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Iowa primary precinct caucus and caucuses news">
Iowa 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 DAILY
REPORT for Tuesday, September 23, 2003 ...
QUOTABLE: midday quotes:
“Democracy itself is at stake in this election.
The extreme right wing has shown nothing but
contempt for democracy.” – Dean, in
remarks prepared for Boston rally
“But at every turn, the Bush administration has
turned the Constitution on its head.” – Dean
“The shocking truth about the U.S. presidential
race is that the sudden and headlong collapse of
President Bush's popularity has created such a
vacuum that a new candidate such as retired Gen.
Wesley Clark has no difficulty soaring to the top
of the polls based on one week's publicity” –
New York columnist Dick Morris
“Clark's surge is not so much a testament
to his strength as to the weakness of Bush on the
one hand and the Democratic field on the other.” –
Morris
“He would be a bit like a latter-day Dwight D.
Eisenhower, except that nobody can quite recall
what war it is that he won.” – Morris on Clark
“It could be that the more [Clark's] heard,
the worse he does.” -- Andrew Smith, director
of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center
“Clark, of course, isn't really leading the
Dems' 2004 field, despite a Newsweek poll showing
his cruise missile of a campaign at 14 percent,
compared to 12 percent for Dean and Lieberman.
National polls are meaningless in this contest;
it's all about Iowa and New Hampshire and South
Carolina and the other early states.” – Howard
Kurtz on washingtonpost.com today
“Why give up the golden goose of the Clintons soap
opera, which made the '90s so much fun?” –
Kurtz, commenting on Hillary-may-run-in-’04
media coverage
“Well, occasionally it
blips on my radar screen, but not nearly as much
as you would think. I've got a job to do. I'm
occupied.” – Bush, saying he’s not paying
attention to the Dem wannabes
“I appreciate
people's opinions, but I'm more interested in
news. And
the best way to get the news is from objective
sources, and the most objective sources I have are
people on my staff who tell me what's happening in
the world.’ – Bush morning quotes: … Among
the offerings in today’s update:
midday offering:
Former NH Guv to serve as Kerry’s national
chairwoman
Dean takes battle to Kerry Country today, tells
Boston rally “democracy itself is at stake” in the
’04 election
Bush says he’s “not paying attention” to the Dem
derby In
New York Post, Dick Morris writes that Clark
will fade – and explains why
Washington Post media watcher Kurtz says some will
see Clark’s surge in polls as a Hillary-inspired
plot
Hartford Courant reports on tough September in the
Lieberman camp as “poll after poll this month
has shown him nudged off his perch.” morning offering: *
CANDIDATES/CAUCUSES: Midday …
Kerry, in tough fight with Dean for New
Hampshire, nets key campaign leader: Ex-Guv Shaheen.
Headline this morning on FOXNews.com: “Former N.
H. Governor to Chair Kerry Campaign” Coverage by
AP’s Holly Ramer from Manchester: “Former New
Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen was named national
chairwoman of Democrat John Kerry's presidential
campaign Tuesday. Shaheen, the most sought-after
Democrat in the state, had steered clear of the
presidential race to focus on teaching. Her
endorsement of the Massachusetts senator was no
surprise given that her husband, Bill Shaheen, is
running Kerry's New Hampshire campaign. But the
timing was unexpected since Shaheen had agreed to
moderate four candidate forums next month. The
announcement also came shortly before Kerry's
top rival in New Hampshire, Howard Dean, was
speaking in Boston -- Kerry's turf. Dean
maintains a double-digit lead over Kerry in state
polls. Shaheen shattered the glass ceiling in
1996 when she was elected New Hampshire's first
female governor and its first Democrat in 16 years.
She made it onto Al Gore's short list of
potential White House running mates in 2000. And
last year, she came close to being the first
Democrat elected to the Senate from New Hampshire in
nearly three decades. After losing the Senate race
in November to Republican John E. Sununu by about
20,000 votes, Shaheen spent the spring semester
teaching at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
Shaheen, 56, was born in St. Charles, Mo., and grew
up in a Republican family. She and her husband
settled in New Hampshire in 1973, and three years
later she worked on Jimmy Carter's winning campaign
for president. In 1984, she helped Colorado Sen.
Gary Hart score a primary upset of front-runner
Walter Mondale.”
…
Dean – in Kerry’s
backyard – to tell Boston rally today that Dems must
win to protect nation’s ideals, says right has
“contempt” for democracy.
Report – an excerpt – by
AP political warrior Will Lester:
“Howard
Dean says his campaign is not about who will be the
2004 Democratic presidential nominee, but who will
protect democracy and the nation's ideals from the
Bush administration. ‘Democracy itself is at
stake in this election,’ Dean said in remarks
prepared for delivery Tuesday in Boston. ‘The
extreme right wing has shown nothing but contempt
for democracy.’ The former Vermont governor
invoked historic acts from the Boston Tea Party to
the creation of the Bill of Rights in his speech set
for delivery at a rally in Copley Square in downtown
Boston. ‘Once again, we stand here in Boston as
patriots -- and we stand with more than 410,000
other patriots around this nation who have joined
this campaign, and countless millions more who share
our values,’ Dean said. Dean set his
speech in the city that will play host to the
Democratic National Convention next summer and also
is the hometown of a principal rival, Massachusetts
Sen. John Kerry. Boston news stations also
consider New Hampshire a major market for their
telecasts. Dean and Kerry have been
battling in New Hampshire for months, with Dean
currently holding about a 10-point lead in the polls
in the state with a presidential primary tentatively
set for Jan. 27. Political analysts say Dean's
success in the states with early contests has been
closely related to his sharp criticism of the Bush
administration, which has tapped into Democrats'
anger over Bush policies. Dean said
Americans ‘are no longer willing to allow the
further depletion of our nation's treasury through
tax cuts for this administration's wealthiest
contributors.’ He criticized extensive political
squabbling while ‘41 million Americans live without
health insurance.’ And he said most are ‘no
longer willing to accept an administration lying to
the American people about the reasons for sending
our sons and daughters and brothers and sisters to
die in a foreign land.’ He recalled the founders
who outlined the vision for the nation's
Constitution. ‘But at every turn,’ Dean said,
‘the Bush administration has turned the
Constitution on its head.’” …
Lieberman’s prospects get even dimmer as polls
show his top-dog status fading – not to mention
losing potential to attract dollars and supporters.
The Hartford Courant’s David Lightman reported
in today’s edition: “Politics' September song is
not so sweet for Joe Lieberman: He's no longer the
national front-runner for the Democratic nomination.
His top-dog status, which he's been able to maintain
all year, was a source of pride to the campaign --
not to mention an important political selling point
as he tries to raise money and win supporters.
But poll after poll this month has shown him nudged
off his perch. The most recent evidence came Monday
as a Princeton Survey Research Associates survey for
Newsweek put retired Gen. Wesley Clark into
the lead with 14 percent of registered Democrats and
independents. Lieberman was tied with former
Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, each getting 12
percent. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry was
fourth at 10 percent. None of this really means
anything at this point, except to deny Lieberman and
the others bragging rights. And, ‘it makes
Clark look like he has some momentum, which
helps him raise money,’ said Dante Scala, research
fellow at the St. Anselm College Institute of
Politics. Insiders for months had downplayed the
ultimate significance of Lieberman's national edge,
noting that winning the nomination requires winning
states like Iowa and New Hampshire, where the
senator has struggled. But Lieberman kept pressing
the point, knowing that the national leader in the
early going often winds up with the nomination.
‘Lieberman has been talking about his edge in
national polls,’ said G. Evans Witt, president of
the Princeton group, ‘even though his lead was paper
thin and statistically insignificant.’ Of course,
so is Clark's. ‘It could be that the more
[Clark's] heard, the worse he does,’ said Andrew
Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire
Survey Center. If there's any significance to
these and other numbers -- and there's some question
that there is -- it's that Lieberman thus far
has failed to capitalize on a huge name recognition
advantage. Gephardt inched ahead of
Lieberman this month in the Gallup Poll.
Quinnipiac last week reported a virtual four-way tie
among Lieberman, Dean, Kerry and Gephardt.
And now comes Clark. For the moment. As
Quinnipiac Polling Institute director Maurice
Carroll put it, ‘Clark is the flavor of the
month.’”
…
CNN headline this
morning: “Bush ‘not paying attention’ to Democratic
race…President
getting his news from aides” Associated Press report
posted today: “President
Bush says he is paying virtually no attention to the
Democratic race for his job, even as the candidates
sharpen their criticism of his performance.
‘Well, occasionally it blips on my radar screen, but
not nearly as much as you would think. I've got a
job to do. I'm occupied,’ Bush said in a taped
interview telecast Monday night on the Fox Broadcast
Network…’The American people are going to make
that ultimate judgment as to whether or not I ought
to be re-elected.’ The president's 2004 campaign
has been humming for months. He has raised more than
$65 million at 21 fund-raising events since June for
a Republican nomination for which he faces no
opponent. His campaign offices employ dozens of
people. Nevertheless, Bush insisted he was ‘not
paying attention’ to the Democratic race. He said he
knew who the candidates are, but had not watched a
Democratic debate. Likewise, Bush's response to
the Democrats' specific criticisms about his
handling of the war in Iraq and the economy. ‘I
repeat, I'm not really paying attention to it,’ he
said. Bush said he insulates himself from the
‘opinions’ that seep into news coverage by getting
his news from his own aides. He said he scans
headlines, but rarely reads news stories. ‘I
appreciate people's opinions, but I'm more
interested in news,’ the president said. ‘And
the best way to get the news is from objective
sources, and the most objective sources I have are
people on my staff who tell me what's happening in
the world.’” … “The
General and the Lady” – headline on Howard Kurtz
column on washingtonpost.com this morning. Excerpt:
“I can't stop thinking about how Wesley Clark
rocketed to the top of the Democratic field
-- or about the media conspiracy types who see it
all as a Hillary plot…Clark, of course,
isn't really leading the Dems' 2004 field, despite a
Newsweek poll showing his cruise missile of a
campaign at 14 percent, compared to 12 percent for
Dean and Lieberman. National polls are
meaningless in this contest; it's all about Iowa and
New Hampshire and South Carolina and the other early
states. My guess is that Clark scored well
because he's a blank slate -- most people know only
that he's an ex-general who could give Bush a hard
time -- upon which frustrated voters can project
their hopes. But it's also a commentary on the lack
of enthusiasm for the rest of the field, except for
Dean. Most reporters, in fact, think they'll be
gone in a flash, leaving Dean and an anti-Dean
candidate, who might possibly be Four-Star Wes.
Clark has impressive drive and intelligence, but
also a fair degree of self-absorption. When I met
him a few months back in a green room, within three
minutes he was passionately describing how he was
unfairly cashiered by the Clinton administration
despite his hard-fought victory in Kosovo. When
I returned awhile later, he was recommending books
for my wife to read. Newsweek's Evan Thomas captures
that after a two-hour interview: ‘Clark did not want
to let go until he was sure the reporter understood
him -- not just understood him, but respected him,
believed him, appreciated him, liked him.’
Clark's Clintonite spinners, interestingly enough,
blame last week's Iraq flip-flops with reporters on
‘Clark's own naiveté about the brutish
simple-mindedness of the campaign press corps,’
writes Howard Fineman. Ouch. Now for the
Hillary part. I thought I understood why so many
cable shows were pushing the HRC-in-'04 question
last week: why let the facts get in the way of a
good story? Why be deterred by the former first
lady's repeated insistence that she's not running
this time around? Why give up the golden goose of
the Clintons soap opera, which made the '90s so much
fun? And, for conservatives, why deprive
themselves of the fun of continuing to kick around
one of the Clintons? But when I read William
Safire's latest column, I realized it was something
deeper than that. A chunk of the world still sees
the Clintons as power-hungry manipulators whose
thirst was not quenched by Bill's two terms and a
Senate seat for the missus. In that light, almost
everything can be construed as a plot to return them
to 1600 Pennsylvania, where this time she would get
the big office. Safire's thesis is that Dean
would dump the Clintons's pal Terry McAuliffe as
party chief if the outsider wins the nomination.
‘What if, as Christmas nears, the economy should
tank and President Bush becomes far more vulnerable?
Hillary would have to announce willingness to
accept a draft. Otherwise, should the maverick
Dean take the nomination and win, Clinton dreams
of a Restoration die.’ Clark, under this
scenario, helps deflate Dean, then steps aside for
Hillary and is rewarded with the VP spot. Great
reading -- even if the junior senator from New York
has no intention of subjecting herself to the wrath
of the vast right-wing conspiracy any time soon.
Now here's Dick Morris on Fox, saying that
Hillary got Carol Moseley Braun into the
race as a way of stopping Sharpton. Man, that
woman is powerful.”
… “Why Clark Will Fade” – headline on Dick
Morris’ column in this morning’s New York Post.
Excerpt from Morris’ report: “The shocking truth
about the U.S. presidential race is that the sudden
and headlong collapse of President Bush's popularity
has created such a vacuum that a new candidate such
as retired Gen. Wesley Clark has no difficulty
soaring to the top of the polls based on one week's
publicity. The most recent Newsweek survey
documents both Bush's crash and Clark's rise.
Bush is now down to a job-approval rating of only 51
percent. More ominously for the Republicans, in a
trial heat against any Democrat (except Howard
Dean), he scores below the crucial 50 percent mark.
Against Al Gore and John Kerry, he
gets only 48 percent, and against Clark,
drops to 47 percent. When an incumbent president
is below 50 percent of the vote, he is in desperate
trouble. (Bush still manages 52 percent against
Dean.) Asked if Bush should be re-elected,
Americans vote no by 50-44. Equally astonishing is
the sudden rise of Gen. Clark. After only a
week as the media's darling, he leads the Democratic
pack with 14 percent of the vote to Dean's
and Joseph Lieberman's 12 percent, with
Kerry at 10 percent and Dick Gephardt at
8 percent. The key to Bush's free-fall? Only 46
percent approve of his handling of postwar Iraq,
down 5 points from his ratings last week. Not only
do Americans mind losing soldiers, they also worry
about the cost of the occupation, with 56 percent
complaining that it is too high. Clark's rise is
clearly a media-inspired flavor of the week. When
Dean graced the front pages of Time and Newsweek, he
was similarly honored with a first-place rating.
Clark's surge is not so much a testament to his
strength as to the weakness of Bush on the one hand
and the Democratic field on the other. Clark will
not wear well. His early gaffes show his
inexperience. He would be a bit like a latter-day
Dwight D. Eisenhower, except that nobody can quite
recall what war it is that he won. The initial
enthusiasm for his candidacy really came from
Europe, where this general-who-opposes-war is the
kind of guy only the elites of Paris can truly love.
The only primary he has locked up is Democrats
abroad. But then Bill Clinton picked up the
Clark banner and had his staff rally around his
fellow Arkansan. Why? Hillary and Bill support
confusion, chaos and consternation as their
preferred strategy for Democrats in 2004. Determined
that nobody but they capture the White House -- or
even the Democratic Party -- the Clintons are
opposed to anyone who gains momentum. In the
18th and 19th centuries, Britain pursued a policy of
opposing any European nation that got too powerful,
always amassing a coalition behind the weaker states
to maintain the balance of power. This is
precisely the Clinton posture in this election year.
In the long run, Dean's momentum will prove
real and Clark's will be seen as bogus.
Dean has amassed a base of grassroots (or
cyber-roots) support by tapping into two groups --
gays and peaceniks. His message spread among them
not as a result of top-down advertising but by the
new Internet style of viral, horizontal marketing.
Gays and their supporters and anti-war zealots
spread the word among themselves that Dean
was their man. The result was a genuine outpouring
of backing from small donors and local activists.
The Dean candidacy is the first creation of the
Internet age. By contrast, Clark's is perhaps the
last of the media-created candidacies. Dean's
support will carry him through the early primaries.
He will likely score one-punch knockouts in Iowa
of Gephardt, in New Hampshire of Kerry, and in South
Carolina of Edwards. His three victims must win
their respective primaries because they come from
the state next door. Their failure to do so means
the end of their candidacies. Dean still can't
beat Bush. But how far can Bush drop before we
hear the splash at the bottom of the well?” Morning
… “Poll:
Bush down, Clark up…President
virtually tied with five Democratic challengers” –
headline on CNN.com. Excerpt:
“President
Bush has the lowest approval rating of his
presidency and is running about even with five
Democratic challengers led by newly announced
candidate Wesley Clark,
according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released
Monday. Fifty percent of 1,003 people questioned
for the poll approved of Bush's job performance --
down from 59 percent in August and 71 percent in
April -- the president's lowest rating since he came
to office in January 2001. The results of the
poll, conducted nationally by telephone between
Friday and Sunday, has a sampling error of
plus-or-minus 3 percentage points. ‘The GOP would
point out -- and they would be right -- that the
approval rating in the autumn before an election is
not a good predictor of how the election will turn
out,’ said CNN poll analyst Keating Holland,
pointing out that Ronald Reagan's approval rating
was in the 40-percent range in fall 1983, a year
before he was re-elected in a landslide. ‘This poll
may not have predictive value, yet [it could] still
show that the president is in trouble. Fifty percent
is not trouble yet, but if [Bush] keeps slipping, it
might be.’ Clark, the retired general who
announced last week that he would seek the
Democratic presidential nomination, emerged to lead
all the Democrats by at least 9 percentage points.
Of the 423 registered Democrats or
Democratic-leaning voters questioned in the poll, 22
percent said they would most likely support Clark in
2004. ‘The real question for Clark is
whether he can sustain his significant lead once the
hoopla over his entry into the race has died down,’
Holland said. ‘With over a year to go before the
actual election, there is no way this poll can
accurately predict the election outcome,’ he said.
Although 39 percent of respondents overall had a
favorable opinion of Clark, 48 percent said
they were unfamiliar with him. The strong support
for Clark compared with 13 percent support for
former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and 11 percent for
both Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and Missouri Rep.
Dick Gephardt. Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman had
10 percent backing. The poll of Democratic
voters has a sampling error of plus-or-minus 5
percentage points. Of the 877 registered voters
included in the poll, 49 percent said they would
vote for Clark, compared with 46 percent for Bush.
Each of the four other major Democratic candidates
came within three points of Clark's showing in a
hypothetical head-to-head race with the president,
the poll found. Kerry narrowly outpaced the
president, 48-percent to 47-percent. Bush held a
slim lead over Dean (49 to 46 percent), Gephardt (48
to 46 percent) and Lieberman (48 to 47 percent).
The poll of the 877 registered voters has a sampling
error of plus-or-minus 3.5 percentage points.
Although 59 percent of respondents said Bush had the
personal and leadership qualities that a president
should have, 51 percent said they did not agree with
Bush on issues that mattered most to them. The
evenly split results mirror the president's job
approval rating, which had dropped to 52 percent in
a poll conducted September 8-10 -- shortly after
Bush requested $87 billion to fund efforts in Iraq
and Afghanistan.”
… Kerry turns up the heat – again – on Dean,
charges the ex-guv of playing on the fears of
workers. Headline from this morning’s New York
Times: “Kerry Attacks Rival Dean Over
Protectionism” Excerpt from report by the Times’
David M. Halbfinger: “Ratcheting up his attacks
on his Democratic presidential rivals, Senator John
Kerry of Massachusetts yesterday accused former Gov.
Howard Dean of Vermont of playing on the fears of
workers and supporting protectionist trade policies
that ‘would send our economy into a tailspin.’
Speaking in Detroit, Mr. Kerry said that Dr.
Dean and Representative Richard A.
Gephardt of Missouri, who have staked out
traditional pro-labor positions on trade, were
pandering to unions and advocating a ‘retreat from
the global economy.’ But Mr. Kerry saved his
harshest words for Dr. Dean, aiming at what has been
a main thrust of his opponent's appeal to core
Democratic voters, tapping into a wellspring of rage
at the Bush administration. ‘Anger and attacks
are all well and good,’ Mr. Kerry said. ‘But
when it comes to our jobs, we need a president who
can build a barn, and not just kick it down.’…’Governor
Dean has said repeatedly that America should not
trade with countries that haven't reached our own
environmental and labor standards,’ Mr. Kerry
told the Detroit Economic Club. ‘I will assure
strong labor and environmental standards. But his
approach would mean we couldn't sell a single car
anywhere in the developing world.’ Mr. Kerry's
speech illuminated a quandary facing the Democratic
hopefuls on trade: how to attack the president for
losses in manufacturing employment, given that many
of those positions have been lost to trading
partners, without abandoning the Clinton
administration's support for open markets. Mr.
Kerry's solution, it seems, was to rail
against President Bush for failing to enforce the
trade standards on the books, much as opponents of
gun-control laws say they prefer to enforce existing
laws. Mr. Kerry promised to open export markets
in Japan and China and to require competitor nations
to lower tariffs along with the United States.
‘Given this administration's inaction, American
manufacturers can be excused for feeling like
economic roadkill,’ he said, accusing the president
of ‘sitting on his hands’ as America is abused by
its trading partners. ‘How many jobs do we have to
lose until this administration stops waiting?’”
… Clark, apparently positioning himself as the
new Southern candidate, goes to the Citadel to push
patriotism. Headline from this morning’s New
York Times: “Clark Calls for a ‘New American
Patriotism’: Report – as excerpt – from
Charleston by the Times’ Eric Schmitt: “Gen.
Wesley K. Clark called [Monday] for "a new American
patriotism" that would encourage broader public
service, respect domestic dissent even in wartime
and embrace international organizations like the
United Nations. General Clark, a former
NATO commander and Army officer who last week
announced his candidacy for the Democratic
presidential nomination, accused the Bush
administration of neglecting economic problems and
of pursuing a dangerous go-it-alone foreign policy.
But he also used the setting of the Citadel, the
military college here, to appeal to about 150 cadets
and civilians on the parade grounds to help restore
something loftier, a sense of national spirit that
he suggested that the administration's campaign
against terror had corroded. ‘We've got to have a
new kind of patriotism that recognizes that in times
of war or peace democracy requires dialogue,
disagreement and the courage to speak out,’ General
Clark said. ‘And those who do it should not be
condemned, but be praised.’ General Clark
made it clear he believed that the administration
had unfairly focused on whole classes of immigrants,
for fear of a minority within them. ‘Three million
Muslims have come to this country from Asia and the
Middle East,’ he said. ‘They didn't come because
they were afraid of our values. They came because
they wanted to live under them.’ [Monday] was Day 6
of the campaign, and General Clark's
20-minute stump speech at the hastily arranged event
here had a few rough patches. ‘Patriotism doesn't
consist of following the orders, not, not not when
you're not in the chain of command,’ the general
said, stumbling over his words and catching himself
before he inadvertently encouraged insubordination
in the ranks. Despite the stumbles, General
Clark heard good news in a CNN-USA Today-Gallup
poll that showed he had jumped ahead of the other
Democrats. The poll, conducted over the weekend,
showed him tying President Bush head to head.”
…”In letter, Dean clarifies Mideast stance” –
headline from this morning’s Boston Globe. Excerpt
from report by the Globe’s Sarah Schweitzer: “Democratic
presidential contender Howard Dean has written a
letter to the head of the Anti-Defamation League,
seeking to clarify his views on the Middle East
after being criticized for saying the United States
should be evenhanded in the region. ‘There is no
difference between our positions when it comes to my
unequivocal support for Israel's right to exist and
be free from terror,’ Dean wrote in the
letter, dated Sept. 15. ‘I stand firmly with you in
the war on terror and have called on the Palestinian
leadership to renounce violence and to dismantle the
terrorist infrastructure that exists inside the
Palestinian Authority.’ Dean added that ‘the
United States must remain committed to the special
longstanding relationship we have with Israel,
including providing the resources necessary to
guarantee Israel's long-term defense and security.’
Abraham Foxman, national director of the
Anti-Defamation League, said yesterday that his
concerns were allayed by Dean's letter, which
was sent in response to an earlier one Foxman wrote
to the former Vermont governor criticizing his
campaign statements about the Mideast. ‘I am
confident that the doctor is beginning to understand
and is learning the nuances,’ Foxman said. ‘The
fact that he declared he wants to be president does
not make him an instant expert.’ Dean, who has
staked his campaign on a willingness to speak
plainly, had been criticized for saying the United
States should not take sides in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for describing as
‘soldiers’ the members of Hamas, which the State
Department has designated a terrorist group.
Dean later said he used the word soldier to
justify the Israeli policy of assassinating Hamas
leaders and called for evenhanded treatment as a
means of saying the United States must act as an
honest broker in the peace process. His political
rivals deemed Dean's comments missteps, with some
questioning his ability to handle the delicate
diplomacy of the region if elected president.”
… “The
Clinton candidate”
– subhead on Greg Pierce’s “Inside Politics” column
in today’s Washington Times. The report: “’The
Clintons decided that the Democratic primary
campaign was getting out of hand,’ New York
Times columnist William Safire writes. ‘Howard Dean
was getting all the buzz and too much of the
passionate left's money. Word was out that Dean
as nominee, owing Clintonites nothing, would quickly
dump Terry McAuliffe, through whom Bill and Hillary
maintain control of the Democratic National
Committee,’ Mr. Safire said. ‘That's when word
was leaked of the former president's observation at
an intimate dinner party at the Clinton Chappaqua,
N.Y., estate that 'there are two stars in the
Democratic Party -- Hillary and Wes Clark.'…In
the meantime, the four-star general that Clinton
fired for being a publicity hog during the Kosovo
liberation has now been surrounded by the
Clinton-Gore mafia. Lead agent is Mark Fabiani,
the impeachment spinmeister; he brought in the rest
of the restoration coterie. When reporters start
poking into any defense contracts Clark
arranged for clients after his retirement, he will
have the lip-zipping services of the Clinton
confidant Bruce Lindsey.’” … Gephardt goes
for the rural vote in Iowa. Headline from this
morning’s Sioux City Journal: “Gephardt will
fight corporate monopolies, unfair farm trade pacts”
Excerpt from report – dateline: Bevington,
southwest of DSM – by Todd Dorman: “With a
tall stand of Iowa corn providing his backdrop,
Democratic presidential hopeful Richard Gephardt
vowed Monday to mow down corporate agricultural
monopolies and unfair trade pacts he argues have
spawned hard times in farm country.
In outlining his
agriculture agenda, Gephardt, a U.S.
representative from Missouri, also said he would
seek to boost the use of renewable energy --
including corn-based ethanol -- and place new limits
on federal farm subsidies he contends are ending up
in the hands of mega producers.
‘To me, Iowa is more than
a political way station and Iowa farmers are more
than a collection of votes,’ Gephardt said
during a speech on the Bob and Clara Bell farm in
rural Madison County. ‘I've spent decades
getting to know the hidden corners of this unique
and beautiful state and I've shared the frustration
of too many promises left unkept,’ he said.
Gephardt, who won Iowa's caucuses in 1988,
argued that his long relationship with Iowans has
translated into a farm record unmatched by his
rivals. Don Van Ryswyk, who farms 1,000 acres near
Indianola, caucused for Gephardt in 1988 and
plans to support him again this time around. ‘I've
known him a long time an I know what he stands for,’
Van Ryswyk said. ‘He knows more about agriculture
than anyone. He understands farming.’ Among his
agriculture proposals, Gephardt said he would push
to ban corporate meatpackers from owning livestock
and would direct the Department of Justice to
aggressively pursue ag monopolies just as it
prosecuted cases against Microsoft and other firms.
Gephardt pledged to form a special council on
farm competition and order the justice department,
agriculture department and Federal Trade Commission
to make records pertaining to ag mergers, contracts
and alliances public. His plan also calls for
stronger efforts to regulate livestock confinements.
‘The greatest threat to the farm family is not
drought, famine or plague. It's monopolies born of
government indifference,’ Gephardt said.
Gephardt argues that 10 percent of the motor
fuels sold in the nation should contain ethanol or
other renewable additives by 2010, compared to 2
percent currently. And he contends 20 percent of
all U.S. energy should be derived from renewable
sources by 2020.”
…
Hillary-will-run stories continue to persist.
“Dick
Morris: Hillary Discourages Donors to Other Dems”
– headline on NewsMax.com. The report: “U.S.
Sen. Hillary Clinton is actively discouraging
potential donors from contributing to any of the
announced Democrat presidential candidates, so
they'll have political cash on hand if she decides
to run next year.
So says Dick Morris, who pointed to a meeting two
weeks ago between Bill and Hillary Clinton
and 150 party fat cats held at the former first
couple's mansion in Chappaqua, N.Y. ‘When she had
that meeting with her money people up in
Westchester, one of the functions was to tell
everybody to stay out of the race – not to give
money to anybody else,’ Morris told WABC Radio's
Monica Crowley on Saturday. In fact, one former
mega-donor to Bill Clinton's past presidential
campaigns came to the Chappaqua soiree convinced
Hillary wasn't running, but left believing she could
change her mind. ‘Some people might have been
left with the impression that there's always a
possibility [that Hillary might run],’ said
John Catsimatidis, founder of the Gristedes
supermarket chain. ‘I was.’ Aside from any private
utterances, Catsimatidis and the rest of the guests
were treated to Sen. Clinton's announcement
that she'd like all present to stay on board ‘for my
next campaign, whatever that might be.’ Morris
predicted that the former first couple would ‘float
the rumor of her candidacy at various points to slow
down the momentum of other candidates’ -- and
thereby keep the party open to a Hillary Clinton
candidacy. ‘If she feels Bush is going to lose,
then she has to get into this race,’ he told
Crowley. ‘She has to be there as the viable
alternative if Bush is going to be defeated.’”
… Edwards toughens attacks on Bush in latest
media campaign. Report from today’s AP political
roundup: “John Edwards is launching ads in Iowa
that criticize President Bush's economic record,
with the Democrat calling it ‘outrageous that this
president has turned a five trillion dollar surplus
into a five trillion dollar deficit.’ The new
60-second commercial began airing Monday in Iowa and
will move quickly to New Hampshire, said campaign
advisers, who declined to disclose the exact cost of
the ad buy, saying simply that is was the most
concentrated buy of the campaign. The North Carolina
senator, who remains in single digits in recent
national polls, has been running ads in Iowa and New
Hampshire, but those spots were largely
biographical. The latest ads are designed to
highlight his differences with Bush. ‘And now
when we look at college education for more, doing
something about the health care crisis, his answer
is we don't have the money,’ Edwards says in
the commercial. ‘Well, why don't we have the money
George Bush? He gave it away in tax cuts to the
richest people in America.’ The commercial features
Edwards speaking to backers at a town
hall-style meeting.” … “Clark, Like McClellan, May Hoist
Party’s Antiwar Banner” – headline on Ronald
Brownstein’s column in yesterday’s Los Angeles
Times. Excerpt: “Retired Gen. Wesley Clark has
more in common than he probably realizes with George
B. McClellan, the last general the Democratic Party
nominated for president during wartime. As a
warrior, Clark could point to greater success
than McClellan. McClellan was such an indecisive
commander that Abraham Lincoln, who complained that
the general had a case of ‘the slows,’ relieved him
as head of the Army of the Potomac in November 1862.
Clark, as NATO supreme allied commander, led
the alliance's victory over Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic in the 78-day Kosovo war in 1999.
If anything, some critics in the Pentagon and other
governments considered Clark too aggressive in
fighting that war. But Clark's political appeal to
Democrats today has much in common with the allure
of McClellan to the Democrats who nominated him in
1864, at the height of the Civil War. During the
Civil War, Democrats were bitterly divided between
‘peace’ and ‘war’ wings. The peace Democrats hated
the Civil War and were willing to end it under
almost any terms; some were even willing to let the
South go. The war Democrats wanted to fight to
victory and reestablish the Union. But both
sides shared a common opposition to the way Lincoln
was prosecuting the war. Both abhorred its effect on
civil liberties in the North. Both, to their lasting
discredit, opposed making the war a crusade to end
slavery (even the war Democrats were willing to
accept slavery as the price of a compromise
reunification). And, as the election of 1864
approached, both wings faced a common problem: How
could they express opposition to the president's
strategy and aims in the war without seeming
disloyal to the nation itself? For the leaders of
the war Democrats, McClellan was the answer. He
shared their doubts about Lincoln's approach. But
as a former Army commander, McClellan offered the
best shield against the charges of disloyalty that
Republicans were routinely directing against
Democratic critics of the war (some of whom probably
deserved it.) ‘McClellan seemed the one man who
could legitimize the Democratic opposition to the
administration without having its loyalty
questioned,’ wrote John C. Waugh in his book on the
1864 campaign, ‘Reelecting Lincoln.’ Clark, as a
critic of the Iraq war, may be in a similar position
today. Does anyone really imagine that after
spending most of his adult life in the Army, Clark
will win the Democratic nomination because a large
number of voters believe he's developed better ideas
for improving school performance or covering the
uninsured than former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean or
Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts? If Clark
takes off — still a big if — he will almost
certainly do so by convincing Democrats that he can
express their hostility toward Bush's national
security strategy and repel Republican efforts to
paint the party as weak or unpatriotic. In that
sense, Clark's hole card looks a lot like
McClellan's. This analogy, of course, only
extends so far. McClellan and his supporters placed
themselves unambiguously on the wrong side of
history by failing to recognize the importance of
ending slavery; history's verdict on the Iraq war
won't be in for some time and isn't likely to ever
be so unequivocal. Yet, like McClellan, Clark has
the potential of bridging a war-torn party by
expressing views mostly acceptable to the doves from
a background attractive to hawks. Clark joins
the race facing many hurdles. He starts far behind
his nine rivals in organization and fund-raising.
Clark's brief, and mostly bland, announcement speech
didn't inspire much fear among his opponents. And
he's not nearly as well-known as other celebrity
generals of recent times, such as Colin L. Powell;
one poll this summer in New Hampshire found only a
third of Democrats knew enough about Clark to
express positive or negative opinions. Besides,
the Democrats haven't nominated a general for
president since Winfield Scott Hancock, who flopped
in 1880. But Clark has assets too. He's
attracted formidable political talent, including so
many confidants of Bill Clinton -- whom Clark served
under as NATO commander -- that some Democrats are
privately wondering if the former president is
pulling strings for Clark's campaign. Intimates
of both men say the answer seems to be no, though
Clinton is apparently praising Clark as
effusively in private as in public. ‘Let's put it
this way,’ said one Clinton ally on board with
Clark, ‘there wasn't discouragement [from
Clinton].’ But the greatest asset for Clark may
be the way in which he most directly echoes
McClellan. No one should underestimate how much
Democrats will like hearing criticisms of the war
with Iraq come from the mouth not of a politician,
but a general. Imagine a liberal derided at work
as a wimp for denouncing the war. It's one thing to
tell your co-workers that Howard Dean also
considers the war a mistake. It's another to say
that's the verdict of a retired four-star general
with a Silver Star and Bronze Star at home.”
* ON THE BUSH BEAT:
* THE
CLINTON COMEDIES:
… “Sen. Clinton Bashes Bush Administration” –
headline from FOXNews.com. Excerpt from AP report: “New
York Sen. Hillary Clinton said the Bush
administration is trying to impose a ‘radical
right-wing agenda’ on the United States and is
attempting to dismantle social programs such as
Medicare and Social Security. Clinton
made the comments at a fund-raiser for Providence
(R. I.) Mayor David Cicilline. Clinton
targeted the president's handling of the economy,
and said the Bush administration was out to
extinguish the legacy of her husband, Bill
Clinton, who was in the White House from 1993 to
2001, and other Democratic presidents. ‘I've got
to realize it's nothing personal,’ Clinton said.
‘They want to undo Johnson, Truman, Franklin
Roosevelt. They want to undo the New
Deal...It boggles the mind.’ Clinton, who has
said she won't enter the 2004 presidential race,
criticized the White House for not understanding
local issues that affect working class Americans
‘There are a lot of big challenges in the world
right now, things that are really quite difficult to
deal with, whether we talk about Iraq or the Middle
East or North Korea. And yet in the face of all
those challenges this administration has the time to
figure out how to take overtime away from millions
of hardworking Americans.’ Clinton's remarks
were made at a Cicilline fund-raiser.” *
NATIONAL POLITICS: *
MORNING SUMMARY: *
WAR/TERRORISM: *
FEDERAL ISSUES: *
TODAY’S IOWA LINKS: -- Des Moines Register:
www.DesMoinesRegister.com -- Quad-City Times:
www.QCTimes.com -- Radio Iowa/Learfield Communications:
www.radioiowa.com -- Los Angeles Times:
www.latimes.com -- Sioux City Journal:
www.siouxcityjournal.com -- NewsMax.com:
www.NewsMax.com -- FOXNews.com:
www.foxnews.com -- WHO Radio (AM1040), Des Moines:
www.whoradio.com -- New York Times:
www.nytimes.com -- CNN.com:
www.cnn.com -- Omaha World-Herald:
www.omaha.com -- WMT Radio (AM600), Cedar Rapids:
www.wmtradio.com -- Boston Globe:
www.boston.com -- WHO-TV, Des Moines:
www.whotv.com -- Chicago Tribune:
www.chicagotribune.com -- Various morning and midday newscasts from
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