Shaheen lost narrowly to Sununu in 2002, but the landscape has changed dramatically since. She’s stepping down as head of Harvard’s Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
** GIULIANI HITS HILLARY ON IRAQ VIEWS, MOVEON.ORG. It’s apparent that Republicans prefer to go after Hillary Clinton. It’s a good way to focus the somewhat scattered attentions of their voters — Republican base voters detest the Clintons and especially dislike Hillary — and get some press coverage. It’s also apparent that there is a coordinated effort among Republicans and on the right to go after MoveOn.org for its New York Times newspaper ad criticizing General David Petraeus. It’s a very tough ad, and not the way I would write it in their place, but when an officer places himself in the middle of politics, which Petraeus has, it comes with the territory.
NARRATOR: “In 2002, Hillary Clinton voted to authorize military action in Iraq … because she believed it was the right thing to do.”
HILLARY CLINTON: “If left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. He has also given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al-Qaeda members. So it is with conviction that I support this resolution as being in the best interests of our nation.”
NARRATOR: “But now that she’s running for President, Hillary Clinton has changed her position, even joining with the radical group MoveOn.org in attacking American General Petraeus. Clinton stood silently by when MoveOn.org ran this venomous ad in The New York Times.”
NARRATOR: “The same General she called an expert not long ago. Now, she is questioning his honesty.”
HILLARY CLINTON: “The reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief.”
NARRATOR: “Just when our troops need all our support to finish the job, Hillary Clinton is turning her back on them. General Petraeus and the brave men and women now serving under him deserve an apology. And our nation deserves better. Senator Clinton, do the right thing. Apologize for your comments and condemn the MoveOn.org ad.”
** ASSEMBLY REPUBLICAN LEADER VILLINES ANNOUNCES WORKING GROUPS FOR CALIFORNIA LEGISLATIVE SPECIAL SESSION. Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines this afternoon announced Republican working groups on health care reform and water policy. Said Villines, “They will craft realistic, fiscally-responsible proposals for introduction in the upcoming special sessions of the Legislature.” I’m told by a well-placed source the Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman plans to go on vacation next week.
** OIL PRICE HITS NEW RECORD AGAIN BEFORE FALLING WITH RE-START OF TEXAS REFINERIES. Crude oil hit yet another new record price at $80.36 per barrel today before falling to around $79 per barrel after three Texas refineries shut down by the approach of Hurricane Humberto were started up again.
** CHEATING IN BIG-TIME SPORTS. It’s not just charges about Barry Bonds and his steroid use. Current and past champions of two other globally iconic sports, the National Football League and Formula One racing, have received heavy sanctions this week from their respective governing bodies.
In the NFL, the New England Patriots, winners of three Super Bowls in this decade and division champs last season, were fined $750,000 and stripped of a first round draft pick next year after a team assistant was caught videotaping the opposing sideline during last Sunday’s regular season opener. That’s against the rules because it can aid a team in figuring out what plays the opposition is running. It’s not the first time it’s happened with the Patriots, either.
As a result, McLaren, which was leading the points race for the F1 season title, has been fined $100 million and stripped of all its points. You read that right, a $100 million fine. Taking away all the points earned in the series of races to date hands the constructors, or team, championship to Ferrari. The individual drivers, perhaps because they are among the sport’s biggest stars — Fernando Alonso is the two-time defending world champion and rookie Lewis Hamilton has a slender lead over Alonso for this season’s title — have not been sanctioned. They chose, actually, to testify. Alonso, who received information directly, received immunity for his testimony.
Given the enormous stakes — the NFL and F1 are very big money enterprises — it’s probably not surprising that cheating accompanies winning. One wonders how rampant it is.
** SCHWARZENEGGER AND NUNEZ CAMPAIGN FOR COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH CARE PLAN IN LOS ANGELES. Governor Arnold Schwarenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez continued to push for a comprehensive health care reform plan this morning in an appearance at California Hospital Medical Center in LA. They appeared with a large group of supporters representing hospitals, doctors, medical groups, consumers, patient advocates, insurers, businesses, and labor.
“When we started down this road last December, everyone said health care was too complicated to fix. They said we could never unite all the interests groups with a stake in the issue. But look who is standing with us today – groups that were against us and against each other when I stood here last December are now standing together for reform,” said Schwarzenegger. “I applaud Speaker Núñez and Senator Perata for taking on this great challenge, and I look forward to continuing our work in the special session next week.”
In California’s special legislative session, Nunez is taking the lead on health care and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata is taking the lead on water policy.
** HILLARY AND MAGIC. No, Hillary Clinton is not a magician. But she is appearing this afternoon in LA with Magic Johnson, the legendary former star of the the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. They’ll tour a magnet school in Watts, where a famous riot broke out in the 1960s. Then Johnson will host a fundraiser for Clinton. Think of it as Hillary’s attempt to counter last weekend’s Oprah Winfrey extravaganza for Barack Obama. Incidentally, discussions and tentative planning for the billionaire talk show icon to further intervene in the campaign on Obama’s behalf are ongoing.
** BUSH BUYING TIME IN IRAQ HELPS THE DEMOCRATS, TOO. President George W. Bush’s speech last night on Iraq, previewed on NWN yesterday afternoon, encapsulated his strategy of playing for time in Iraq. He endorsed the limited withdrawal of US forces from Iraq proposed by General David Petraeus. Which actually amounts to little more than a slightly sped up return to pre-surge troop levels. This was always anticipated because the surge itself is unsustainable.
A Marine expeditionary unit will return home this month. An Army brigade will return home in December. The rest of the limited withdrawal is slated for next year.
Bush is notably no longer talking of winning in Iraq, but of succeeding there. Success, a much more limited term, seems to be defined as providing a greater measure of security to the country while developing a more stable political situation. Which requires diplomacy and negotiation with all sorts of parties that the Bush team preferred to ignore in years past.
Bush and some Republicans believe that this continuation of the course in Iraq, and his success in preventing Congress from effecting a swift withdrawal, is a plus for Republican electoral hopes. Perhaps. But it also clearly helps the Democrats.
Why? Because every day that the war continues on American television and computer screens, with victory clearly not at hand, reminds voters of an ongoing debacle. A situation that continues because the president and the Republicans in Congress refuse to end the war.
Whereas a swift withdrawal would probably result in a massive bloodbath, with messy fingerpointing and claims that Democrats were responsible for the carnage.
Meanwhile, the White House has this morning sent over a new Iraq benchmarks report to Congress. Ironically, in light of the president’s speech last night, it shows very little progress in Iraq over the past two months. Only one new benchmark has moved into the satisfactory column; allowing former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party to hold government posts. The US de-Baathification policy was one of the Bush Administration’s especially bone-headed moves. It remains to be seen if the agreement will actually go into effect.
** SCOUTING OUT THE OPPOSITION. The move by some Republican operatives to change the method of apportioning California’s votes for president in the Electoral College can continue to expect a buzz saw of opposition. The proposed initiative for next year’s ballot would change the state’s winner-take-all arrangement — the same as in every other major state in the US — to one apportioned by congressional district. The result in the last two elections would have been to guarantee the election of George W. Bush.
Democrats are reacting in a variety of ways to the move, which starts out under 50% in the Field Poll, an historically bad place for an initiative to be. One initial response, by the California Democratic Party, is to have party members provide alerts on the activity of signature gatherers. The party will then dispatch activists to shadow the signature gatherers as they try to fill up their petitions to qualify the initiative for the ballot. The activists will seek to dissuade voters from signing the petitions.
That should make for some interesting street theater. Actually, I believe this was tried, at least in a limited way, with the recall of Governor Gray Davis in 2003. Obviously, it didn’t work. But that was a very different situation, with people very upset about how the government was running.
** CALIFORNIA LEGISLATIVE SPECIAL SESSION MOVING FORWARD. The special sessions on health care reform and water policy ordered by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger are moving forward. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Schwarzenegger continue to negotiate on health care, with Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata joining in. Nunez appointed Assembly working groups on health care and water. All Democrats. Perata introduced his $5.4 billion water bond.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 122nd day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US high command in Baghdad has revealed that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
** BUSH SPEECH TONIGHT. PRESIDENT WILL SAY HE’S GUIDED BY “RETURN ON SUCCESS.” The White House has released excerpts of President George W. Bush’s speech tonight on his new course in Iraq. Here is some of what he will say, beginning at 6 PM tonight:
“Now, because of the measure of success we are seeing in Iraq, we can begin seeing troops come home. … The principle guiding my decisions on troop levels in Iraq is ‘return on success.’ The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home. …
“The premise of our strategy is that securing the Iraqi population is the foundation for all other progress. The goal of the surge is to provide that security — and to help prepare Iraqi forces to maintain it. …
“This is an enormous undertaking after more than three decades of tyranny and division. The government has not met its own legislative benchmarks — and in my meetings with Iraqi leaders, I have made it clear that they must. …
“Let us come together on a policy of strength in the Middle East. I thank you for providing crucial funds and resources for our military. And I ask you to join me in supporting the recommendations General Petraeus has made, and the troop levels he has asked for. …
“Whatever political party you belong to, whatever your position on Iraq, we should be able to agree that America has a vital interest in preventing chaos and providing hope in the Middle East. We should be able to agree that we must defeat al Qaeda, counter Iran, help the Afghan government, work for peace in the Holy Land, and strengthen our military so we can prevail in the struggle against terrorists and extremists. …
“The way forward that I have described tonight makes it possible, for the first time in years, for people who have been on opposite sides of this difficult debate to come together. …”
Meanwhile, the key Sunni leader who helped the US gain some success against Al Qaeda in Iraq was assassinated earlier today. And the effort to appropriately divide up oil revenues has reportedly collapsed in the miasma of Iraqi politics.
** OBAMA PICKS UP CALIFORNIA ENDORSEMENTS. Breaking up the trend, the entire California Legislative Black Caucus today endorsed Barack Obama for president. The caucus comprises six members of the state Assembly and two of the Senate, and includes former Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally and Assembly Majority Leader Karen Bass.
That’s what he wrote. Here is what he did. After getting his semi-protege, Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, to carry, sight unseen, a massive pay hike bill for the state’s prison guards union, Battin showed up in a special committee meeting in the middle of the night, as the legislative session was coming to a close, to badger one of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s finance officials on behalf of a massive public employee pay increase.
The Schwarzenegger Administration has been locked in tough contract negotiations with the prison guards union as the state attempts to dig out of a huge sweetheart deal granted it by former Democratic Governor Gray Davis and the Democratic-run state Legislature in the early part of the decade. This bill that drew Battin out from the shadows, around 2 AM the night before last, was a last-second attempt to end-run the contract negotiations.
Why would he and Garcia bother with this, being fiscally conservative Republicans and all? Well, the guards union gives a ton of money. And that’s the name of that tune. The unintentionally amusing Battin article was also featured on the right-wing Flash Report, which neglects to inform whatever readers it has of the reality of the situation.
** MATTHEW DOWD JOINS BONO. Matthew Dowd, who last year worked with campaign chieftain Steve Schmidt as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s chief strategist, and before that with Karl Rove as President George W. Bush’s chief strategist in the 2004 campaign, has joined Bono’s One campaign. As chief strategist for One Vote ’08, Dowd will advance Bono’s anti-poverty campaign. The superstar leader of the legendary Irish rock band U2 has become a global figure working with leaders of all stripes on poverty issues.
NWN readers will recall Dowd’s dramatic break from Bush last spring.
* The US suffered a loss of authority as a result of the failure to impose order in Iraq. “The strategic hole the US found itself in [in 2007] did not have any obvious escape.”
* There are serious doubts about the ability of Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, but any replacement would probably come too late to “halt the draining of American willpower to ‘stay the course’. ”
* If climate change is allowed to continue unchecked, its affects will be catastrophic “on the level of nuclear war.”
At a press conference launching the report, senior IISS analysts went further. Asked whether al-Qaida had the capacity now to carry out a 9/11-style attack, and whether it was stronger than in 9/11, Nigel Inkster, the institute’s director of transnational threats and political risk, replied: “Both.”
** EDWARDS PLANS IRAQ SPEECH AFTER BUSH AND TO COUNTER OBAMA. Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has bought time on MSNBC to deliver a speech immediately following President Bush’s Iraq address tonight. He is expected to argue a very different line, naturally, and to propose an even faster pullout than Barack Obama did in a speech yesterday in, pointedly, Clinton, Iowa.
Obama proposed several key points, which may come to predominate among critics of the various Iraq policies of the Bush Administration:
* Withdraw all U.S. combat troops by the end of 2008.
* Organize a constitutional convention through the U.N., and don’t let it adjourn until leaders reach a reconciliation accord.
* Step up diplomacy to forge a new regional security compact.
* Take immediate steps to relieve the humanitarian disaster, including allowing more Iraqi refugees into the U.S.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCASTS THIS AFTERNOON ON HEALTH CARE, DISTRACTED DRIVING. At an event at 1:15 PM in Redwood City (SF Bay Area). Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signs a bill by state Senator Joe Simitian banning the use of portable electronic devices by teenagers while driving. Such devices include cell phones, pagers, wireless handhelds, and laptop computers. (Hmm, I know something about these dangers.)
At 3:15 PM, he holds an event in Madera (Central Valley) to continue his push for comprehensive health care reform. Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislative leaders Fabian Nunez and Don Perata express optimism that they will craft, during the special legislative session, a plan as outlined below.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 121st day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US high command in Baghdad has revealed that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Crude oil prices are in the $79 to $80 per barrel range. Oil hit two records yesterday, with an intra-day price of $80 and a closing price of $79.91 per barrel.
Naturally, Osama bin Laden resurfaced in time for the sixth
anniversary of 9/11. Mission still unaccomplished.
** VERMONT COURT DECISION BOLSTERS CALIFORNIA’S POSITION ON CLIMATE CHANGE LEGISLATION. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown today both, in separate statements, applauded the federal court decision in Vermont that confirms the state’s ability to set vehicle greenhouse gas emissions standards. The Vermont law, like many others, is modeled after California’s strict regulations. A similar court case in California is still pending.
“Today’s decision marks another important victory in the fight against global warming. California and other states that want to take aggressive action will no longer be blocked by those who stand in our way,” said Schwarzenegger. “Recent legal decisions are all pointing in a positive direction for California, and we’re confident we have a very strong case.”
For his part, Brown, who yesterday won a landmark settlement from oil giant ConocoPhillips which will accomplish a big chunk of the greenhouse gas reductions required in the San Francisco Bay Area by 2020 under last year’s legislation by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and signed into law by Schwarzenegger, hailed the decision by Judge Sessions but went on to say: “Unfortunately, today’s decision upholding California’s greenhouse gas emissions standards will turn out to be a hollow victory if the EPA persists in denying California’s waiver petition.”
Brown renewed his vow to “haul the Bush Administration into court” next month if the US Environmental Protection Agency continuest its stall on granting the customary waiver to California under the federal Clean Air Act.
Approval of California’s waiver means the other states which have followed the Golden State’s lead will get automatic approval.
“Our petition represents a reasoned approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and it has been shamefully ignored for almost two years,” Brown said.
Brown, a Yale Law grad, went on to discuss the history of the Clean Air Act with regard to California and air pollution.
“Congress,” noted Brown, “passed the Clean Air Act in 1963 and subsequent amendments in 1967, 1970 and 1977 expressly allowed California to impose stricter environmental regulations in recognition of the state’s ‘compelling and extraordinary conditions,’ including topography, climate, high number and concentration of vehicles and its pioneering role in vehicle emissions regulation.”
Brown asserted, as he almost certainly will next month, that the legislative history of the Clean Air Act makes it clear that “Congress intended the state to continue its pioneering efforts at adopting stricter motor vehicle emissions standards, far more advanced than the federal rules.”
The former governor approvingly quoted the decision of Judge Sessions, who stated in the course of a 240-page analysis: “History suggests that the ingenuity of the industry, once put in gear, responds admirably to most technological challenges.”
Other than asserting that greenhouse gas emissions are not covered by the Clean Air Act — a view rejected by the fairly conservative US Supreme Court — the Bush Administration has not publicly offered any legal argument against the California law.
** DISAPPEARING LEGISLATORS. NWN hears that a dozen or so Republican legislators in California are responding to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s setting special sessions on health care reform and water policy by … taking off on a junket. In addition, state Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman is leaving for vacation on September 20th..
Of course, the question is: Does it matter?
** RECORD HIGH SETTLEMENT PRICE FOR CRUDE OIL. Just a day after setting a new end-of-trading price of $78.23 per barrel, crude oil hit a new record today with a settlement price of $79.91 per barrel. The bull market in oil comes amidst prospects of tighter supply and increased demand, concerns about a new tropic storm, and general jitteriness about the international security situation. It may be that $80 per barrel becomes the new base price for oil.
** RECORD HIGH INTRA-DAY PRICE FOR CRUDE OIL. Crude oil just hit $80 per barrel, a record high, before settling back to $79.25 per barrel.
The web site, which seems to be no longer available, reportedly made a series of fairly sophomoric attacks on Thompson as a hypocritical “skirt chaser” who now seeks to be the candidate of the Christian right. Similar charges of hypocrisy, minus the “skirt chasing,” have been leveled with regularity at Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who once ran for the Senate against Ted Kennedy.
It’s Giuliani 28%, Thompson 27%, John McCain 15%, and Mitt Romney 11%. Mike Huckabee, who finished second in the Iowa straw poll, is at 5%.
** BROWN WINS BIG AGREEMENT ON OIL COMPANY GREENHOUSE GAS REDUCTION. Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown won a big agreement yesterday on greenhouse gas reduction. After he met with the company’s president last week, oil giant ConocoPhillips agreed to sharply reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of its refinery near the towns of Rodeo and Hercules next to I-80 between San Francisco and Sacramento. The refinery, which is the third largest oil refinery in America, is 25 miles east of San Francisco, and sits near the top of San Francisco Bay.
This marks the first time that a US oil company has agreed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from a refinery expansion. The head of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District said at the announcement yesterday that this move will account for one-quarter to one-third of the greenhouse gas reductions required by 2020 for the entire San Francisco Bay Area — the fourth largest metropolitan area in the US — under the landmark AB 32 climate change bill enacted last year by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature.
NWN has video of the event.
** OVERTIME ON HEALTH CARE REFORM AND WATER POLICY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will bring the California Legislature, adjourning early for the year for the Jewish High Holy Days, back into special session to deal with health care reform and water policy.
On health care reform, the emerging approach is to cobble together a universal or near-universal framework to adopt as legislation, and place the financing needed to implement the policy in the form of fees/taxes on the statewide ballot next year, perhaps in November. That would be November of a presidential election year, in which the Democratic nominee may post a big win.
On water policy, with an emerging drought situation, the greenhouse effect promising long-term impacts, and a federal court impacting water supply to save an endangered species, the emerging approach is to cobble together a plan for water storage and conveyance and place it on the ballot next year as a bond measure.
** REDISTRICTING REFORM DEFERRED AGAIN. Redistricting reform has again been deferred. There was always the issue of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s opposition to taking congressional redistricting out of legislative hands, as well as the decided lack of enthusiasm by Senate leader Don Perata. Then late last week, I began hearing of Republican reluctance as well. Governor Schwarzenegger considered a special session on redistricting as part of the overtime game this fall, but decided against it given the complexity of issues that can’t wait. The next redistricting will take placein 2011. I’ll be writing more about this.
** PRISON GUARDS’ FAILED END RUN, AKA, REPUBLICANS FOR PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS. In a curious development, Republican Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, a beneficiary of over $400,000 in spending by the prison guards union in recent years, carried a late-breaking bill to get a big pay raise for the union, which is locked in contentious contract negotiations with the Schwarzenegger Administration.
Well-informed sources say that Republican Senator Jim Battin, Garcia’s political patron in the Palm Springs area, was urging her in this move. Battin made a lot of noise about fiscal conservatism during the recent state budget stall, of which he was one of the ringleaders.
The move failed late last night.
** SCHWARZENEGGER VETOES IRAQ WAR BALLOT MEASURE. Late last night, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the advisory ballot measure on the Iraq War authored by Senate leader Don Perata. It may actually be a blessing in disguise for anti-war forces. The measure called for an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. No leading Democratic presidential candidate supports that.
These things can backfire. In 1982, California had a nuclear freeze initiative, calling for a freeze on nuclear weapons. It began with a big lead, with major financial support, but in the end barely passed, and had no real impact on the 1984 presidential race.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 120th day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US high command in Baghdad has revealed that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Crude oil hit a record high of $79.29 this morning after the Department of Energy said crude stockpiles tumbled by 7.1 million barrels last week, more than the 2.7 million barrels expected. Crude settled at a record close of $78.23 on Tuesday.
Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, seen here
in this NWN video of his inaugural ceremony and behind-the-scenes
festivities in San Francisco, is forging ahead with an aggressive
agenda on climate change and other topics.
California’s two governors, past and present, both gave key speeches at the end of last week. Arnold Schwarzenegger told the far right-leaning state Republican Party it’s past time to start appealing to the middle again. Jerry Brown told the state’s League of Cities it’s time to take up the climate change cause.
One ended with his audience laughing and applauding. And one did not.
It was, of course, somewhat paradoxically, the preternaturally crowd-pleasing former action superstar who did not leave his audience in paroxysms of delight. And the occasionally Savonarola-like former seminarian who did.
Right-wing Republican activists hoped against hope in the 2003 recall election that Schwarzenegger would put a winningly charismatic happy face on their politics that their own candidates, such as Dan Lungren and Tom McClintock, notably failed to do. Aside from the debacle of 2005, in which Schwarzenegger largely adopted their approach and paid for it at the ballot box with landslide defeats with his “Year of Reform” special election initiative agenda, they’ve been largely disappointed by the former Mr. Universe’s centrist politics. They were even less happy to have him come before the party convention they again dominated in Indian Wells on Friday night to tell them it’s time to get electorally relevant outside gerrymandered legislative enclaves.
In contrast, Brown, who is actually at least as funny as he is severe, was a crowd-pleaser when he went before the League of California Cities convention in Sacramento the day before to tell mayors and other city officials from around the state that it’s time for them to take action on climate change. Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Brown, the two-time runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination who descended from his purported ivory tower to spend eight years running the very gritty city of Oakland, achieved another level of notoriety this year when a small band of right-wingers held up the state budget in a vain effort to stop him from prodding local governments to address greenhouse gas emissions in their planning processes.
They said that Brown, who sued sprawling San Bernardino County and has sent interrogatory letters to a host of localities, is out to shut down development in California. Which would certainly be an odd position for the son of the late Governor Pat Brown, legendary builder of modern California. But the League of Cities crowd didn’t act all that threatened.
Schwarzenegger said this to the convention of the party that twice nominated him for governor: “According to the polls, nearly three-quarters of our own party support the global warming bill that I signed last year. They want this party to do something more about climate change than simply doubt it. If it is the policy of the Republican Party to ignore the great majority of the world’s scientists…to ignore the views of 80 percent of the young people who believe the same…then that party is at odds with the future. The Republican Party needs once again to be the party of Teddy Roosevelt conservationists.”
That was met largely with silence.
On the same topic, Brown said this to the convention of local government officials that the state Senate budget holdouts were ostensibly protecting: “Now is the time to take what action you can and I do believe that the League of Cities, when you take the collective strength of all your diverse membership, you can make the difference. And so I want to join with you in helping you do that. Of course if you don’t I may sue you. So let’s make this easy for both of us, just do what I’m telling you to do, and you’ll become more popular, and I’ll become less unpopular, and everything will work just fine.”
That was met with laughter and a standing ovation.
Both men, in their different ways, are forging ahead with leadership positions on one of the most prominent issues in the world.
Schwarzenegger graces magazine covers and TV newscasts around the world with his crusade to use a blend of market mechanisms, regulation, and new technology to cut greenhouse gas emissions. It’s his historic role to steer California in the early stages of the greenhouse era.
Brown’s also been on many magazine covers and TV newscasts during his iconoclastic career. As governor, he cut California’s electric power growth from seven percent per year to two percent per year with a sharp new emphasis on conservation and renewable energy. As a result, California has for decades been the leader in energy efficiency, taking away the need for dozens of power plants. He also argues, appropriately for this sixth anniversary of 9/11, that we at last must cut our dependency on foreign oil.
Concerned for decades about the greenhouse effect, the former governor is complementing Schwarzenegger’s efforts — not that the current governor always sees it that way, of course — on climate change.
“We don’t have to wait,” former Mayor Brown told the League of Cities of state regulations that won’t all emerge for several more years, “we can actually, we being each one of us here in local government, we can do something. We have to do something. I think the creativity of individual city councils will devise responses and ideas that will really take us a long way. So that by the time the rules come out – and by the way – when the rules come out it doesn’t mean anything happens, you’ve heard of the Pavley Bill and the emissions on automobiles? Well, that bill passed four years ago, the rules were done two years ago, and they are not in effect because we are being sued. We are being sued by the seven automobile companies.”
Winding up as his audience responded with enthusiasm, Brown went on.
“They’re suing us not only in California, they’re suing Vermont because they copied us and adopted the rule. They are suing Rhode Island, and so that could take a couple more years. Not only are the automobile companies trying to kill our California auto emissions standards, that are aiming at reducing greenhouse gases, but the Environmental Protection Agency which has to grant a waiver before the California law goes into effect, they sat on their hands for a couple of years. Who knows whether they are going to give us a waiver, if they ever give us a waiver? So we are going to have to sue them, too. If I can sue San Bernardino, I can certainly sue the Environmental Protection Agency. And this time I got Governor Schwarzenegger on my side.”
At that last, the audience laughed and stood with an ovation.
The video above, incidentally, suffers a bit from the acoustics in the beautiful rotunda of San Francisco City Hall, which tend to echo. The ornate lighting also causes something of a ghostly effect at times. Had that been a Schwarzenegger event, the lighting would have been perfect for shooting from all angles. (The conventional TV crews shot from stage center.) But Jerry Brown rolls in a different way. He shows up — frequently with his very smart and amusing wife, Anne Gust Brown, the former general counsel and chief operating officer of The Gap — and starts up.
That’s San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, an old Brown family friend (his father, Billy Newsom, was appointed a state appelate court justice by then Governor Jerry Brown), making the very laudatory introductory remarks. Later in the video you will see Brown’s vanquished Democratic primary opponent, LA City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, who launched nasty attacks in the primary, schmoozing with Brown at the inaugural party. No sign of Brown’s general election opponent, also beaten in a landslide, the only losing candidate last year who never called the winner to concede the election.
But now, with serious questions about the money that Hsu “bundled,” i.e., purportedly raised from others, with regard to the ability of those donors to give their own money, she is taking this unprecedented step. I can’t recall a presidential campaign ever making a move like this. Hsu is suspected of funneling money into the Clinton campaign through straw donors.
** JERRY BROWN TO ANNOUNCE MAJOR CLIMATE CHANGE SETTLEMENT. Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown will join with various officials tomorrow morning at his office in San Francisco to announce a major settlement on greenhouse gas emissions.
** SCHWARZENEGGER NIXES DEMOCRATIC HEALTH CARE BILL. As the Democratic leaders of the California Legislature move their comprehensive health care reform bill toward passage today, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has just announced that he will veto the bill if they send it forward to him.
I applaud all the hard work that has gone into efforts to reform California’s health care system, but I cannot sign AB 8 because it would only put more pressure on an already broken health care system. First and foremost, AB 8 does not cover everyone. Any reform that leaves millions without health insurance and fails to address our dangerously overcrowded emergency rooms simply maintains a broken system. I have said from the beginning of this debate that coverage for all Californians is critical to reducing health care costs for everyone.
AB 8 does not protect consumers because insurers would still be allowed to deny coverage, leaving Californians vulnerable to loss or denial of coverage when they need it most. I also believe that AB 8 is financially unsustainable. I have always said that I would not sign a health care bill that puts the vast majority of the financial burden for reform on any one segment of our economy. AB 8 unfortunately does that by requiring businesses to pay at least 7.5 percent of their payroll into a state fund or on health care services for employees.
But Schwarzenegger held out hope for what he calls a “financially sustainable reform plan” that broadens the burden and covers all Californians, saying: “The historic agreement reached this past week on the use of hospital contributions for coverage demonstrates that a more balanced approach is achievable.” Given the timing of all this, with the Legislature likely to take off earlier than scheduled, perhaps after tomorrow with the advent of the Jewish holiday, a special legislative session seems all but certain.
Petraeus three years ago: I see tangible progress. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up. The institutions that oversee them are being reestablished from the top down. And Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously in the face of an enemy that has shown a willingness to do anything to disrupt the establishment of the new Iraq.
** PETRAEUS PROCLAIMS SUCCESS, RECOMMENDS BEGINNING OF “DRAW-DOWN.” In his testimony this morning to the US House Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees, General David Petraeus said that the “surge” strategy is working, albeit quite unevenly. He also said that he wants to withdraw the equivalent of two US combat brigades this year, one a Marine unit this month, the other an Army brigade in December. And that he recommends the draw-down, or withdrawal, of 30,000 troops by next July. Which takes us back to the beginning of the surge, which all but the most fervent zealots have known all along was not sustainable.
** CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN CONVENTION. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger delivered the needed speech on the party to move to the center to retrieve electoral relevance, and it was received in mixed fashion, as anticipated by a crowd of mostly ideological activists. As a former governor put it over the weekend: “The real audience for that speech is the public. It will be popular.” (I have another column on Schwarzenegger and the party, but other things are more pressing at the moment. Such as the fact that this is Iraq Week in American politics.)
The convention took place in muted fashion amidst the sprawling splendor of the Renaissance Esmeralda Resort in Indian Wells, which is part of the Palm Springs complex, though further east. One of the more inaccessible parts of the state for a convention, and somewhat incongruous given the state Republican party’s grave financial straits. On the other hand, the party probably got a deal, as Palm Springs in September is not the place to be.
Aside from a possibly, somewhat, resurgent John McCain, no presidential candidates bothered to attend. This was in stark contrast to the Democrats a few months ago in San Diego, who hosted all their party’s major candidates for the White House, and a few who are not so major.
The party did not adopt a platform, putting off a choice between Schwarzenegger’s preference for a very brief document and a platform pushed by former state Republican chairman Mike Schroeder and Flash Report proprietor Jon Fleischman. It did come out against the term limits change initiative. A hardy band stuck around on Sunday, when I was long gone, to hear the official keynoter, state Senator Tom McClintock, refute Schwarzenegger’s points and issue another call for the old-time right-wing religion.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if McClintock — who has lost four races for statewide office and one race for Congress — is the next Republican nominee for governor. (Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner is arguably more electable, though somewhat unprepossessing. But will post-Arnold Republicans pick someone who backed the Gore recount effort as their standard-bearer?) The result would be quite predictable. But the Republicans simply don’t have candidates, which is why I was so sure in my 2002 prediction that Schwarzenegger would be the next governor.
** HEALTH CARE DEAL IN THE WIND. For several days, the word has been that a deal on universal health care in California is in the works. Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Weintraub wrote about it at length on Sunday. All of this stuff is fluid, of course, but the basic outline is this: The Legislature would adopt most of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wants in terms of policy, including a mandate that all Californians must have insurance (to be subsidized in some cases). The financing then goes on the ballot, in the form several fees and taxes. I think this is a very dicey way of doing things, but the comprehensive approach has seemed quite dicey for some time.
Meanwhile, the state Legislature will vote today on the Democratic version proposed by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 118th day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US high command in Baghdad has revealed that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
This week, it’s all about Iraq and the report of General David Petraeus. Here the general takes CBS News anchor Katie Couric for a ride around Fallujah.
After her huge weekend fundraiser for Barack Obama at her weekend estate outside Santa Barbara, California, Oprah Winfrey and her representatives continue discussing with Obama’s campaign how she can her vast media and marketing clout on behalf of the Illinois senator’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. John McCain, showing some signs of a nascent comeback in New Hampshire after a strong debate performance, holds a “No Surrender Tour” with decorated vets this week backing the Iraq War, which of course takes center stage this week in presidential politics with General David Petraeus’s report on Monday.
The Petraeus Report is what the entire week is about. But before that, a few other items.
The Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey organizations are, according to the Washington Post, deep into discussions about the popular billionaire talk show host, the wealthiest African American, taking a very active campaign role on behalf of the Illinois senator’s presidential candidacy.
This Saturday, Winfrey, who has made herself a national institution, hosted the first ever presidential fundraiser at her estate in Montecito, California (Santa Barbara area). The event raised more than $3 million for Obama, who already holds a decided financial edge over Hillary Clinton. But it is Winfrey’s credibility as a personality, and clout as a marketer, that is legendary. She has turned many books into best sellers. And her biggest edge is with women aged 25 to 55. Which happens to be the core of Hillary Clinton’s electoral constituency.
Senator McCain is attempting to again revive his Republican presidential campaign this week as national attention focuses on General Petraeus’s report on Iraq by staging a “No Surrender” tour of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. The tour will last a week, from the 11th to the 17th. The “No Surrender Tour” brings Vietnam War hero McCain together with former POWs, Medal of Honor recipients, and other distinguished veterans to rally support for US troops and their mission in Iraq.
Iraq, and to a certain extent, Iran, are the focal points in presidential politics this week. We do have the continuing side show of sad Senator Larry Craig, who dithers about coming or going from his Senate seat, which impacts on Republicans in obvious ways. Best advice: Go. And the chaos which Democratic leaders are avoiding in their primary calendar has spread elsewhere. While the Democrats are getting the rogue states back under control — getting the major candidates to agree not to campaign in them and stripping all delegates from them — in order to maintain the agreed upon early sequence of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina — the chaos appears to be spreading amongst a less resolved Republican Party.
We also have Bill Clinton going into Obama’s home base of Chicago tomorrow, fundraising for wife Hillary. And we have Fred Thompson entering his first full week as an official candidate. He’ll be in South Carolina and Florida, among other places. But the Middle East is the key.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger addresses the California Republican Party convention in Sacramento last February in this NWN video. Then he gave a survive-the-moment speech. Tonight he addresses the party convention in Indian Wells.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks tonight at the convention of the troubled California Republican Party in Indian Wells. Will he be more candid about the party’s declining fortunes tonight than he was at the Sacramento convention last February?
Seven months ago, when Schwarzenegger addressed a ballroom full of activists at the hotel he lives in when he’s in the Capitol, the former action superstar’s goal seemed to be to get in and get out as painlessly as possible. It was five weeks after his post-partisan second Inaugural Address, which was hailed nationally and internationally but hated by the hyperpartisan types who narrowly took control of the state party apparatus at the Sacramento convention.
A lot’s happened since then.
The hyperpartisans, centered around a few blogs whose readers have proved, let’s say, remarkably reticent, i.e., there are virtually no comments — quite curious for political activists — and a small faction of state senators from gerrymandered districts, have provided a steady drumbeat of attacks on Schwarzenegger’s popular centrist agenda. This, despite the fact that, as I’ve reported for the past year, polls consistently show Schwarzenegger’s policies on the infrastructure, the environment, health care, minimum wage, and so forth to be popular with most actual Republican voters. But if you think, as the hyperpartisans do, that the minimum wage is socialism and that the climate isn’t changing, then you don’t worry about such things.
Meanwhile, the state party, as NWN revealed, has run up a huge operating deficit since February. State party chairman Ron Nehring, a longtime employee and consultant for controversial Beltway conservative power broker Grover Norquist, has had a bigger foreign travel itinerary than the globe-trotting Schwarzenegger, also revealed here. And in addition to harboring Schwarzenegger’s hardcore critics, the party’s executive board voted to exclude independent voters from participating in next February’s presidential primary. The Democrats, needless to say, are happy to have this most important new group of voters — fastest growing in the state — participate in their primary.
The other, much more dramatic development, was the lengthy state budget stall engineered by state Senator Tom McClintock, a four-time loser for statewide office, and several others. In the turbulent politics of the minority party caucus in the state Senate, a small group, which for months refused to say which budget cuts it wanted — as a matter of purported strategy — held up the state budget for a month. During that time, most legislators were out of town, as the Assembly, having passed a bipartisan budget, took its summer recess. While they were gone, the right-wing Republican holdouts fancied themselves in the fashion of the recent hit movie 300, as the Spartans who held the line against the Persian hordes.
Actually, however, as soon as the “hordes” returned, these Spartans folded. When the Democrats returned a few weeks ago, the budget stall quickly ended, with the holdouts getting the same deal they could have had a month earlier.
There’s much for Schwarzenegger to deal with, if he is so inclined. As there has been for some time. It was clear when he was elected in the 2003 recall election that California had both an ultra-government faction and an anti-government faction, and that both were out of control. The former is harbored in the Democratic Party, of course, and the latter in the Republican Party, an institution badly in need of becoming acquainted with the 21st century. The curious events of this year make that assessment even more timely.
So Schwarzenegger may not be repeating his experience of the February convention.
There, five weeks after his “post-partisan” second inaugural address, the former action superstar was politely if tepidly received by the mostly conservative activists and politicians attending the dinner honoring outgoing state party chairman Duf Sundheim, the effective moderately conservative Republican Silicon Valley lawyer. The lukewarm response from a crowd chock full of hyperpartisans was no surprise because Schwarzenegger actually gave the audience relatively little partisan red meat.
Schwarzenegger then called himself “a proud Republican” in the vein of being “A proud member of the party of Abraham Lincoln and the values of everyone having an equal opportunity to reach the American dream. A proud member of the party of Teddy Roosevelt and the values of protecting the environment and our economy. And a proud member of the party of Ronald Reagan and the values of individual responsibility and personal freedom.”
The many times Mr. Universe ran through what he sees as the accomplishments of his administration — a growing economy, greatly improved budget situation, keeping a lid on taxes. And his massive infrastructure bonds plan worked out with Democratic legislative leaders that passed last November after drawing continual fire from the hyperpartisan right. But it was only when he talked about his plan to help alleviate the prison overcrowding crisis by sending some prisoners out of state that he brought the crowd roaring to life.
Intriguingly, and to his credit, Schwarzenegger then segued into a pitch for his comprehensive health care plan, which includes employer mandates to offer health insurance or pay into an insurance pool. Which, however, Schwarzenegger didn’t mention directly, instead pledging to bring down what he calls the “hidden tax” of unreimbursed care to the uninsured. He reminded the audience that over 70% of Californians said they favored his approach in a recent poll, along with a big majority of Republicans. Then he went into the environment, discussing his fight against greenhouse gas emissions and his pleasure about winning a half billion dollar grant from BP, the former British Petroleum, to establish the first biofuels and alternative fuels research institute at the University of California at Berkeley. To be sure, not the normal fare for these conventions.
Schwarzenegger accomplished his objective. He survived. There were no boos, no catcalls, no demonstrations, and not much news.
But to survive is not to lead, and this governor has done a mostly good job of leading on other fronts.
If the California Republican Party apparatus is not ready for the 21st century, perhaps it is ready for the 20th century. The hyperpartisans constantly cite Ronald Reagan, without really understanding the history of Ronald Reagan. As I confirmed when my column on Ronald Reagan’s birthday this year won the “Golden Pen Award” on the right-wing Flash Report. Perhaps they just liked the Reagan videos I ran on NWN.
Here is something Reagan, then the new and “surprisingly” pragmatic governor of California, said to a party group 40 years ago, speaking of the dangers of hyperpartisanship in attempting to appeal to the voters: “Because this is the great common denominator – this dedication to the belief in man’s aspirations as an individual – we cannot offer them a narrow sectarian party in which all must swear allegiance to prescribed commandments. Such a party can be highly disciplined, but it does not win elections. This kind of party soon disappears in a blaze of glorious defeat, and it never puts into practice its basic tenets, no matter how noble they may be.”
The blaze of glorious defeat, no matter how actually inglorious, as in the case of the state budget stall — which resulted in yet another victory over the right-wing by its bete noire, Jerry Brown — is what lights the path ahead for the hyperpartisans. Since California needs two credible political parties in order to succeed, Schwarzenegger and others need to bring this party back from the brink.
** MCCAIN SETS “NO SURRENDER” TOUR. Senator John McCain will attempt to again revive his Republican presidential campaign next week as national attention focuses on General David Petraeus’s report on Iraq by staging a “No Surrender” tour of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. The tour will last a week, from the 11th to the 17th. The “No Surrender Tour” brings McCain together with former POWs, Medal of Honor recipients, and other distinguished veterans to rally support for US troops and their mission in Iraq.
McCain also begins two days of campaigning in California tomorrow, which will include the Saturday luncheon address to the California Republican Party convention in Indian Wells near Palm Springs.
** SCHWARZENEGGER WINS HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION BACKING. The California Hospital Association today agreed to back Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s universal health care plan. Under the plan, they would pay a “fee” which would then be largely recycled back into their system and trigger additional funds. Despite this major advance, doctors and other businesses remain opposed to various other fees and mandates, however.
Says Schwarzenegger: “Today’s action by the California Hospital Association reaffirms that California’s hospitals – the cornerstone of health care delivery – will be financially strengthened and better able to treat patients under comprehensive health care reform. Hospital contributions will help the state collect $3.7 billion in new federal funding, which will allow us to increase Medi-Cal reimbursement rates, expand coverage for the uninsured and dramatically reduce the hidden tax on all Californians.”
** NUNEZ STRATEGIST HITS BACK AT NURSES UNION. With reference to the item early this morning, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez’s strategist Steve Maviglio hits back against the California Nurses Association in a comment e-mailed to NWN. Suggesting that union president Deborah Burger, author of the LA Times column attacking Nunez this morning, is the “hypocrite of the day,” he says she “signed the ballot argument on Prop 72, for the SB 2 referendum (in 2004). SB 2, he notes, was “a lot weaker than AB 8 and also employer based.”
Burger accuses Nunez of working to promote a possible U.S. Senate run by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger against Senator Barbara Boxer in 2010 by giving him another national political victory. Actually, as we’ve discussed, there are notable differences between Schwarzenegger’s plan and the Nunez/Perata plan.
Burger and the nurses union leaders want a so-called single-payer plan, as in Canada, saying that Democrats all united last year around that. Well, not really. The union’s candidate for governor, Phil Angelides, backed it in the primary to rally the left for his narrow victory over Steve Westly. Then in the general election, he disavowed any support for single-payer. And the bill that passed last year did not include any funding. A tax increase would be necessary to get the system going. Legislative Republicans won’t supply the needed votes. Single-payer lost badly the last time it was on the ballot. And the nurses union’s campaign finance reform initiative last fall was shellacked nearly four to one.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST THIS MORNING VS. EARLY PRISONER RELEASE. Surrounded by a phalanx of law enforcement officials and Republican legislators, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger discusses the need to oppose any move by a panel of federal judges to order the early release of prison inmates. The webcast begins at 9:30 AM.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 114th day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US high command in Baghdad has revealed that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
Former Senator and Law & Order star Fred Thompson’s official webcast announcement of his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination.
Fred Thompson’s Tonight Show announcement for president last night had none of the drama of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Tonight Show announcement for governor of California four years ago. It could not have, for it’s been expected for months. But it was probably more revealing.
Thompson missed the latest of the Republican presidential debates, but those haven’t amounted to much and he impacted far more people with his Tonight Show/Internet video announcement than by going the traditional route.
While the parallel with Schwarzenegger was unmistakable — both actors, both announcing their candidacies on The Tonight Show — the differences were greater. Schwarzenegger, with whom I was in contact throughout the run-up to his candidacy, had made it plain he intended to run, if he could work certain things through. The rest of the press chose not to believe that, which irritated the action superstar at first but in the end made him quite happy. While I expected him to run, I didn’t know for sure that he would until the day before. I don’t know if host Jay Leno knew for certain that his old friend Schwarzenegger was running when he showed up at the Burbank Studio to tape the show, but some of what they did was worked out in advance, such as the famous gag with the sound going out the first time Schwarzenegger said what he would do. The Fred Thompson announcement had none of those dynamics.
Superficially, however, it began in a familiar vein. With Leno in quipster mode in the monologue: “He has something major to announce. He’s either pregnant, gay, or running for president. Have you seen Fred’s wife? She’s beautiful, I think you can rule out the gay part. He got married when he was 17, which caused a huge scandal in his small town in Tennessee. Apparently, he chose to marry outside the family.” And so on.
When Thompson came on the set, Leno started out with a little humor: “You said you were testing the water in June. You’ve been in the water for a while now. Are you getting a little wrinkly?”
“These wrinkles,” replied Thompson, looking fit in a sharp black pin-striped suit with red tie, “don’t come from the water.” As for testing the water, “That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. I’m running for president of the United States.”
“It took a long time to decide this,” Leno began.
“Not really,” said Thompson, interjecting a bit defensively. “We started mentioning it for the first time in March.” Thompson went on to talk about the other candidates starting much earlier than usual.
Intriguingly for a veteran performer, Thompson cleared his throat repeatedly in the beginning, and spoke fairly rapidly. When he speaks more slowly, his voice has a deeper timbre. More rapidly, it has less resonance, less of the air of casual authority that is his trademark.
“I don’t think people are going to say, you know, ‘That guy would make a very good president, but he just didn’t get in soon enough.’”
Leno held up the Newsweek cover on Thompson, with the header “Lazy Like A Fox,” and asked the former senator if he likes to campaign. “No, I like the part where you get out with the people,” said Thompson. He talked up his first U.S. Senate race, in 1994, in which he was running 20 points behind a popular Democrat before he ditched the suits and the campaign van with staff and switched to casual wear and driving around the state in a pickup truck. Thompson actually won two Senate races in Tennessee, a state which Bill Clinton carried twice, both times by 20-point margins, as he pointed out.
Leno noted that Thompson was getting some criticism for doing his show rather than appearing with the rest of the Republican field in New Hampshire. On the debates to date, Thompson said: “I don’t think much of ‘em. I would do them in small groups, preferably one on one. A thoughtful discussion over a period of time to see what people are really like. Now, you’ve got 10 guys with 30 or 40-second sound bites. It’s not designed for the American people, it’s more designed for the people who put the debates on. I’ll do my share, but I don”t think it’s a very enlightening forum.”
Dispensing with any of the banter he’d had with his friend Arnold, Leno dove into Iraq, eliciting a hardline stay-the-course answer from the former Law & Order star.
“You got to remember what it’d be like if we’d not done what we did,” said Thompson. “Saddam would still be there, having defeated the United Nations and all its resolutions, continued its nuclear weapons program, putting people in human shredders and attacking their neighbors and in a nuclear competition with Iran sitting on all those oil reserves. We stay till we get the job done.”
And what, asked Leno, does it mean to get the job done?
“Until it is pacified enough for those people who walk through those lines with people shooting at them in some cases and voted for the first time in that part of the world,” replied Thompson. “Till they have the opportunity to have a free life and to not be killed by Al Qaeda and others fighting in that part of the world. I think that that’s do-able. I think it’s tough. But I think we can’t afford to go into a situation and not show resolve. I think the most dangerous thing in the world that could happen to the United States of America is for people to think, “well, we can divide her.”
“There is a much bigger picture,” noted Thompson, “Iraq and Afghanistan. There is a global war going on and we are the main target. The enemy is ruthless, Al Qaeda, and it’s here. They are strong, they are trying to get their hands on nuclear weapons.
“If the wrong result happens in Iraq, and we’re perceived the wrong way by friends and enemies alike, it’s gonna make the situation more difficult and we’re gonna be more vulnerable. It’s a choice of two bad choices, it’s not a good and a bad.”
Leno then asked Thompson about Iran, wondering “where does it all end?”
“Iran is clearly responsible for more and more of our problems,” claimed Thompson. He went on to ascribe many of the problems in Iraq to Iran, saying that Iran backs Hezbollah and Hamas and is “probably planning another attack on Israel,” declaring that “they support terrorism all around the world.”
Former Senator and Law & Order star Fred Thompson’s first TV
spot as a Republican presidential candidate.
** FRED THOMPSON ANNOUNCES AT TONIGHT SHOW TAPING. “I’ve got something I want to talk with you about,” the former senator and actor told host Jay Leno. “I’m running for president of the United States.”
Surprise. Well, not really.
I’ll have a column on this, as previously mentioned.
“To me, what we have in place right now works,” says the former action movie superstar. “I feel like if you all the sudden in the middle of the game start changing the rules it’s kind of odd, it almost feels like a loser’s mentality, saying I cannot win with those rules, so let me change the rules. I have not made up my mind yet in one way or the other, because I haven’t seen the details on it but basically I would say there is something off with this whole idea.”
** DON’T COUNT ON ARNOLD ON THAT BIG ELECTORAL COLLEGE CHANGE, EAGER REPUBLICANS. Republicans looking to win the White House by changing the electoral college rules for California alone should not hold their breath waiting for the endorsement of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Some Republicans are pulling together an initiative to change the electoral college vote of California, and nowhere else, from winner take all to votes by winner of congressional districts. This would likely give 20 or so additional electoral college votes to the Republican nominee, and probably the White House.
But they really should not be counting on the support of Schwarzenegger. More to follow.
** NEW HAMPSHIRE REPUBLICAN DEBATE TONIGHT. The Republican presidential field, still missing Fred Thompson for a few more hours, debates tonight on Fox News at 6 PM. Thompson goes on The Tonight Show later tonight to discuss his candidacy, which will be formally announced perhaps there with Jay Leno, and certainly in an Internet webcast which goes live early tomorrow morning on www.fred08.com.
** GIULIANI PLAYS A BIG HOLLYWOOD CARD: ROBERT DUVALL. With actor and former Senator Fred Thompson about to formally announce his candidacy, Republican presidential frontrunner Rudy Giuliani played a major Hollywood card of his own, announcing the endorsement of Academy Award-winning actor Robert Duvall.
“Rudy has consistently proven he’s ready to confront tough challenges,” said Duvall, a native Californian, in a statement. “I don’t normally get involved in politics, but I think the stakes are too high this election. Mayor Giuliani has the executive experience, proven record and bold vision needed to lead our country. Luciana and I are proud to support him.”
The Duvalls will hold a fundraiser for Giuliani at their Virginia home next month.
Duvall has starred in such classics as The Godfather films in which he played family consigliere Tom Hagen, Apocalypse Now in which he played surfing Col. Kilgore, Tender Mercies, The Great Santini, Deep Impact, The Natural, Network, To Kill A Mockingbird, and the greatest Western mini-series, Lonesome Dove.
Incidentally, when Mitt Romney caused controversy earlier in the year with his choice of Scientology chief L. Ron Hubbard’s scifi epic “Battlefield Earth” as his favorite novel, I suggested that a good choice for a presidential candidate would be Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize-winner, “Lonesome Dove.” In the Emmy-winning miniseries version of the novel, Duvall plays the story’s hero, retired Texas Ranger Captain Augustus “Gus” McCrae, to perfection.
** THOMPSON TO LAUNCH FIRST TV AD AS PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE. Above you see the first TV ad of Fred Thompson’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. It will air during tonight’s Republican debate in New Hampshire on Fox News. Thompson, who will at last formally launch his campaign tomorrow morning with a 15-minute webcast on the Internet, is not participating in this debate. He is, instead, in Burbank to tape an appearance for tonight with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show. There he will discuss his presidential campaign. I’ll have a column for you on that.
In particular, three groups crucial to Mr. Bush’s goal of a “permanent Republican majority” are drifting away: younger voters, Hispanics and independents. The reasons include the Iraq war, conservatives’ emphasis on social issues such as gay marriage, abortion and stem-cell research, and a party-led backlash against illegal immigrants that has left many Hispanic and Asian-American citizens feeling unwelcome. The upshot is that Republicans face structural problems that stem from generational, demographic and societal changes and aren’t easily overcome without changing fundamental party positions.
Longtime Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio this year conducted an exhaustive survey of his party’s voters to update one he did in 1997. He found that the party is significantly older and more conservative than it was a decade ago. That, he says, suggests a Republican Party increasingly at risk of being seen “as very old-fashioned, very old and not in touch with the realities of today’s society.”
This Saturday, Winfrey, who has made herself a national institution, hosts the first ever presidential fundraiser at her estate in Montecito, California (Santa Barbara area). The event is expected to raise more than $3 million for Obama, who already holds a decided financial edge over Hillary Clinton. But it is her credibility as a personality, and clout as a marketer, that is legendary. She has turned many books into best sellers. And her biggest edge is with women aged 25 to 55. Which happens to be the core of Hillary Clinton’s electoral constituency.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 113th day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US high command in Baghdad has revealed that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
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