December 27, 2007 - 8:40 AM | Comment
PELLA, Iowa -- For 11 months now, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has stood in front of various blue signs where her first name stood out more than anything else, with the words "for president" in much smaller script.
But on Wednesday, eight days before the Iowa caucuses, she stood before an American flag here and in Cumming, Iowa, delivering a message that her Democratic opponents can't quite muster in the same way.
To paraphrase, she said: I know what it is to be commander in chief.
Of course she does. After all, she is married to a commander in chief. And now her presidential campaign has reverted to its original message: one person, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is uniquely experienced and uniquely qualified to lead the nation.
Gone are the sharp attacks on her chief rival, Barak Obama.
Gone is the subsequent attempt to reverse course and emphasize what those who know Clinton well always say: that she is warm and funny and altogether wonderful.
So we are back where we started, with the candidate who tells us she is ready to change, ready to lead. A week from today, Iowa Democrats will decide if it is true. What do you think?
-- Jerry Zremski
December 21, 2007 - 10:32 AM | Comment
Washington popularized the word "spin" decades ago to account for the way political consultants tilted or shaped campaign talk. Here comes another: "Air Drop."
An "air drop" is a semi-secret appropriation to help members of the Democratic majority whose re-election in 2008 is menaced. In warfare, airdrops supply troops trapped behind enemy lines.
Washington's airdrops help political soldiers who need to show influential supporters they can bring home the bacon.
In the first session of Congress under Democratic rule in 12 years, there were an estimated 300 special airdrop bills -- funding questionable projects with your money -- slipped into a massive budget bill passed as the House and Senate headed home for Christmas parties, junkets and campaign fund-raising.
Members will return here after an absence of three winter weeks, some of them sporting deep suntans.
The air drops were all included in a bill that is more than 3,500 pages long. Members of the House saw it for the first time less than 24 hours before they passed it. The Senate had about 36 hours to inspect the legislation.
No single member of the House or Senate; no staffer knows for sure what is in it. The president, who will sign it, certainly does not know. It provides about $600 billion in spending for all federal departments.
The legislation is a failure on a number of fronts. First, President Bush persuaded a handful of Republican senators to tie up spending initiatives he didn't like with threats of unlimited debate, called filibusters.
On the other side were the top Democratic appropriators: the Senate's aging Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia who no longer has the stamina or sharpness to engage in long, drawn-out negotiations over spending; and House Appropriations Chairman David Obey of Wisconsin, an irascible liberal who couldn't face the fact that there is a still a Republcan in the White House threatening vetos.
There are supposed to be 13 separate spending bills passed every year, not just one. They were supposed to be passed last summer for a federal fiscal year that started last Oct. 1.
These special rescue, airdrop bills are a small, but growing share of bills known as "earmarks." Earmarks are pecial interest spending provisions that never see the light of day in a congressional hearing. Too often these earmarks went to friends of House members and senators who, in turn help raise campaign funds for incumbents. Quite often the beneficiaries of these earmarks hired pals and even relatives of House members and senators.
The Democrats came to power last January promising "transparency" to the earmark, or airdrop, system. But of course there was no time to even know what all these earmarks were for when one must search through a 3,500-page bill in less than a day.
No one agrees on the total number of earmarks in the bill, or exactly how many of them are "airdrops." Chairman Obey estimated there were 9,000 earmarks, including the 300 airdrops inserted quietly in the session's final days. Congress had already approved another 2,000 earmarks in November.
It will take months to find out who got what. But Taxpayers for Common Sense said the bill underwrote $20 billion in risky loans for the nuclear power industry, and $8 milion in loans for the coal companies, and $100 million for presidential security at next year's political conventions. That's right, $100 million.
Amtrak got just enough money to keep pace with inflation, but nothing for developing high-speed corridors or create trackage for the riding public. It provides only a $1 billion to upgrade the nation's crumbling bridges and federal higheways.
Thanks to leiglsation like this, discretionary spending in Washington is growing at a rate of 9 percent, or three times inflation. This does not include funding for Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare.
Is Congress out of control, or what?
--Douglas Turner
December 20, 2007 - 2:20 PM | Comment
It's become quite clear over the past year that Gov. Eliot Spitzer is no fan of the Capitol press corps -- AKA the Legislative Correspondents' Association.
Still, his aides brought a large, framed photograph of the governor up the one flight of stairs to the LCA, where the black and white image was put in place this morning -- on Day 355 of his admininistration -- along a wall of photographs of other governors dating back to Teddy Roosevelt.
Maybe fitting, but the Spitzer photograph is hardly warm and fuzzy; LCAers here this morning have characterized it as everything from Spitzer looking angry to confused. [Of course, mabe they were just upset their favorite Spitzer photograph -- a beach shot featuring a shirtless, smiling governor -- didn't make it onto the wall.]
Either way, he's here -- at least on paper -- and reporters can look up from their cluttered desks to the Spitzer image looming large in the center of the press room. Like the governor, who has rarely come to Albany since the whole troopergate affair blew up in July, the photograph also isn't much in the mood for answering questions.
As for George Pataki -- remember him? -- his photograph was moved into a corner slot, above the desk of a Bloomberg News reporter who was away from the office and had no say in the matter.
-- Tom Precious
December 19, 2007 - 3:20 PM | Comment
Ah, yes. It's Christmas, and politics takes a breather for a few days.
But only on the surface.
Instead, politics shifts to the party scene this week, including Sen. Bill Stachowski's traditonal get-together in his storefront office on Clinton Street. That gathering includes lots of old friends like former Mayor Tony Masiello, and the finest assortment of kielbasa and lazy perogi on the face of the earth.
But the big party -- the one that draws the big names of the politics community -- is developer Carl Paladino's shindig scheduled for Wednesday night in the lobby of Ellicott Square. King Carl always gathers a few hundred of his closest friends (that's why it's nice to own Ellicott Square) for a fine assortment of food and drink, where anybody who's anybody gets to meet everybody.
Oh, not all are invited -- mainly because Paladino is an outspoken sort who has lots of opponents too. But the friends side outweighs the enemies side, so lots of friendly politics transpires underneath the big Christmas Tree in the atrium lobby.
It's affairs like Paladino's and Stachowski's that make politics so interesting. It is, after all, a people business. It's not widget manufacturing, or a strict discipline that depends on the principles of business and science. It's all about people talking, exchanging information, maybe even gossiping. It's fun stuff, and allows all political stripes to forget the battles of the past year and come together to celebrate the holidays.
And it's not a bad place for some nosy political scribe to hang out for a night either.
-- Robert J. McCarthy
December 19, 2007 - 3:16 PM | Comment
A clerk in a large retail chain store in Washington says tentatively, "Happy holidays" in reply to a customer's greeting of "Merry Christmas." The checkout man looks around and says, sheepishly, "I am told to say 'Happy holidays.' "
Downtown, the few store windows with holiday displays all say "Happy holidays" if they say anything.
The National Press Building's lobby has a magnificent 15-foot tree festooned with lights and ornaments and red ribbons here and there. Yet there is no greeting. No mention of holidays or the nativity.
Upstairs in the National Press Club, there is another large and beautifully decorated tree, with boxes nearby that are covered with holiday paper, ribbons and bows. Around the club's foyer there are more scarlet ribbons and chains of lights. Nowhere in the room is there any label telling us what all this fuss and expense are about. No words. No sign.
At the club's front counter, there is a box that members of long standing recognize as the place to leave holiday tips for the club's employees. Yet there is no label on the box saying anything.
Although members of Congress will be gone for almost two weeks on holiday break, virtually none of their Web sites acknowledge anything but war, the budget and all the things they are doing for us with our money.
Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy is an exception. His Web site shows two photographs of the huge tree brought from the Green Mountain National Park in his home state of Vermont, which now stands before the Capitol. And yes, Leahy describes it as a Christmas tree.
What does the celebration of Christmas - without actually acknowledging it - say about this country?
Does anyone outside Washington still say 'Merry Christmas' anymore?
--Douglas Turner
December 14, 2007 - 2:31 PM | Comment
Isn't technology great? The state Republican Party wasted little time spreading the word about a Brooklyn Democrat's angry speech on the state Senate floor Thursday evening demanding a pay increase for legislators.
"Show me the money,'" Sen. Eric Adams exclaimed in a speech reported this morning in The Buffalo News.
Also this morning, a simple message from the GOP's communications boss, who previously worked in the press shop of the Senate Republicans, appeared: "I thought you I thought you might be interested in the following comments made by Senator Eric Adams about pay raises for legislators,'" wrote Matt Walter, with a Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i-vVufiAd8.
Democrats say they are not surprised the outspoken Adams, a freshman legislator, spoke his mind so freely. The timing isn't necessarily great: Democrats are trying to take over the Senate next year so it's a particularly sensitive time for a lawmaker to so publicly demand a raise, especially when a poll last week showed the overwhelming majority of the public against a salary hike for legislators
-- Tom Precious
December 13, 2007 - 4:54 PM | Comment
Some see the rise of Communist China at the expense of the U.S. played out every day. University of Maryland economist Peter Morici doesn't put it quite that way, but on Wednesday he reported that this country's overall trade deficit reached $57.8 billion in October. That's equivalent to one-twentieth of all the goods and services produced in this country for that month.
A little more than half that deficit is with China, and it is rising almost every month. Our trade deficit with China has increased five-fold since 2001.
The trade deficit weakens the purchasing power of the dollar worldwide, prods inflation, makes it harder for people to borrow money for houses and cars, and get credit generally. It also feeds pressure for a recession, which if it happened could double our trade deficit, Morici says.
By concidence, a report was released almost the same day as Morici's report on what the Chinese think about themselves and us, and what we think about the Chinese. The survery was commissioned by The Committee of 100, a non-partisan group of Americans of Chinese descent.
The Chinese themselves appear to be more conscious than Americans of who is going to win any struggle for supremacy between the two powers. More than half the Chinese surveyed -- 55 percent -- see China emerging as the number one global superpower in the next twenty years. By contrast, half of the Americans polled think that the U.S. will remain on top, with China ranked second after two decades.
Americans and Chinese agree on who will be the major influence in the Pacific basin in 20 years--China. Americans said that after China, the U.S. will rank second in Asian influence, followed closely by Japan and South Korea.
In China, 74 percent Communist Party members polled think their regime will come out first in Asia in 20 years. Americans are more anxious than they were two years ago about China military aims. Younger Americans tend to view China more as a threat than as an ally.
A majority of Americans -- 54 percent -- blame China for job losses in this country. But nearly three quarters of leaders polled in China disagreed their nation's practices are costing American jobs.
China maintains its huge trade surplus with the U.S. by manipulating its currency. China deliberately undervalues its yuan so it can sell cheap goods to Americans. Borrowing from China is helping to pay for our war efforts in Iraq and Afganistan.
The Chinese central bank is on track to purchase $450 billion in American and other foreign currencies this year. Morici says that and currency manipulation amounts to a Chinese subsidy of 45 percent on its exports. The games China plays with its money also raises barriers to imports from the U.S. and other countries.
Morici said China routinely violates its treaty obligations under the World Trade Organization by providing subsidies and tax breaks to its manufacturers.
Will America's addiction to Chinese goods and our government's weakness in confronting China on its broken currency and treaty obligations break the American economy and reduce us to a second-rate power?
--Douglas Turner
December 13, 2007 - 2:13 PM | Comment
3:26 p.m.
Well, it's over. And amazingly, there appears to be an audience in the studio clapping.
It was...every bit as dull, from start to finish, as yesterday's GOP debate -- and sans Alan Keyes, maybe even more so.
So who won? What do you think?
3:23 p.m.
Well, we're nearing the end, and you can tell because moderator Carolyn Washburn just asked the candidates for their New Year's resolutions.
Characteristically, Hillary Clinton has a multi-point plan, vowing to see more of her family, spend more time exercising regularly, and wage the best possible campaign.
And just as characteristically, John Edwards vowed to remember that somewhere tonight, some children will be going hungry.
Barack Obama gave an answer that sounded unscripted and straight from the heart. He vowed to be a better husband and a better father, and to remind himself that the campaign is not about him -- and he ended with a sweet story about buying a Christmas tree with his daughters yesterday.
3:16 p.m.
Now even one of the candidates is laughing at moderator Carolyn Washburn's questions.
Washburn just asked Barack Obama how he could have an independent break from the past in foreign policy when his campaign team relies on so many former Clinton administration officials.
Hearing that, Hillary Clinton laughed and laughed and couldn't stop laughing, leaving Obama to say: "I want to gather up talent from everywhere."
3:12 p.m.
OK, this is getting a bit more interesting. The moderator just asked Hillary Clinton about the concerns of Iowans who think her White House will be as secretive as her 1993 effort as first lady to reform America's health care.
"I learned a lot from that experience," she replied. "I learned you need to have a strong communications strategy."
Beyond that, she promised to run an "open and transparent government."
"Let's have as much sunlight as we can possibly gather," said Clinton -- who, curiously, runs an airtight, leak-proof campaign and who holds only occasional media availabilities on the campaign trail.
3:01 p.m.
Carolyn Washburn, the much-maligned moderator of the Des Moines Register debates, isn't having a much better today than she had yesterday. She just granted a surprised John Edwards extra time to talk about education even though he had already done so.
Afterwards, Washburn confessed that she mistook one of Edwards' hand gestures as a call for extra time -- so she granted him time he didn't want.
For the record, the Des Moines Register is a fine newspaper, and Washburn is its editor -- a position for which debate-moderating skills are not a job requirement.
2:53 p.m.
Hillary Clinton just got her chance to speak straight to the camera for 30 seconds, and she used her time to lob a thinly veiled insult at Barack Obama.
"Everybody wants change," she said. "Some people think you get it by working for it. Some people think you get it by hoping for it."
Halfway through, that's the closest thing to conflict that we've seen on this stage.
2:51 p.m.
Hillary Clinton just prompted guffaws across the press room with her comment that Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa is "working like a Trojan."
No further comment necessary...
2:49 p.m.
Finally the candidates seem to care about what they're saying, with a series of impassioned responses to a question about energy security and the environment.
Hillary Clinton just advocated a move toward alternate forms of energy to free America from its dependence on foreign oil." This has to be a call for a new form of American patriotism," she said.
Barack Obama agreed without saying he agreed, noting: "This is a moral imperative. I have a 9 year old and a 6 year old, and I want to make the world as beautiful for them as it is for me."
And John Edwards returned to Clinton's theme of listing the country in the cause of energy security. "It's about time we had a president who asks America to be patriotic in something other than war," he said.
Shockingly, the exchange ended with a rare moment of humor, as Clinton suggested to the moderator that she ask for a show of hands of candidates who believe climate change is a problem. The moderator tried that Wednesday, causing a revolt of the Republican candidates led by Fred Thompson.
2:36 p.m.
NAFTA is a touchy issue for Hillary Clinton, since it's a key part of her husband's presidential legacy, but she's not afraid to say it needs to be changed.
"It should be changed," she said, arguing that a review of all America's trade deals is needed to make sure they really bolster American trade.
Barack Obama agreed with her, saying that as president he would meet with the Canadian prime minister and Mexican president to discuss the deal. But then, somehow, his answer to the NAFTA question spun away from trade and toward human rights, as he criticized the Bush Administration for suspending the habeas corpus rights of terror suspects.
2:29 p.m.
So far so much of this debate is a series of snippets from the candidates' stump speeches, minus the audience and the passion. Quoting Martin Luther King, Barack Obama just delivered an eloquent 30-second argument about the "fierce urgency of now," saying vast changes are needed to bring America back to its original values.
He's said the same things many times before, and before a live audience, it's a message with real power. But somehow in this format Obama, like the rest of the candidates, seems oddly drained of emotion.
2:19 p.m.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are at the opposite ends on the stage, with Obama on the left and Clinton on the right and four other candidates in between. And two candidates -- Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel -- aren't even here.
They both flunked the Des Moines Register's bizarre debate qualifications rules, which are comparable in complexity to those the NFL uses to determine who qualifies for the playoffs when teams have identical records.
By those standards, Gravel and Kucinich were barred because they didn't have campaign offices here by Oct. 1.
But Alan Keyes qualified for the Republican debate. Go figure.
Now the candidates are all agreeing that China is breaking world trade rules. And I'm starting to miss Keyes.
2:12 p.m.
Well, today's debate between the Republican candidates is starting in the same sizzling fashion as yesterday's "conflict." Carolyn Washburn, the editor of the Des Moines Register, just asked the first question -- and it's the same one as yesterday's, about the government's fiscal future.
The good news is that Washburn is giving the candidates a full minute to answer this time, twice what the Republicans got.
Much to the surprise of no one, all the candidates say they are for fiscal responsibility -- but that it will take more than a year or two to bring the budget back in line.
Yawn. We knew that already.
So much for the notion that this debate might begin with sharp contrasts between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
December 13, 2007 - 11:40 AM | Comment
JOHNSTON, Iowa … The pressure she faces today couldn't be any greater.
Critics on both the left and right savaged her last debate performance. On the left, Eric Kleefeld of Talking Points Memo called her the event's "clear loser."
On the right, Michelle Malkin dubbed her "schoolmarm," and Dean Barnett of the Weekly Standard likened her to "a latter-day Nurse Ratched."
No, I'm not talking about a certain senator from New York that bloggers on the far right and far left tend to love to hate.
No, the woman in the bloggers' bull's-eye is Carolyn Washburn, editor of the Des Moines Register, former managing editor at the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle and moderator of Wednesday's frighteningly dull yet simultaneously chaotic GOP presidential debate here.
Washburn will be at it again today, moderating the last debate between the six leading Democratic presidential candidates before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses. And we can only hope that she and the Register learned a little something overnight about how to stage a debate that matters.
In many ways, Wednesday's GOP debate seemed designed to fail.
"From the outset, Washburn announced that the candidates would not be discussing either Iraq or immigration. Swell! It's the biggest debate of the season, so let's take the two biggest issues off the table," Barnett groused.
Worse yet, the candidates endured countless pedantic questions about fiscal policy and other serious issues … and given only 30 seconds to answer each one.
And to top it all off, they had to fight for air time with the hyperventilating fringe candidate Alan Keyes, whom Washburn allowed to demolish that 30-second limit time and again.
"Appalling," said Jim Geraghty of National Review Online. "Extraordinarily frustrating. Alternately an uncontrolled circus and a banal snore-fest."
In Washburn's defense, I will say this much. As a long-time print reporter who this year is serving as president of the National Press Club, I've learned how difficult it is to control events where the cameras are running and the interview subjects are, well, talkative. Television pros are trained to handle these situations and, truth be told, print journalists like us are not.
But that defense probably won't fly with Iowa voters, who must have been deeply frustrated with what several longtime observers in the press room dubbed the worst debate they'd ever seen.
There's only one blessing going into today's Democratic debate.
Alan Keyes won't be on the stage … and the Democratic Alan Keyes, Mike Gravel, won't be there, either.
But I will be, blogging live from 2 to 3:30 p.m.
-- Jerry Zremski
December 12, 2007 - 2:14 PM | Comment
3:30 Well, it seems as if those 30-second answers must have been getting boring, because the moderator just gave each of the candidates 15 seconds to suggest New Year's resolutions for one of their opponents.
Say what?
And now it's over.
It sure wasn't anything like the YouTube debate; that much is certain. Not once in the last 90 minutes did any of the candidates directly and persistently engage another in a serious issue.
Not once did the candidates get the time to address an issue in any depth.
It's surprising, really. The old mainstream media … the Des Moines Register … produced a debate that was far more of a collection of sound bites than the one YouTube produced.
And unless you were listening to Fred Thompson, the sound bites weren't that good, either.
3:20 It looks as if Mike Huckabee thinks the age of 9/11 is over.
The candidates were just asked what they would accomplish in their first year of office, and most of them took the tried and true route of talking about building the American military, fighting Islamic terrorism and securing the borders.
But Huckabee's answer was strikingly different.
Saying he "liked the laundry lists" that the other candidates recited, Huckabee said his first-year goal would be to "be president of all the United States."
Noting that "polarized politics creates paralyzed government," Huckabee vowed to try to find a middle ground to bring progress on the issues facing the country.
"We've got to stop fighting among ourselves...We've got to be the united people of the United States," Huckabee said.
Obviously, Barack Obama isn't the only candidate trying to corner the market on a new kind of politics.
2:57 Fred Thompson is at it again. When the moderator asked the candidates to raise their hands if they believed climate change is a problem, Thompson harrumphed: "I'm not going to do hand shows!"
That prompted a free-for-all among the candidates, with several clamoring for air time and tripping over each other in the process.
But somehow Rudy Giuliani and Alan Keyes managed to deliver answers.
"Climate change is real, it's happening, and I believe human beings contribute to it," said Giuliani, who said the Republican Party ought to embrace the issue.
As for Keyes … well, he didn't really talk about climate change. He went on an indescribable rant reminiscent of the late John Belushi's commentaries on 'Saturday Night Live,' which always ended in the incoherent Belushi falling backwards out of his chair and disappearing.
But that didn't happen to Keyes. He's back again now, insisting on time to talk about education in America and insisting that an effort to "drive God out of America's schools" is one of the keys to America's education problems.
2:50 Well, if you think the North American Free Trade Agreement has not been especially good for the Buffalo area, you won't want to hear what Rudy Giuliani has to say.
"The reality is that NAFTA has been a good thing," the former New York mayor said, noting that American exports have gone up in wake of the huge trade agreement.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, the anti-immigrant candidate from Colorado disagreed, saying NAFTA caused plenty of economic damage … including in Mexico.
If NAFTA were benefitting Mexico, "why would all these people there be trying to escape?" Tancredo asked.
2:42 It looks like Fred Thompson is alive after all. So far his wit is the most memorable thing about this bizarre affair, which features the moderator asking the candidates to solve America's major fiscal and economic problems in 30-second sound bites.
After Mitt Romney, a multimillionaire, acknowledged that he doesn't think too much about
the tax rates of rich people, Thompson said: "My goal is to get into Mitt Romney's situation, where I don't have to worry about taxes anymore."
Thompson, longtime star of "Law and Order," also noted that the former Massachusetts governor … portrayed by many as a serial flip-flopper … has something in common with him.
"He's getting to be a pretty good actor," Thompson said.
2:25 So far this is the Eat Your Spinach debate. It started with a question about threats to our nation's economic security, and now we're on to a question about the sacrifices the candidates will ask the American people to make to reduce the national debt.
Not surprisingly, most of the candidates don't seem to be leaping forward with bold plans asking people to pay more taxes or do away with programs they don't need. Mitt Romney, for example, seems to think that consolidating programs to fight teen pregnancy will have a major budgetary impact.
But give Fred Thompson, the laconic former senator from Tennesee, credit for trying to provoke some real thought on the matter. He just raised entitlements -- including the third-rail of issue of Social Security -- as the major budgetary issue, warning people that Social Security and Medicare will run out of money by 2040 if something isn't done soon.
2:12 Des Moines Register editor Carolyn Washburn has just introduced the nine GOP candidates, and already one of the biggest questions is going unasked:
Why is Alan Keyes on this stage?
Keyes, sort of a modern-day Harold Stassen, is running for president again after losing his races for Senate in Maryland and Illinois. He's such a fringe candidate this time around that he hasn't qualified for any of the other recent GOP debates.
Yet there he is, to the right of the other eight candidates, both literally and figuratively (Rudy Giuliani, ironically, is on the left).
You have to wonder what Hillary Clinton thinks of all of this. After all, if Keyes had managed to beat Barack Obama in the 2004 Illinois Senate race, she might not have such worries in the Democratic primaries.
---Jerry Zremski
