Politics Now

Politics chat with News Washington Columnist Douglas Turner

Buffalo.com's IMportant People Recap with Douglas Turner

Douglas Turner was Buffalo.com's guest for this week's IMportant People segment. 

Here's a recap of the discussion:

Is Hillary Clinton's quest for the White House over?

    WASHINGTON -- With Democratic presidential nominee  Barack Obama leading between 6 and 10 percentage points in some national polls, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told interviewers today that her chances of ever running again for the top job are "probably close to zero."

    The New York Democrat told Fox News that she doubted she would run for Senate majority leader, and said she isn't likely to ascend to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    "I'm not seeking any other position than to be the best senator from New York that I can be," she said.

    "I ran for president because I  thought we had to make drastic changes, given what I viewed as the damage that the Bush administration had done here and abroad," she said. 'Now I'm going to work very hard with President Obama  to repair that damage. There's going to be a lot to do in the Senate. And he's going to need senators who are ready to legislate and fix a lot of our problems."

    Clinton, who has made 50 campaign appearances in behalf of Obama since giving up her own campaign, also appeared today on CNN's "American Morning" with John Roberts. Clinton told Roberts she believes that the Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, believes that he and the GOP vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, may have gone too negative on Obama.

    "I think that even John McCain realized that there were things being said that he did not want or approve of and made a comment to that effect, and I appreciated him doing that," she said. "This (Democratic presidential) campaign needs to stay focused on what the American people are focused on and not stray off into negativity and distraction and diversionary tactics because, after all, the next president will inherit I think some of the biggest problems any American president has walked into."

    "Let's stay focused on what we elect a person for. We hire a president to make the very best decisions, to have a good team around, to really push our country forward toward goals that are going to make us stronger and richer and safer and smarter in the future. I'm hoping that's what this election in the next three weeks will be about."

    Clinton said it is "exciting" to a have a woman on the Republican ticket, as did the Democrats in 1984. But she said she would prefer to have woman "that I agreed with." But merely having a woman as vice presidential nominee, Clinton said, "is not enough reason, and really no one will shatter that ceiling until we have a woman serving as president or vice president. But I am going to be supporting women and men with whom I agree -- who I believe have the right policies and the right ideas about what's best for America."

--Douglas Turner

 

Presidential Debate

Obama, McCain try to mute stands on abortion

WASHINGTON - Both presidential campaigns this week attempted to soften their stands on the issue of abortion. The platform committee for the Democratic National Convention, setting the stage for the nomination of Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, bid to woo pro-life voters with proposals aimed at reducing the need for abortions.

    Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the likely Republican presidential nominee, told an interviewer that he wouldn't necessarily rule out a pick for his running mate just because that person had been pro-choice. All GOP presidential candidates since Ronald Reagan in 1980 have been strongly anti-abortion, with the exception of George H.W. Bush in 1988, who wanted wiggle room on the issue.

    "I think that the pro-life position is one of the important aspects or fundamentals of the Republican Party," McCain told an interviewer. "And I also feel that - and I'm not trying to equivocate here - that Americans want us to work together. You know (former Pennsylvania Gov.) Tom Ridge is one of the great leaders, and he happens to be pro-choice. And I don't think that would necessarily rule Tom Ridge out."

       In 2000, Ridge was erased from the list of potential running mates for George W. Bush partly because the Catholic bishop of Erie, Pa., Donald Trautman, former vicar general of the Diocese of Buffalo, banned Ridge from attending Catholic functions outside of Mass in his diocese.

      McCain's statement did him no good with the National Abortion Rights Action League, which supports Obama. NARAL President Nancy Keenan said no one will be fooled by what she described as a momentary "flip-flop" by a candidate who is worried about falling poll numbers among women.

        The new Democratic language "strongly supports a woman's decision to have a child by ensuring access to and the availability of programs for pre- and post-natal health care, parenting skills, income support and caring adoption programs."

      This would be added to platform language, in force since 1988, that guarantees a woman's right to choose.

         Will these gestures to the great middle of the American opinion help either candidate?

-- Douglas Turner

Critics see pro-Obama media bias

With the lead anchors of ABC, CBS and NBC following Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama across Asia, the Middle East and Europe, are Americans seeing a media bias in favor of the Illinois senator?

A new Rasmussen Reports survey showed Monday that 60 percent of those surveyed said the media treats Obama better than Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, with 14 percent saying McCain gets more favorable coverage.

On Sunday, the media critic of the Washington Post, Howard Kurtz, said national media are in danger of undermining their credibility unless they post tough questions to Obama on the trip or try to even out their coverage. Kurtz, who has a media show on CNN, showed a string of Newsweek magazine covers of Obama as evidence of that publication's Democratic tilt.

Kurtz asked rhetorically whether reporters and news organizations were covering Obama "as if he were already president?" (Newsweek is owned by Kurtz's main employer, the Washington Post Company.)

Wolf Blitzer also raised the issue of media bias during his show on the left-leaning cable network, CNN.

Obama also got the break last week in print coverage, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism. Obama had a significant presence - 77 percent in the 342 print stories studied last week - compared to 48 percent for McCain.

As the debate swirled, the New York Times rejected an op-ed piece offered by McCain to expand on his views of the Iraq war. The Times did publish a piece on July 14 written by Obama on the same subject.

NBC News President Steve Capus told the Associated Press that he finds it funny this is an issue, considering how much people have accused the press corps — and still do — of being too cozy with McCain. The Arizona senator had been a frequent guest of "Meet the Press."

"We're just trying to do our jobs," Capus said. "There's no question that there's great news value in Sen. Obama's trip overseas. That's why we are doing this."

Talk show host Rush Limbaugh said, "my prediction is that the coverage of Obama on this trip will be oriented toward countering the notion he has no idea what he is talking about on foreign policy and defense issues and instead will prop him up as a qualified statesman. McCain, on the other hand, is a known quantity on these issues and his position does not excite nor fit the mainstream media's narrative on Iraq and Afghanistan, so they simply ignore it and him."

--- Douglas Turner      

New Yorker cartoon ignites a firestorm

   Monday was a typical Washington day, with the media providing us with a kerfuffle du jour to distract us from all of that repetitive stuff about gasoline prices, people losing their homes and soldiers dying in far-off wars.

   And this time the kerfuffle was all about ... a cartoon!

   In case you spent Monday in a submarine exploring the depths of Lake Erie and somehow missed it, The New Yorker this week ran a cartoon on its cover that featured Barack Obama in a robe and turban. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee was shown fist-jabbing his rifle-toting wife in an Oval Office where a portrait of Osama bin Laden hung above the mantle and the U.S. flag burned bright in the fireplace.

   Now this was supposed to be a parody of all the Internet-fueled hooey that's convinced some Americans that Obama is, well, just not one of us.

   And it reminded me of the woman I met in North Carolina a couple months ago, who said to me: "I hate Barack Obama. I think he's a Muslim. And I can't stand that minister of his!"

   Now what do you think she will make of that cartoon?

   -- Jerry Zremski

McCain says Social Security is a "disgrace."

WASHINGTON - At a town hall meeting in Denver, Colo., on Monday, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said "Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed."

Asked about the comment the next day (Tuesday), the Republican presidential candidate told CNN: "On the privatization of (old age and retirement) accounts ... I would like to respond that I want young workers to be able to, if they choose, to take part of their own money, which is their taxes, and put it into an account with their name on it. Now that's a voluntary thing; it's for young people; it would not affect any present day retirees or the system as necessary.

"So let's describe it for what it is. They pay taxes and right now their taxes are going to pay the retirement of present-day retirees. That's why it's broken; that's why we can fix it."

Jared Bernstein, an analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, said he is shocked by McCain's statement.

"That is truly an amazing quote," Bernstein said. "It's like saying, 'I just found out that taxes come from people. ... That's a disgrace.' It betrays a really quite scary lack of knowledge about basic government. I know he's not into this kind of stuff, but it would be hard not to know about the intergenerational financing of Social Security."

Who's right?

--- Douglas Turner

McCain differences from President Bush

Prescription drugs could be imported from Canada to save seniors money if Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, were elected president, a senior aide told reporters on Monday.

President Bush has opposed reimportation of drugs from Canada, where government health programs purchase them for less cash than can individuals covered under Medicare or private prescription plans in the U.S.

But Carly Fiorina, may have been hard-pressed to point to many other major differences between the senator and the Republican president he would like to succeed.

Fiorina, a senior adviser to McCain on business and economic questions and a former executive in the computer business, spoke for an hour with national political writers.

The other big differences she cited were: 1) That McCain, unlike Bush, sees government policies on energy as influencing global warming, 2) McCain was an early critic of the Iraq War policies of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and promoted the '"surge" of increased military pressure in Iraq, which is working, and 3) McCain supports retraining and other benefits for workers who have been displaced as a result of foreign imports.

McCain sides with Bush on many more issues including passage of a free trade agreement with Colombia, and expansion of health savings accounts to provide insurance to the nearly 50 million Americans who have none.

Fiorina said controlling health care costs, which she said are increasing 20 to 30 percent a year, is a key to making health insurance more available. She said McCain would like to remove state regulations that make it virtually impossible to purchase health insurance out of state.

At the briefing, Fiorina, who formerly headed Hewlett-Packard, did nothing to downplay speculation that she might be selected as McCain's running mate. When asked if she might join McCain on the ticket, Fiorina said that business leaders have a lot in common with politicians, and often have to make tougher decisions, particularly on spending, than do politicians.

Fiorina also signaled she would be available to serve in a McCain cabinet.

Do you think that McCain's policies are sufficiently distinct from the president's to enable the senator to separate himself from the president's current unpopularity?

--- Douglas Turner 

Absent but not forgotten

  WASHINGTON -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton went back to work in the Senate Tuesday after missing 97 of the Senate's 155 votes this year in her quest for the presidency.

   Meawhile, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, missed 95 votes -- and the Republican choice for president, Sen. John McCain, missed 121.

   Now this is nothing unusual for senators running for president  -- but it is unusual for New York state, which has not had a senator running for president in 40 years.

   And it does pose an interesting question: What do you think would happen if you went off on, well, an extracurricular activity for nearly 63 percent of your work time this year?

-- Jerry Zremski