Here are the numbers. Obama 30%, Clinton 26%, John Edwards 22%, and Bill Richardson 11%. Taking a concept right out of the Gary Hart 1984 playbook, Obama gets the nod of 55% of likely Iowa Democratic voters on the “new ideas” spectrum.
This seems, let’s say, somewhat similar to my experience with former Senator Gary Hart. Though much earlier in the process.
As Davis, who I’ve spoken with at great length in the past few weeks — look for the NWN video tomorrow — acknowledges.
The AP story presents the latest reason why Davis was recalled. Because he raised a lot of money. Well, actually, that would be … no.
** SCHWARZENEGGER SAYS BIG DEALS CLOSE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose, ah, agents again insist that deals are close on health care reform and water policy, spent today in private meetings in the state Capitol. But for his late morning venture to the California Highway Patrol Academy to honor a recently killed state trooper.
Schwarzenegger had a lengthy meeting with Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez on the “almost there” health care package. But having reported these near breakthroughs for months now, I think I’ll leave that to the conventional media.
In addition, only 27% describe the US economy as excellent or good. That’s down a whopping 25 points from the beginning of the year, when 52% said the economy is excellent or good.
This sort of news is historically very bad for the incumbent party. But while Republicans control the White House, and have for nearly seven years, Democrats control the Congress. Though for less than a year.
So the question is: Who will get the blame?
** BEHIND THE CALIFORNIA PRISON GUARDS FLIP FLOP ON TERM LIMITS. As discussed, the state’s prison guards union late last week came out against the troubled term limits change initiative on the February presidential primary ballot. After endorsing it earlier this year, and giving $100,000 to the campaign, they’re now opposed.
Word is that Mike Jimenez, president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), who is talking about putting $1 million into the campaign against the measure, may have gotten out ahead of some of his union’s other leadership. Right now, the guards union is in there with the somewhat shadowy US Term Limits, a DC-based outfit that doesn’t disclose its contributors, which recently gave $1.5 million to the opposition campaign, and state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, inventor cell phone tracking technology, who also gave $1.5 million.
But some other union leaders apparently recognize that things are unlikely to improve for the union with this move. The guards union used to be one of the 800-pound gorillas of California politics. Seeming to pick, more accurately, siding with, the (likely) winners of gubernatorial races, intimidating legislators, winning unprecedented contracts which ultimately made them indispensable in the actual management of the state’s prisons, the union made incredible strides under the smooth leadership of Don Novey.
But the worm has turned, dramatically. Federal courts have identified California’s prison system as something of a disaster area. And the finger of blame has been pointed directly at the prison guards union for much of the problem.
After fits and starts of reform, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has drawn a line in the sand with the union, daring them to try to defeat him last year. The union, after a show of defiance, ultimately backed down. Schwarzenegger took a hard line in contract renegotiations, the union tried an end run through the Legislature in the dead of night at the end of this past summer’s session, and failed.
Meanwhile, the country’s supreme court — now packed with Musharraf loyalists after he sacked most of the old court when he declared his state of emergency — tossed out a legal challenge to Musharraf’s disputed re-election as president last month. Musharraf suspended democracy in Pakistan on the expectation that the court would rule against him on the election challenge.
Now we’ll see if he finally gives up his post as army chief of staff, which he has long pledged to do and which he was once again urged to do in a long meeting over the weekend with US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, the former US national intelligence director. Some believe that once he gives up the uniform that the army will move against him.
General Powell, a former national security advisor, is the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, having run the show during the first Gulf War. His ties with the Pentagon, where skepticism abounds about a military move against Iran, are obviously excellent.
As NWN has noted on a few occasions, US military options against Iran are actually limited.
Rudy Giuliani launches this TV ad today in a renewed push for the
New Hampshire Republican presidential primary.
** GIULIANI LAUNCHES NEW TV AD FOR NEW HAMPSHIRE. Rudy Giuliani is making a fresh push in the New Hampshire primary. The national Republican frontrunner is running second there behind Mitt Romney. So today he is launching a new TV ad — he just started his TV advertising, while Romney has been on the air in early contest states for months — which will air in the neighboring Boston media market and on New Hampshire TV stations. He’ll also spend a fair amount of time in the Granite State this Thanksgiving week. Giuliani’s fallen into third place in Iowa, but may have a silver lining there in that leader Romney is now having to fend off underfunded ex-Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who doesn’t have much going on around the country.
The former New York mayor was in Florida yesterday for the NASCAR championship race. In which native Californian Jimmie Johnson defeated native Californian Jeff Gordon. This is the third NASCAR race of the year for Giuliani, who says that auto racing is “the quintessential American sport” and credits wife Judith for turning him on to it.
Here’s the text of the Giuliani spot: “I believe I’ve had the most leadership experience of anyone that’s running. It’s not just holding executive positions, like Mayor of New York, or United States Attorney, or 3rd ranking official in the Reagan Justice Department. It’s having held those positions in time of crisis. I’ve been tested in a way in which the American people can look to me. They’re not going to find perfection, but they’re going to find somebody who has dealt with crisis almost on a regular basis and has had results. And in many cases, exceptional results. Results people thought weren’t possible. I’m Rudy Giuliani and I approve this message.”
** CARONA STILL ON CALIFORNIA CRIMINAL JUSTICE PANEL. Despite his indictment on multiple federal corruption charges of systematically using public office to enrich himself, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger hasn’t asked embattled Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona to resign from the California Council on Criminal Justice. At the end of last week, Carona was stripped of his security clearance and removed from the US Home Security task force. His active membeship on that advisory body to the Homeland Security Department was a key element in his narrow re-election last year.
Carona is a friend of Schwarzenegger, who used to talk up the glib sheriff in the aftermath of his trackdown five years ago of the murderer of a little girl. “You should check him out,” Schwarzenegger used to say. Done.
You could say that Schwarzenegger has been loyal to some friends to a fault. Take Rob Reiner. Yes, remember all the NWN coverage last year of the Hollywood director’s mismanagement of the state’s heavily-funded Children and Families Commission, using the group to promote initiative efforts. As I pointed out repeatedly, Schwarzenegger was very resistant to the notion of firing Reiner, a liberal Democrat who nonetheless was, privately, a special guest at his first Inaugural.
Incidentally, I have another Reiner file somewhere that I haven’t written about. It fell between the cracks during last fall’s election campaigns. The lengthy memo makes Reiner’s intention to use taxpayer funds to promote his political agenda even clearer.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
After Hillary Clinton charged that criticism of her was “throwing
mud,” what had been an exciting start to the Democratic presidential
debate in Las Vegas morphed back into a standard candidate forum.
Heading into a thankfully shortened Thanksgiving week in presidential politics, the Democratic race is sorting itself out from a controversial debate in Las Vegas and both Democrats and Republicans are dealing with what may, or may not, be the beginnings of some real mudslinging.
Meanwhile, the presidency itself and, increasingly the candidates for the presidency, is and are dealing with a deeply unsettled situation in Pakistan, a lynchpin of the Terror War and the only Islamic nuclear power. Over the weekend, President Pervez Musharraf, who’s ruling under martial law and has jailed thousands of his secular critics in the name of fighting Islamic jihadists, rejected US envoy John Negroponte’s demand for a restoration of democracy. And even though we’ve secretly spent at least $100 million since 9/11 to secure Pakistan’s nukes, it’s not at all clear that we’ve succeeded at that.
But enough of the real substance of things. Let’s get to the dirt, purported and otherwise. On the Republican side, Mitt Romney is fending off “push-poll” phone calls to voters in early contest states, criticizing his background as a Mormon and, suspiciously, praising John McCain for serving in the military when Romney got deferments as a missionary for his controversial religion. McCain and the other Republicans are scrambling to denounce the calls, which are being made out of a service in Utah. The center of Mormonism. Which seems a way to make it look as though Romney himself might be behind the smear on himself. Brilliant.
Now this is all in the area of what I call “twilight.” Did someone from the Clinton camp tell Novak this? He says now, well, no. He “heard it from a Democrat” who was told it by someone in the Clinton campaign.
Was Obama smart or stupid to react so dramatically? From one angle, it looks panicky. Why give credence to a blind item by a conservative columnist (Novak) publicized by a conservative web site (Drudge)? But from another angle. Well, if something does come out on Obama, he’s established the predicate to immediately denounce it as the work of the Clinton smear machine, which will muddy up whatever story there is about him.
While this goes on, Thursday night’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas is being rethought. Especially the role of CNN in the running of it.
We’ve learned since Thursday night that CNN producers selected that warm and fuzzy close for Hillary in the form of the now notorious “Do you prefer diamonds or pearls?” question. We’ve also learned that all the questions from the audience members were pre-approved and sequenced by CNN, so it wasn’t really anything like a town hall. And we’ve learned that one of the questioners — a purported undecided Nevada voter — was just a few years ago the executive director of the Arkansas Democratic Party.
There are many second thoughts about this debate. But what I found most interesting was how lock-step and credulous my colleagues in the conventional media were in their Friday morning reports on the debate. They pretty much accepted everything at face value.
One excuse is that they weren’t allowed into the actual hall where the debate took place. (I filmed the presidential forum there in the spring, but that wasn’t possible this time, since CNN controlled everything.) But you didn’t have to be in the hall, which was packed with Clinton supporters whose behavior went uncontrolled by moderator Wolf Blitzer. It was perfectly obvious that something was off, as I reported at the time. All you had to do was watch and listen. Because there was also the question of how Blitzer ran the substance of the debate.
The Vegas debate began as the most exciting one yet. For nearly 15 minutes, the top three candidates — Clinton, Obama, and John Edwards — went toe to toe, launching and landing rhetorical punches with abandon. It was the political equivalent of the title fights that Vegas has become known for.
Obama fired a hard shot at Clinton right off the bat, saying the people want real answers to tough questions. Clinton fired right back. “He talks a lot about stepping up and taking responsibility and taking strong positions,” said the former first lady-turned-New York senator. “But when it came time to step up and decide whether or not he would support universal health care coverage, he chose not to do that. His plan would leave 15 million Americans out.”
Obama, who like many if not most Democrats opposes requiring that people buy health insurance, shot back at the frontrunner, saying that Clinton is missing the point that many people can’t afford to buy the coverage.
Edwards joined Obama in tagging Clinton as a flip-flopper and equivocator, on drivers licenses for illegal immigrants, Social Security, and war and peace, among other things. “She says she will bring change to Washington while she continues to defend a system that does not work, that is broken, that is rigged, that is corrupt,” declared the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee.
Clinton gave it right back in turn. “I don’t mind taking hits on my record, on issues, but when somebody starts throwing mud, at least we can hope that it’s both accurate and not right out of the Republican playbook.”
To which Edwards replied … Actually, he never replied. CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer suddenly pulled the plug on the action. Instead of allowing the left-leaning Edwards to bat down Hillary’s somewhat amusing charge that he talks like a Republican, Blitzer ignored him and called on Joe Biden.
And just like that, the electricity was out of the event and we were back to another fairly standard joint appearance forum. Blitzer gave a lot of time to candidates who have no chance of winning. Long stretches passed with Edwards in particular, and to a lesser extent Obama, absent from the action.
With CNN turning the focus away from the competition between Clinton, Obama, and Edwards, Biden actually did the best of anyone on stage. …
The title song from the Eagles’ popular new album, Long Road Out Of Eden.
** OF RUMOR-MONGERING AND PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS. Before getting into this weekend’s dust-up between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, courtesy of longtime conservative columnist Bob Novak, let’s say that I’ve heard personal rumors about Obama and both Clintons. Anyway, Novak, a notorious provocateur and occasional disinformation artist, ran a blind item, which the Drudge Report naturally played heavy, that the Clintons have some sensational dirt on Obama, but aren’t using it. Because, presumably, they’re, ah, too nice.
Obama denounced the rumor and demanded that Clinton come out with whatever she supposedly has. The Clinton camp replied that they don’t know what Novak is talking about.
Now this is all in the area of what I call “twilight.” Did someone from the Clinton camp tell Novak this? He says now, well, no. He “heard it from a Democrat” who was told it by someone in the Clinton campaign.
Is Novak lying? Maybe. And maybe not. My guess is both camps have personal stuff on each of the opposing principals. I’ve certainly heard rumors about Barack, Hillary, and Bill. (Along with other Democrats, and, naturally, the leading Republicans.) But as most readers know, I don’t care about that kind of stuff.
Was Obama smart or stupid to react so dramatically? From one angle, it looks a little panicky. Why give credence to a blind item by a conservative columnist (Novak) publicized by a conservative web site (Drudge)? But from another angle … If something does come out on Obama, he’s established the predicate to immediately denounce it as the work of the Clinton smear machine, which will muddy up whatever story is there about him.
** THAT FABULOUS CNN DEBATE. Let’s see, we’ve learned since Thursday night that CNN producers selected that warm and fuzzy close for Hillary in the form of the notorious “Do you prefer diamonds or pearls?” question. And we’ve learned that all the questions from the audience members were pre-approved and sequenced by CNN, so it wasn’t exactly a town hall. And … we’ve learned that one of the questioners — a purported undecided Nevada voter — was just a few years ago the executive director of the Arkansas Democratic Party.
So, along with what I’ve already reported below, there’s a lot of second-guessing about CNN’s agenda with this debate. But what I found most interesting was how lock-step and credulous my colleagues in the conventional media were in their Friday morning reports on the debate. They pretty much accepted everything at face value.
One excuse is that they weren’t allowed into the actual hall where the debate took place. (I filmed the presidential forum there in the spring, but that wasn’t possible this time, since CNN controlled everything.) But you didn’t have to be in the hall, packed with Clinton supporters whose behavior went uncontrolled by moderator Wolf Blitzer. It was perfectly obvious that something was off, as I reported at the time. All you had to do was watch and listen, folks.
** PAKISTAN CRISIS. President Pervez Musharraf rejected US envoy John Negroponte’s apparent demand that he end martial law in his troubled country, the only Islamic nuclear power. Meanwhile, he has locked up some 15,000 people, mostly from his secular opposition, while claiming he had to do it to defeat the Islamic jihadists who have run roughshod, with his sometime acquiescence, throughout the country. One opposition leader, Oxford-educated Imran Khan, former captain of the country’s cricket team, in in prison on charges of “state terrorism.” He was arrested after speaking at a university, where he was first beaten up by religious students. Having been married to the glamorous daughter (Jemima Goldsmith) of one of Britain’s richest men, he’s more jet-setter than any sort of terrorist. But the charges mean he can’t be bailed out.
** EAGLES. The new Eagles album, Long Road Out Of Eden, has proved to be the most popular collection of new music around the world since its release at the end of October. It opened number one in the US, UK, and the rest of the English-speaking world, and made the top five or ten album lists pretty much everywhere else. (Though the Eagles ran behind Britney Spears’ new album in Europe, where fluffy dance music narrowly bested lyric-intensive country rock. Her album was bigger than her last, proving that becoming a global spectacle has some benefits in this media culture.)
Long Road Out Of Eden is a strong album, though uneven. 20 songs on two discs, all of them beautifully performed, some of which could have been removed to make a more powerfully-focused album around Don Henley and Glenn Frey’s songs. But that wouldn’t have done much for band peace within the famously volatile group.
Incidentally, in one of those clever moves we all love so much, a “deluxe collector’s edition” of the album is being released on Tuesday, in time for this early Thanksgiving holiday. Which has a special booklet, blah blah, and two additional songs, the great “Please Come Home For Christmas.” And a lovely tune called “Hole In The World,” which they recorded after 9/11. The group had scheduled album recording sessions for mid-September 2001. Which the events of 9/11 blew away.
What’s fascinating is how much the Eagles, the most popular American group of all time, the epitome of the famed “Southern California sound,” sound like they did 20 and even 30 years ago. As singers and musicians, they’ve aged astonishingly well, guys who are 60 or close to it sounding half that, if that. “The best oohs in the business,” as Rolling Stone put it long ago, are still just that. The guitar work sounds perfect. No other supergroup that emerged decades ago sounds this good. No wonder today’s country music is so heavily influenced by the group, which was never actually a country band.
The first disc is the most familiar side of the group, mostly softer-edged, ballad-heavy, not especially political, with a hit record, good-time country rocker to boot. The second disc is harder-edged — though it closes with a pair of lovely, elegiac ballads, and has an amusingly faux world beat Joe Walsh tune about the wonders of pretending to be on vacation, at home — scoring the perils of empire-building, political spin, the death of journalism, and so on. Since I’m not really a ballads kind of guy, the second disc gets the most play, though the first one is growing on me. Joe Bob says check it out.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
A rested Hillary Clinton had a good night in Las Vegas, performing
more effectively than the last time. She certainly wasn’t hurt by
how CNN ran the debate.
** AN UNDERLYING POTENTIAL EDGE FOR HILLARY. We all know that Hillary Clinton is a very polarizing figure. Much more so than her husband, who was the most popular figure in the Fox News poll, discussed here yesterday.
If she becomes the Democratic presidential nominee, and she righted her ship to a certain extent last night with a big assist from how CNN conducted its debate in Las Vegas, she would go forward with a significant advantage in generic branding. Though the public is upset with politicians in general, voters are much more favorably inclined to Democrats than Republicans.
** QUICK HITS. Republican presidential campaigns are scrambling to distance themselves from mysterious phone calls in Iowa and other early contest states attacking Mormonism, the religion of Mitt Romney. I have some Mormon cousins. They’re quite conservative, but not from outer space. … That silly “Hillary, do you prefer diamonds or pearls?” question that closed last night’s debate was selected by CNN producers. The college student who asked it says she had other questions, too, including the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site that had already been discussed, but the producers approved and selected this one. While Western issues were mostly ignored, this was a very nice and toasty way for CNN to close out Hillary’s comeback performance. … Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona, indicted on multiple federal charges of using public office to enrich himself, has lost all security clearances and is off the US Homeland Security task force. … The California prison guards union is coming out against the term limits change initiative on February’s presidential primary ballot. The prison guards have a ton of money they threatened to spend last fall against Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has blunted their power over the state’s failing prison system, but backed off. They’re still mad about the Legislature, which has done a neat job of discrediting itself, ignoring their opposition to the bipartisan prison reform deal earlier this year. And, oh yes, the prison guards failed in a post-midnight, end-of-session bid to get through backdoor legislation what they couldn’t in contract negotiations: A big pay raise and continuing influence in running the failed prison system. … Speaking of that term limits initiative, I see that Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who made a fortune from his invention of technology to track cell phones, had an op-ed piece in today’s Orange County Register denouncing it. The former Al Gore for President backer-turned-Republican pol is in new territory for him.
** PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES CLIMATE CHANGE FORUM TOMORROW IN L.A. There’s a forum tomorrow in LA on global warming, hosted by environmental groups such as Grist and the California League of Conservation Voters and LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. No Republicans will be there, though John McCain says he’ll participate in a climate change forum next month in New Hampshire still being pulled together by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Vice President Al Gore.
Only three candidates are showing tomorrow: Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Dennis Kucinich. Barack Obama and Bill Richardson, who both have strong plans on climate change — Richardson’s New Mexico is part of a consortium put together by Schwarzenegger, and Richardson has championed renewable energy as governor — will be campaigning elsewhere, as will the rest of the Democratic field.
In any event, the NWN forecast remains the same: The United Russia party, headed by Vladimir Putin, wins. I don’t think Putin, who actually is popular, needs to stuff the ballot box to win, but the country’s press practices and penchant for disqualifying opponents sure don’t make for a strong democracy.
** DEMS IN VEGAS: A GREAT DEBATE — FOR 15 MINUTES. Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas started out as the most exciting one yet. For nearly 15 minutes, the top three candidates — Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards — went toe to toe, launching and landing rhetorical punches with abandon. It was like the title fights that Vegas has become known for.
Obama fired a hard shot at Clinton right off the bat, saying the people want real answers to tough questions. Clinton fired right back.
“He talks a lot about stepping up and taking responsibility and taking strong positions,” said the former first lady-turned-New York senator. “But when it came time to step up and decide whether or not he would support universal health care coverage, he chose not to do that. His plan would leave 15 million Americans out.”
Obama, who has the same position as most California Democrats opposing requiring that people buy health insurance, fired right back, saying that Clinton is missing the point that many people can’t afford to buy the coverage.
Edwards joined Obama in tagging Clinton as a flip-flopper and equivocator, on drivers licenses for illegal immigrants, Social Security, and war and peace, among other things.
“She says she will bring change to Washington while she continues to defend a system that does not work, that is broken, that is rigged, that is corrupt,” declared the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee.
Clinton gave it right back. “I don’t mind taking hits on my record, on issues, but when somebody starts throwing mud, at least we can hope that it’s both accurate and not right out of the Republican playbook.”
To which Edwards replied … Actually, he never replied. CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer suddenly pulled the plug on the action. Instead of allowing the left-leaning Edwards to bat down Hillary’s somewhat amusing charge that he talks like a Republican, Blitzer ignored him and called on Joe Biden.
And just like that, the electricity was out of the event and we were back to another fairly standard joint appearance forum. Blitzer gave a lot of time to candidates who have no chance of winning. Long stretches passed with Edwards in particular, and to a lesser extent Obama, absent from the action.
With CNN turning the focus away from the competition between Clinton, Obama, and Edwards, Biden actually did the best of anyone on stage. He was funny, articulate, and easily the most knowledgeable on the mutating foreign policy crises facing America, most notably that in Pakistan, the increasingly unstable sole Islamic nuclear power.
Press was not allowed into the actual hall in which the debate took place. CNN controlled the access to the hall, where the audience (mostly invited by the state party and the university) sounded quite pro-Hillary, actually booing criticism of her on a few occasions, with Blitzer doing nothing to point out that in a debate, one compares and contrasts with one’s opponents.
After the first 15 minutes, Obama seemed to revert to his semi-professorial mode, bumbling through a lengthy answer on, of all things, drivers licenses for illegal immigrants.
Hillary simply said “No” when asked if she favors the notion. Blitzer did no follow-up on that, which was certainly called for since she finally arrived at that position only the day before the debate.
Blitzer did have a tough question for Obama, pointing out that he missed voting — on a resolution that overwhelmingly passed the Senate with 76 votes — on the question of whether or not the Iranian military is a terrorist organization, a position Obama and others criticize Hillary for taking.
Of course, as I predicted yesterday, Hillary’s opponents should not have expected aggressive questioning of her from Blitzer or the other CNN personnel, and would have to make their own luck.
One technique, sure to be used by Rudy Giuliani — if he and Hillary actually make it past the primaries — is to give your answer to every question while contrasting it with the statements of Senator Clinton.
Last night’s debate closed, not with closing statements from the candidates, or the moderator boring in on an unanswered topic, but with an audience member asking Hillary if she prefers diamonds or pearls. “Both,” she answered. Okay then.
Given how the debate was run, Clinton was the winner, in political terms, though Biden, Bill Richardson, and Chris Dodd also did well. CNN’s post-debate analysis team — dominated by former top advisors to the Clintons, James Carville and David Gergen — is not alone in assessing this as a positive event for her candidacy.
And in fact, Clinton was improved over her performance in Philadelphia a few weeks ago. She’s a very smart, very capable political figure. Who perhaps one day will be in a real debate.
Negroponte, a former US ambassador to the UN and national intelligence director, among a host of posts — he’s currently deputy secretary of state — is expected to insist that Musharraf step down as army chief of staff, as he’s frequently promised to do.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
Barack Obama’s Saturday night stemwinder at the
Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Des Moines, Iowa.
** NEARING GAME TIME IN VEGAS. The most buzz I’m hearing in the run-up to the 5 PM kick-off of the Las Vegas presidential debate centers on Hillary Clinton’s latest position on drivers licenses for illegal immigrants (now she’s against them), O.J. Simpson’s preliminary hearing (he’s charged with trying to steal back some of his memorabilia from a Vegas dealer), and Barry Bonds’ indictment for perjury and obstruction of justice in the steroids investigation.
It would have been much better for Clinton to have dealt with the illegal immigrant issue well before this debate. Acting so tardily is only serving to remind that she is criticized for equivocation.
The debate is from 5 PM to 7 PM, Pacific time, on CNN. The site? UNLV, University of Nevada at Las Vegas, not far off the fabled Vegas Strip. Which also was the site of the kick-off event for the Nevada Democratic presidential caucuses this past January, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and notable national labor poobahs.
Speaking of labor, the biggest endorsement prize in the Nevada caucus, the 60,000 member Culinary Workers Union, will endorse a candidate on December 2nd. The head of the union will not be at tonight’s debate.
Meanwhile, there is a new Fox News poll out. It shows Hillary continuing with a large lead over Barack Obama nationally, and Rudy Giuliani with a sizeable lead over John McCain. The most popular politician in the country is Bill Clinton.
Hillary has the edge over all the Republican candidates except for … John McCain. She’s essentially tied with him, with a one-point lead. She leads Giuliani by four points, Fred Thompson by nine points, and Mitt Romney by 13 points.
Unhelpfully, the poll doesn’t match Obama or John Edwards against the Republicans.
** MIDWESTERN AUTOWORKERS UNION BACKS OBAMA. Barack Obama picked up a key endorsement for the Iowa presidential caucuses today, in the form of the Midwestern branch of the United Auto Workers union. The UAW regional council encompasses Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois and has 30,000 people in the Hawkeye State.
** FIRING IT UP … IN ATHERTON. Former state Controller Steve Westly, the ex-eBay honcho-turned-venture capitalist who is California co-chair of the Obama campaign, hosted 350 people at $2300 a head at his house in Atherton last night for an Obama fundraiser. The numbers picked up, he reports, following the opening provided by Hillary Clinton in the Philadelphia debate and with Obama’s subsequently heightened performance on the campaign trail.
The candidate himself led the high-rolling crowd in a sustained chant of “Fire it up.” Definitely not something heard around leafy Atherton all that often.
Earlier, Obama addressed a crowd of 1500 at Google, then went on to a rally in San Francisco with 6000 people in attendance, easily the largest political rally in the City by the Bay this year. Westly notes, as have others, that Obama is showing a great appeal on the stump to younger voters, aged 18 to 30. If they turn out in large numbers, that will wreck the standard polling model.
** DEMS’ BIG DUKE-AROO IN VEGAS. Tonight, 5 PM Pacific time, that is, is the big Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas. Cablecast from UNLV, the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, on CNN, comes the first of two very key Democratic presidential debates in a row in the West. (Next month from LA.)
The Democrats meet tonight with Hillary Clinton under siege, taking, literally, two weeks to come up with an obvious position on drivers licenses for illegal immigrants (opposed) after the last debate. First complaining that the men were ganging up on her in Philadelphia, that NBC moderator Tim Russert was unfair — I thought he was trying to make the two hours more interesting by trying to get some answers — then having husband Bill Clinton, the popular former president, claim that she was being “swift boated” by being asked about illegal immigration.
Frankly, it was a surprisingly thin-skinned, inept, and churlish show from the Clintons. Especially for those of us who think, no matter what one makes of the merits, that they really know what they’re doing in politics.
The Clinton campaign’s klumping performance of late has opened a big hole for her principal opponents to run through. And they have. John Edwards has stepped up his skillful attacks on the frontrunner. And Barack Obama, by all accounts, hit a home run over the weekend at the Democratic field’s joint appearance in Des Moines, Iowa. (See video above.) It’s all tied up now in Iowa, the first-in-the-nation contest. And the momentum is not with the Clintons.
In Nevada, another early state, site of our event tonight, Clinton has big lead. In the latest Zogby telephone poll, she leads Obama by a whopping 37% to 19%, with Edwards at 15%.
The unions, who some expected to go to Edwards, are not moving. That’s a plus for Clinton, for now. But I know from personal experience in Nevada campaigns that big leads for party establishment frontrunners can be overcome in a matter of days once the primaries are actually underway.
As for tonight. Obama and Edwards can’t rely on the moderator to be aggressive in posing questions. This debate is on CNN, once known as the Clinton News Network. Hillary’s opponents have to plan on doing their own work.
They thought they were being aggressive in Philadelphia. But it was only at the very end, when Hillary stumbled on the illegal immigrants drivers licenses question, that she really got into trouble. Prior to that, despite their swats, she was essentially in control of the debate.
Obama, in particular, has to be much better in this debate.
When I scouted Obama in Vegas in a forum with all the other candidates this past spring, he was actually pretty bad. I’ll be kind and not show that video today. He’s improved since. But the debate format is still not his best. He still struggles with making brief rhetorical thrusts, still relying on the rhetorical long form as in the video above from last weekend’s Jefferson Jackson Dinner.
He does have the advantage of having John Edwards looking kindly upon him while viewing Clinton in an increasingly negative way. Edwards has always had good combat skills, as a highly successful trial lawyer. As pure debaters go, he is clearly superior to Obama and to Clinton.
Another advantage comes from the second tier of the field, which is far more talented than most of the Republican field. Bill Richardson seems to have Hillary’s back. But Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, who are better debaters than the New Mexico governor, as befits their decades of experience in the US Senate, seem perturbed with Hillary’s obfuscations. Remember that it was actually Dodd, the longtime New England liberal, who halted what seemed at least for a moment to be the overall flow of the field to agreeing with Hillary’s stance on illegal immigrants and provided the key set-up for Edwards’ killer observation that she had offered two divergent opinions on the issue in two minutes.
All this said, the Vegas debate is still not a do or die situation for anyone, no matter what commentary is out there. January is still a long ways off. And some would say that you don’t want to kill the queen too quickly. Perhaps best to wait until the contests are actually upon us and there is little time to revive.
As multi-dimensional maneuvering with the US continues on
Iran and other issues, Russia contemplates placing missiles in
Belarus to counter the proposed anti-missile shield in Eastern Europe.
Russia has privately told the US that, in exchange for some limited guarantees of security for Iran — notice that US saber rattling diminished following Vladimir Putin’s sudden trip last month to Tehran — it would help bring Iran more in line on the nuclear issue and Iraq.
Iran now seems to be making substantially less mischief in Iraq, which is helping immensely with regard to the security situation there. So much so that the US last week released nine Iranian agents captured in Iraq.
Of course, if Russia doesn’t get what it wants — a much more free hand dealing with its “near abroad,” i.e. the former Soviet empire surrounding the Rodina — all bets may be off.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
Mitt Romney leads in early Republican contests, and starts a
two-day tour of California today. He’s hitting hard on illegal immigration.
But Mike Huckabee is coming on strong in Iowa.
People, if I wrote this in a screenplay, it would be judged non-credible …
Incidentally, the vice chairman of Blackwater, ex-CIA honcho Cofer Black, is senior national security advisor to Mitt Romney.
** GRAY DAVIS WOWS CALIFORNIA PRESS WITH HUMOR, CALLS FOR STATE SPENDING LIMIT. There is much more to say about this, but former Governor Gray Davis was a big hit at today’s luncheon of the Sacramento Press Club. “You’re not the same politician we used to chase around the Capitol,” one retired journalist told him. (The conventional press has been much diminished of late, and the press club is filled much more with PR folk and partisans than journalists.)
Davis, who bemoans the lack of seriousness in both the Republican and Democratic parties in dealing with a chronic budget problem, told attendees that he doesn’t know anyone in California who really wants to raise taxes. (In conversation, he notes that people always want to raise somebody else’s taxes, if at all.) So he called for a new state spending limit, which would put aside three to four percent of revenues a year except in times of trouble.
He repeatedly praised the man who replaced him as governor in the 2003 recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger, now a friend of his, for having “a big vision” and for “making California proud.” He fielded repeated questions about whether he will work again for former Governor Jerry Brown, now California’s attorney general. Davis, who was Brown’s very effective gubernatorial chief of staff for nearly seven years, noted that he is “retired.” Which is, of course, a relative term.
He praised Schwarzenegger for expanding on his own groundbreaking initiatives on climate change and renewable energy. He also called for a new approach to deal with California’s infrastructure, which still suffers from neglect despite the passage of the Big Bang Bonds infrastructure package devised in 2006 by Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislative leaders Don Perata and Fabian Nunez. This would involve public-private partnerships and the use of public pension funds, as is done in Europe.
Obviously, there is more to say — and show — about all these things.
What’s the problem? Actually, that should read problems. A softening economy, a screwed-up housing market, delay in the sale of the EdFund asset, the delayed adoption of Indian casino compacts.
Then of course, we have the perennial underlying problems. Legislative Democrats want to spend more. Legislative Republicans are against taxes. Democrats can’t get more revenues because California is the only major state requiring a two-thirds vote. And legislative Republicans refused to spell out what cuts they wanted. As a matter of “strategy,” as the incongruous Flash Report put it. Talk about your basic dysfunctionality.
Should be quite a year next year in California. Trench warfare over the state budget. Which I suggest should begin with a “disaster budget.”
Then there will be three statewide elections. In February, with the early presidential primary. The customary statewide primary election in June. And finally the general election in November.
On the Republican side, Mitt Romney has the lead. But Mike Huckabee is coming on. Rudy Giuliani’s plan is to finish second in the Hawkeye State, but he’s now back in third. The numbers: Romney 27%, Huckabee 21%, Giuliani 15%, and Fred Thompson 9%.
Romney, Giuliani, and Obama are all roaming around California now.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
Former California Governor Gray Davis discusses his tenure in
office and his time as Jerry Brown’s chief of staff.
Former Governor Gray Davis returns to the state capital today for his first public appearance in more than a year. He’ll talk about his perspectives on California following his extensive foreign travels and, inevitably, will address what’s beginning to look like an eerily similar budget problem.
Davis made his last public appearance near the Capitol in late August of 2006, when he came for the launch party of the California Majority Report, the Democratic insiders’ web site. Today he’ll address much of the remaining state political press corps at the monthly luncheon of the Sacramento Press Club.
I’ve talked with the former governor, lieutenant governor, state controller, legislator, and Jerry Brown chief of staff at length a couple of times in the last few weeks. He was, as has been the case every time he’s talked with me since he did his first interview in 2004 following the dramatic 2003 California recall in which he was replaced by global superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger, pretty relaxed and thoughtful.
He’s a lawyer with a top law firm in Los Angeles, Loeb & Loeb, and has recently been a senior fellow of UCLA’s public policy school. Now that he’s not in the everyday grind of California politics, he and his wife Sharon have had the opportunity to travel extensively, and they’ve noted some of the ways in which California, which he’s always touted as a global leader, is very strong, and other ways in which it and the US trail.
While California and the US are strong in such areas as science, medicine, and finance, says the former governor, “it’s lacking on infrastructure and global warming.” Interesting that he would identify the latter, since the state is seen as a global leader in the field, first with the bill that Davis signed in 2002 to cut tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases, then with many subsequent moves during the Schwarzenegger Administration.
But, as he pointed out, “the federal government is still blocking the implementation of the Pavley bill,” the tailpipe emissions legislation authored by then LA Assemblywoman Fran Pavley. Indeed, former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown — Davis was his very effective chief of staff for nearly seven years — and Schwarzenegger announced California’s suit against the Bush Administration on the issue last week.
Davis addresses the August 2006 launch party of California
Majority Report in this NWN video.
Davis knows that questions about the state’s chronic budget problems will be key today. He likes Schwarzenegger, with whom he’s become friendly, and thinks he’s a good governor. (I remember talking in the back of the theater with the two at a movie premiere. Davis, who has a dry sense of humor, told Schwarzenegger that he is undoubtedly the most famous Austrian in history. Schwarzenegger demurred. Then who would it be, asked Davis, puckishly? “Mozart,” the former Mr. Universe insistently and repeatedly replied. Davis, of course, was driving at the true answer: Hitler.)
As for budgetary problems, Davis always points out that there are three basic things that can be done. Increase revenues, cut spending, and borrow money. The third option is the one that’s been principally used.
Davis, of course, got into trouble as governor by not following his own advice. In 1999, he told me that he would not be able to fund all the pent-up demand from Democratic constituency groups because he had to be cautious about the state’s finances. Things were looking up with a big technology boom, but it might not last.
In the end, however, he did go along with new spending programs pushed by Democrats and tax cuts pushed by Republicans. When the boom ended, Republicans wouldn’t go along with a tax increase. Nor would they identify the massive cuts that would be needed. Sound familiar?
Davis, a man of the center-left and the center, throughout his governorship found hyperpartisans of both sides grinding away at his agenda, many of the specifics of which are detailed in Davis’s digital archive at www.gray-davis.com.
The budget problem was one factor in the recall. Another was the electric power crisis of 2001.
We know now that some merchant power generators manipulated the state’s partially deregulated electricity market — a plan devised during and approved by the administration of Republican Pete Wilson — and that that helped send things spiraling out of control. Of course, we knew some of that at the time.
Davis relied too long on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to rein things in. The agency, controlled at first by the Clinton Administration, did not. By the time Davis chose to intervene, things were spiraling out of control. Deals that might have been done were no longer on the table. Additional measures seemed more radical.
Nevertheless, Davis still likes the Clintons. He’s backing Hillary Clinton for president and thinks that, should she win the nomination as he expects, she should choose someone with a military background for a running mate. Perhaps retired General Wes Clark, the former NATO commander, or Senator Jim Webb, the former Navy secretary and Vietnam War hero.
Solid, sensible choices, seemingly not those of perhaps the most prominent veteran of the second Brown Administration. The decorated Vietnam War veteran Davis was the buttoned-down guy around Jerry Brown, back in those halcyon philosopher-prince days of the 1970s and early 1980s when the 36-year old governor succeeded Ronald Reagan, who in turn had defeated Jerry’s legendary father Pat. Though, as Davis points out, Brown can be smashingly practical himself when he decides to be.
Davis has always been practical. At least as practical as any middle-class guy born in another state who decides that he’s going to become governor of wacky mega-state California can be, that is.
Gray Davis, like Jerry Brown, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, is a guy who dreams big dreams, too. If they don’t all work out, maybe that’s the way things are. As even Schwarzenegger is coming to find. At least in selected cases.
Regan and Kerik, the former New York Police Commissioner, who was the married, famously carried on an affair using an apartment that was donated for 9/11 recovery workers. She says that an unnamed News Corp. exec told her to lie about her relationship with Kerik in 2004 when the longtime close associate of Republican presidential frontrunner Rudy Giuliani was up to become US secretary of homeland security. In order, she says, to protect the career of Giuliani, who she says has been promoted by various Murdoch media outlets.
Kerik was indicted last week by the US attorney for southern New York — the post which first brought Giuliani great renown — on multiple federal corruption charges. Needless to say, this is coming at a very bad time for Giuliani’s candidacy.
Mitt Romney, incidentally, is coming to California for a two-day tour tomorrow. He’ll do private fundraising, and an “Ask Mitt Anything” town hall in Burbank on Thursday.
** U.S. CONTINUES BACKING MUSHARRAF-BHUTTO DEAL IN PAKISTAN. WHAT DEAL?Despite President Musharraf having placed former Prime Minister Bhutto under arrest for the second time, and despite her vowing that the deal is off and that her party — the largest secular opposition group in Pakistan — will boycott the January elections Musharraf first cancelled, then moved to February, then returned to January.
** QUICK HITS. As expected, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger imposed a fishing ban in San Francisco Bay until at least December 1st, due to the big oil spill last week. This does affect the about-to-begin crab season quite negatively. … Schwarznegger used his speech to the California State Association of Counties in Oakland to plug the need for for more water infrastructure and conservation. He said that he is close to a deal with Senate leader Don Perata, who is the Democrats’ point person on the issue. … Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown got a good response to his plea at the same convention for local governments to develop plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions. More on this later. … Earlier in the day, in Sacramento, Brown announced a record haul for state and federal law enforcement of illegal marijuana cultivation on public lands.
** HILLARY AND RUDY LEAD IN NEVADA. Just a few days in advance of a key Democratic debate in Nevada, Hillary Clinton continues to have a big lead in the latest Zogby poll. Clinton leads the important early caucus state, with 37% to Barack Obama’s 19%. John Edwards is at 15%, with Bill Richardson at 6%.
On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani has the lead, 28% to 20% over Mitt Romney. Fred Thompson trails with 13%, followed by John McCain at 8%, Ron Paul at 7%, and Mike Huckabee at 6%. Giuliani’s 17-point lead over Romney in the last Zogby poll was cut in half.
** HILLARY LOOKS TO RECOUP. Hillary Clinton’s campaign is trying to raise another million dollars online by the time of this Thursday night’s debate. It’s meant as a show of grassroots force at a time when she and her campaign are under fire in ways they haven’t been before in this race.
So far, Clinton is less than a third of the way there. Barack Obama is generally judged to have been the hit of this past weekend’s big Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Iowa.
People with a “red” entertainment preference think a lot of programming is in bad taste and doesn’t reflect their values. They don’t like a lot of things on TV, but their two favorite channels are Fox and Fox News. They like sports, especially football and auto racing, and they watch news and business programming. They don’t like most contemporary music and they don’t watch VH1 or MTV. They don’t much like late-night TV. They like to go to sporting events, and when they do go to the movies – which is rarely – they seek out action-adventure films. They’re not big book readers, but when they do read, they prefer non-fiction. When they read fiction, they often select mysteries and thrillers. They are more likely to listen to country and gospel than other people, but their favorite music is classical. They don’t play a lot of video games, but when they do, Madden NFL and Mario are their favorites. They think that fictional TV shows and movies are politically biased, and they believe they can predict a person’s politics if they know the person’s entertainment preferences.
THE “BLUES” (Liberals, 39%)
People with a “blue” entertainment preference like many of different types of programming, even if it doesn’t reflect their taste or values. They shy away from a lot of primetime programming, especially game shows and reality TV, but they like comedies, drama, documentaries, news, and arts and educational programming. They love 60 Minutes, PBS, HBO, Comedy Central and The Daily Show. They go to the movies, where they often see comedies, and they like to go to live theater and museums and galleries. They read books more often than most people – they prefer fiction to non-fiction, but their favorite genre is politics and current events. They enjoy entertainment with political themes, and they feel like they learn about politics from entertainment. Sports are less interesting to them, but football is their favorite, and they’re more likely to follow soccer than other people. They like lots of different kinds of music (except
country) and they watch MTV and VH1. They play video games a lot more than other people – Mario and The Sims are favorites.
THE “PURPLES” (Moderates, 24%)
People with “purple” entertainment preferences like all the broadcast networks and a lot of primetime programming, including police procedurals, game shows and reality programming. They watch a lot of Fox News and they like daytime and children’s programming more than other people. Moderates like to read non-fiction, including self-help books and biographies, but they like mysteries and thrillers best. Rock music is their favorite – they don’t like classical or folk music as much as other people. Their favorite video games are Mario, Donkey Kong and Madden NFL. They don’t seek out entertainment with political themes and they are far less likely to read books about politics or current events than other people. They are less likely than other people to think that they can predict a person’s politics based on their entertainment preferences.
Says Gore’s old friend and new partner, John Doeer: “What’s the company that will lead the boom? What’s the Netscape of green innovation?”
Gore will continue to be based in Nashville, where he’s installed a special video conferencing system to participate in the firm’s weekly partner meetings. But California, and the San Francisco Bay Area in particular, is perhaps the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s secondary outpost. Gore is on the board of Apple, a senior advisor to Google, and has a start-up TV channel and chairs an environmental organization based there.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST AT NOON. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will address the kick-off luncheon of the California State Association of Counties convention in Oakland at noon today. The appearance will be webcast live here.
Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata will deliver speeches.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger joined forces to sue
the Bush Administration on climate change in this NWN video.
Attorney General Jerry Brown is continuing his push to enlist local governments in the anti-greenhouse effect crusade today with a speech to the California State Association of Counties convention in Oakland. On the topic of “The Future of California,” the former governor’s speech is a follow-up to a well-received September talk to the League of California Cities.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signaled over the last few days that he will speak at the same luncheon on the same topic.
Schwarzenegger and Brown joined forces last Thursday at an event on the East Steps of the Capitol to sue the Bush Administration following its several years of failing to grant the customary waiver under the Clean Air Act to allow the implementation of the state’s landmark 2002 law to cut tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases. 14 other states have joined California as co-interveners in the state’s lawsuit. Between them, the states involved comprise over 40% of America’s population.
Brown, playfully playing off a Schwarzenegger theme, calls the lawsuit “a post-political action” to deal with “the mounting threat of climate disruption and massive oil dependency.” He notes that over 99% of the comments received by the Bush EPA favored California’s position. Other than asserting that greenhouse gas emissions are not covered by the Clean Air Act, which was rejected earlier this year by the US Supreme Court, the Bush Administration has not publicly offered any legal argument against the California law. It has, however, lobbied members of Congress and other state governors behind the scenes in an effort to build political opposition to the California law. Brown countered by lining up 16 states behind a letter to Congressional leaders to prevent any pre-emption of California law.
Brown is likely today to continue on the theme of “elegant density” he struck in his January inaugural address, arguing that unlimited sprawl without any mitigations will wreck any efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
In September, he told the League of Cities convention in Sacramento that local government can and should take steps now to prepare for the greenhouse era. “I started sending out comment letters, said Brown, “maybe some people here have got some of them, saying you’ve got to count your greenhouse gases, you’ve got to look for feasible measures, then you’ve got to adopt them. Well, that got everybody all excited, and to say I was interfering with the process. The seriousness of the problem, the growing problem of both oil dependency and its connected consequence of global warming, it’s here now and it’s getting worse and we can’t wait five years before the (AB 32) rules take effect.
“But we don’t have to wait, we can actually, we being each one of us here in local government, we that live in communities, 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 along way. We are looking at serious consequences, more forest fires, quicker melting of snow, salt water intrusion, breaking of levees, increased smog because of the rising temperature and that has health impacts, particularly in the elderly, those with respiratory diseases, more heart attacks.”
Brown, who sent out interrogatory letters to a host of local governments, had negotiated behind the scenes with sprawling San Bernardino County, the largest county in the continental US in terms of size, which he did sue, for months, winning a settlement in August that has the county addressing greenhouse gas emissions in its planning processes.
The county’s board of supervisors finally agreed, over a 30-month period, to inventory all sources of current and future greenhouse gases by 2020 and reduce those emissions “attributable to the county’s discretionary land use decisions and its own internal government operations,” choosing from a menu of common sense techniques. At the time, San Bernardino County Supervisor Gary Ovitt said: “Only a handful of California counties and cities have formally addressed climate change issues, and San Bernardino County will lead the way in the implementation of strategies and steps to enhance our future and serve as a model for others.”
Lee Greenwood sings “God Bless The USA” on this Veterans Day weekend,
in a clip from a promotional film on the 82nd Airborne Division.
The week ahead in presidential politics sees the Democrats heading west to roll the dice in another debate, this time in Las Vegas. On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson are dealing with scandals surrounding close political associates, giving Mitt Romney, who already leads in early states, an edge, and John McCain fresh ammo to get back in the race.
Meanwhile on this Veterans Day weekend — with this presidential race in which only McCain among the top tier candidates in either party is a vet — crises in politico-military affairs continue to bubble dangerously in Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, and Iraq, with the prices of oil and gold held aloft by huge risk premiums. Though the Turkish situation has calmed some, if for no other reason than the weather, which increasingly makes a large-scale Turkish military incursion into northern Iraq to subdue Kurdish separatist guerillas using it as safe haven a less likely prospect.
As we headed into Veterans Day weekend, there were some signs that Hillary Clinton’s supposedly inevitable, front-running campaign was starting to fade. Despite the repeated intervention of her popular husband, former President Bill Clinton, she’s back into a dead heat in Iowa. Now her trendline in New Hampshire, which she’s always viewed as her firewall against a possible loss in Iowa, appears to be heading down.
Clearly Clinton’s performance in the last debate, week before last in Philadelphia, which was actually pretty strong till her gaffe at the end on drivers license for illegal immigrants, has changed the dynamics.
Actually, her performance in the debate a month before that was problematic for her as well, as I wrote at the time. It showcased a pattern of slipping questions and a classic frontrunner smugness.
It was only because her campaign so cleverly spun the third quarter fundraising results — misleading people, including me, into thinking she had done much less well than she had — that the problems exposed in that debate performance did not establish a new narrative for the campaign.
After first incongruously seeking to recoup from last week’s debate by complaining that the men were ganging up on her, Clinton is now saying she’s fine with all that. But she doesn’t seem very convincing.
The truth is that her opponents weren’t her problem in the Philadelphia debate. She created her own problems, largely in how she handled questions from the aggressive Tim Russert. While John Edwards did the best, he didn’t cause many problems for her. Nor did Barack Obama, who was definitely off his game. It was actually Chris Dodd who forcefully objected to Clinton’s apparently changing views on the drivers license question. Only then did Edwards make his move.
Since then, they’ve both made major moves on Clinton. And Obama, by most assessments, scored very well at this past weekend’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Des Moines, Iowa, which featured speeches by all the candidates except for Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, who have no campaigns to speak of in the first-in-the-nation contest.
One good thing going for Hillary in Thursday night’s debate in Vegas is that it’s being cablecast by CNN. Tim Russert won’t be there, since he’s an NBC guy. The Clintons usually do well on CNN, so this time Obama and Edwards may have to make their own luck.
But it seems they already are. In addition to Iowa being very much in play for either an Obama or an Edwards victory, Hillary is coming back to earth in New Hampshire.
The Granite State has always been her firewall against an Iowa loss. After being in a very tight race with Obama earlier this year, she had opened up a big lead there. Now that lead has been cut in half, to about 10 points, in two recent polls. That’s a lot of movement in a short period of time. But that’s what can happen in primaries, when voters are focused in.
The national numbers haven’t shown that sort of movement, though Hillary is down several points. But most voters still aren’t paying much attention. That will change dramatically as each contest gets closer for each state’s voters.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney is picking up the pace of his advertising in early states such as Iowa and New Hampshire to extend his edge there, while John McCain takes aim at Giuliani and, to a lesser extent, Thompson, for their travails with close associates caught up in scandal.
Campaigning at the end of last week in Nevada, Rudy Giuliani called the indictment of his longtime friend and close associate, ex-New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, on multiple federal corruption charges,“very serious and very sad.” Kerik was pushed successfully by Giuliani for appointment by President Bush to be the US secretary of homeland security. Then charges emerged of Kerik’s longtime ties to Mafia figures, his use of a luxury apartment donated for 9/11 rescue workers as “love shack” with a prominent conservative publisher, his employment of an illegal nanny, and on and on. His appointment to the Bush Cabinet was rescinded before the Senate could vote him down. …
** ABOUT LEE GREENWOOD. Lee Greenwood, of “God Bless The USA” fame is, of course, a country singer. But he’s not from the South; he’s from South Gate. California, that is. It’s in the metro LA area. And he actually grew up in Sacramento, California’s state capital. Throughout his 20s and 30s, he was in the West, doing music out of LA and, when that ran dry the first few times around, working extensively in Nevada, as a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas and singer in Reno.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel.
You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
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