
don't stop them.” Then there is the war:
"Eighty-seven billion dollars is a lot of money
for Iraq, too much in fact. That's the price we're
paying because George Bush antagonized our allies,
and had no plan to win the peace. But we had to
make a choice. I didn't duck it. I didn't play
politics. I voted to support our troops and finish
the job.” Mike Glover of
Associated Press has a story today regarding
the difference in style between Gephardt and Dean.
Their two campaigns represent a classic contest
between new and old, a Web-generation's way of
getting out the vote versus a union-tested method
that has worked for political veterans since the
emergence of the caucuses in the 1970s. While it looks like most of
California is burning, Gephardt is more interested
in starting a fire over Dean’s position on Social
Security and Medicare. Gephardt’s
website is the latest firebomb of Dean’s
record. Gephardt has dedicated the top center of
his website to the fiery topic. Visitors can link
onto a page that shows comparison graphics between
Gephardt and Dean on Medicare. Another link
takes you to “Dick
Gephardt fighting for Medicare”. Gephardt
aides are hinting they are likely to highlight the
issue in direct mail or television ads. Without a
doubt, this will result in a Dean fire brigade
showing up in response. Here are some of the
headlines highlighted on the ‘fighting for
Medicare’ webpage:
* Gephardt said cutting Medicare is unnecessary
and wrong;
* Gephardt led the fight against then-Speaker Newt
Gingrich's plan to slash Medicare by up to $270
billion;
* Gephardt pointed out that "slowing the rate of
growth in Medicare" - which is how Republicans
(including Newt Gingrich and Sen. Pete Domenici)
described their plans - would result in benefit
cuts;
* Gephardt said the idea of cutting Medicare to
save Medicare a false argument.
* Gephardt refused to support even the
alternative, smaller Medicare cuts endorsed by
many other Democrats;
* Gephardt has consistently opposed
"means-testing" in Medicare and Social Security;
* Gephardt insisted that any reforms in Medicare
should be undertaken only to strengthen the
program - never in the name of "balancing the
budget;
* In 1999, Gephardt led the fight against a
radical overhaul of Medicare that would have
relied on Medicare "vouchers." Wesley Clark was firing bullets
at President Bush regarding his responsibility for
9-11, and that was just a warm-up. He further
argued that Bush has manipulated facts, stifled
dissent, retaliated against detractors, shown
disdain for allies and started a war without just
cause. Then he called Bush's labeling of Iraq,
Iran and North Korea as an axis of evil "the
single worst formulation in the last half century
of American foreign policy." Check out the
coverage in the
Associated Press: There is no way this
administration can walk away from its
responsibility for 9-11," Clark told a conference,
titled "New American Strategies for Security and
Peace." "You can't blame something like this on
lower level intelligence officers, however badly
they communicated memos with each other. ... The
buck rests with the commander in chief, right on
George W. Bush's desk." Get Armed with Information on
the Vision for a New American Patriotism is the
lead-in on the Clark web-page with a picture of
West Point beside the come-on. When you go to the
link you are asked to sign-up and be a part of the
campaign’s propaganda effort:
Clark campaign webswite. Dennis Kucinich's presidential
campaign has just received endorsements from a
number of prominent Americans, including actor and
activist Danny Glover, author Howard Zinn,
Democratic leader and former Wisconsin
gubernatorial candidate and former head of the NFL
players' union Ed Garvey, Founder of the School of
the Americas Watch Father Roy Bourgeois,
Co-Founder of Global Exchange Kevin Danaher, the
American Vegetarians, and Comedian Professor Irwin
Corey. Here is a list from Kucinich’s website: Dr.
Patch Adams, Aris Anagnos, Edward Asner, Ed Begley
Jr., Linda Blair, Grace Lee Boggs, Blase and
Theresa Bonpane, David Clennon, Ben Cohen, Jeff
Cohen, Blanche Wiesen Cook, Peter Coyote, James
Cromwell, Kevin Danaher, Ani DiFranco, Ronnie
Dugger, Barbara Ehrenreich, Riane Eisler, Hector
Elizondo, Kathy Engel, Matthew Fox, Marilyn
French, Arun Gandhi, Lila Garrett, Ed Garvey,
Ronnie Gilbert, Angela Gilliam, Danny Glover,
Elliott Gould, Granny D, Jerry Greenfield, John
Hagelin, Tom Hayden, Randy Hayes, Sen. John
Hottinger, Nicholas Johnson, Van Jones, Mimi
Kennedy, Ynestra King, David Korten, Winona LaDuke,
Gail Lerner, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Willie Nelson,
Grace Paley, Rosalind Petchesky, Ram Dass, Marcus
Raskin, John Robbins, Eric Roberts, Tanya Roberts,
Loretta Ross, Digna Sanchez , Roy
Scheider, Jonathan Schell, Paul Schrade, Stanley
Sheinbaum, Pete Seeger, Jean Shinoda
Bolen, Paul Alan Smith, Richard Stallman, Meredith
Tax, Studs Terkel, Harvey Wasserman, Haskell
Wexler, Marianne Williamson, Rep. Lynn Woolsey,
Dr. Quentin Young, Howard Zinn. Speaking of endorsements, the
national Green Party is disavowing the New
Hampshire Green Party’s endorsement of Kucinich,
according to a Manchester
Union Leader story. The Green Party of the
United States includes 43 accredited state Green
Parties, and will hold the party's national
convention in Milwaukee in June. The party is
based on peace, social justice and environmental
concerns. Kucinich is hot in New Hampshire
Union Leader today. There is also an
Associated Press story covering Kucinich speech to
college students. In the speech, he calls for
cutting 60 billion from defense and transferring
the money to a universal pre-kindergarten system
to aid single mothers or any working parents
struggling with the cost of day care. He considers
himself the true anti-war candidate in the
Democratic primary. He was the only candidate in
Congress to vote against the war, and has pledged
to implement a "Department of Peace" if elected.
How well did he go over? "I was able to relate
more with Lieberman, he talked more about college
and affording college and that's a big problem for
me," said Candace Cunha, a freshman at Saint
Anselm College from Loudon, New Hampshire. The Iraq War continues to take
center stage between the Democrat candidates. Dean
remains in position to dominate that subject much
to the consternation of Dennis Kucinich. The other
three who seem to be in a quagmire over the War in
Iraq are John Kerry, Wesley Clark and Joe
Lieberman. Edwards and Gephardt have strategically
placed themselves on a different track by focusing
on the trinity of Social security, health care and
trade. They also are focusing on Iowa more than
New Hampshire. Ronald Brownstein, of the
Los Angles Times provides an analysis of the
issue of the war and its effect on the Democrat
candidates: "The drift has been to accommodate
what the other candidates think are the positions
that helped Dean prosper," said Will Marshall,
president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a
centrist Democratic think tank. Just as important,
the continued prominence of Iraq is making it
tougher for Dean's rivals to focus attention on
other issues that might cause problems for him and
undercut his support.
* ON THE BUSH
BEAT: President Bush spokeswoman
further explained the situation of the banner
following his press conference. The Lincoln's crew
asked the White House to have the sign made. The
White House asked a private vendor to produce the
sign, and the crew put it up, said the
spokeswoman. She said she did not know who paid
for the sign, said a White House spokeswoman. Bush scheduled a White House
appearance Wednesday to underscore his support for
a drug benefit under Medicare, the government-run
program that provides health care for 40 million
disabled and older Americans. The bill also would
overhaul the 38-year-old program. "The best way to
provide our seniors with modern medicine,
including prescription drug coverage and better
preventive care, is to give them more choices
under Medicare," according to
Associated Press. The
Hill reports that the Senate Democrats are
planning to have their own investigation into
pre-war Iraq intelligence. Sen. Pat Roberts
(R-Kan.) said a separate investigation by
Democrats would “set a unique and unfortunate
precedent for the committee.” But he acknowledged
that “our committee rules are such that the vice
chairman has unique jurisdiction and authority.”
* THE CLINTON
COMEDIES: To a screaming crowd of about
5,000, former President Clinton took the stage
Monday night at ‘Dream One’ -- a Washington D.C.
nightclub hot spot -- to help the DNC raise money.
"We’ve got to have a policy where we make more
friends and fewer terrorists," Mr. Clinton said.
"An America where we all go forward together." As
reported by
CBS News. There is lengthy coverage of
the “Shake Your Booty” party in the
Washington Post: "I never had any money until
I left the White House," he says, causing D.C.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, standing beside him
onstage, to double over with laughter. "Now I have
plenty." He decries the Bush tax cut, saying, with
his slow slyness, "I never had any idea the new
president would take such good care of me. . . .
I'm a little embarrassed to live in a huge country
that gives me a huge tax cut and runs a huge
deficit so that when the baby boomers retire
you'll be taking care of them instead of your own
kids. I don't think that's right."
click here
Paid
for by the Iowa Presidential Watch PAC
P.O.
Box 171, Webster City, IA 50595
privacy
/ agreement
/
/ homepage
/
search engine |
